Ferrania P30 35mm Film - B&W ISO 80
Description
P30 is the first film to emerge from the new life of Film Ferrania! A brand new panchromatic ISO 80 B&W emulsion based on the historic cinema formula from the mid-20th Century. It has gone through extensive original testing and is now ready for the wider world!
Expect rich contrast and detailed highlights for a strong final image - delivered by the high silver content and cinematic heritage. Please note that P30 has a narrower exposure latitude versus many black and white films, so spending time to get an accurate exposure will reap serious rewards.
Specification
| Format: | 35mm |
| Colour: | B&W |
| Type: | Negative |
| ISO: | 80 |
| Exposures: | 36 |
| Pack size: | 1 |
Sample pics in order (c) Andrea Ulivi, Jason Little, Aaron Mitchell, Andrea Ulivi, and Massimiliano Terzi
Best Practices: Shooting and Developing P30
Film Ferrania have compiled their top hints and tips for getting the best out of P30 35mm film in a useful document that is available for free download here: P30 Best Practices
Unboxing Video
About Film Ferrania
The Ferrania brand has a long and illustrious history. Starting life as an explosives factory in the late 19th Century, the Italian plant was turned to producing cinema film in the 1920s. Riding the wave of analogue photography they quickly added consumer formats to their range but kept cinema as their core business.
The commercial success of films shot on Ferrania (including P30!) like the Oscar-winning movie 'Two Women' kept momentum throughout the later part of the 20th Century - with many Italian and European film-makers choosing to shoot with the Italian stock. The company also produced many films and film-chemicals for other brands.
The turn of the century brought the rise of digital and the inevitable pressure on financial security. The plant continued to operate in a reduced capacity until finally closing in 2010....until Nicola Baldini came to visit in 2012 and decided to restart the operation! A 2014 successful Kickstarter followed, along with many years of gathering the team and resources to deliver their goal of 'fundamentally changing the way you buy, use and process film in the 21st Century'.
P30 is now in continuous production, proudly Made In Italy, and is HERE TO STAY!
Read more about Ferrania in our launch blog here
Obviously, as we all know this film is contrasty. The image here was shot, developed, scanned and posted today. I used Kodak HC110 (B). I didn't even use a filter and still got a big pop on my son's freckles. He actually stood still! Amazing...
I managed to grab myself a couple of rolls of this much awaited film when it first came to market. It is stunning... but not for the unexperienced!
My first roll came out wayyyy too dark and I was a bit disappointed, although I could see the potential. That roll - albeit underexposed - still had a certain look to it. For the second roll, I was much more particular in how I metered. You definitely need to meter for the shadows or else they go a very deep black that you won't easily recover. On the other hand, the blacks are lovely - so if you want detailed highlights and don't mind everything else falling off into shadows then meter for that (see the photo of the gin bottle as an example). But be warned: it is very unforgiving so you need to be decisive about what you want when shooting.
But when you get it right it definitely has that feel that the Italian Neo Realist filmmakers had. It's a stunning look. I metered it at 50iso for the second roll to try and get a little more out of the shadows - it might even be fine going a bit lower.
A film which appears to be incredibly fussy about exposure, and can suffer from worse runaway contrast than Pan F. Soot and whitewash doesn't cover it! Also appears to have QC issues; my roll had more pinholes than the worst of Fomapan. On top of which, it appears rather soft, despite development in Perceptol....
The pictures are the best from the roll; unusually for me, I didn't even bother scanning all of it.
I waited a long time for this film and it did not disappoint.
If you don't like contrast and a bold, rich, classic look to your pictures then look elsewhere (t grain is more likely to be your thing). If you want grain go somewhere else (tri-X or HP5 perhaps). However, if you are looking for (almost) grain free images that shout out for classic printing this is your film. There is such a depth to the negatives. They remind me a bit of silvermax but more punchy. This is a real black and white film, not for the grey man. The blacks are deep and inky, the whites shine bright. My scans on an Epsom v600 flatbed scanner really do not do the negatives justice. The detail held is much more than the scans show.
The slow speed and high contrast lend well for landscape and portrait work. With a fast lens and good light it would also make a Stella street film imho.
I shot at 60iso metering nag for the shadows and developed in Hydrofen (aka Rodinal Special, aka Studional) for 9mins @20C. No data on this combo so I was making an educated guess, but pretty happy with the results. Perhaps not a film for a beginner, but used with care this can produce some gorgeous shots. Most of the roll I shot were candid portraits, but I include a landscape taken at about 11 in the morning with clear bright sky to give a taster.
