Ferrania P30 - 35mm Film

I was super excited to shoot P30 as I love contrasty films like Fuji Acros, Kodak Tri-X and Ilford Ortho Plus 80 - this was another level though! This film most defiantly has Orthochromatic properties to it, so I figured it would be a great Portrait film. Yes it is - however it has a terrible exposure latitude for a black and white negative film. I developed P30 in LC-29 (this is not a recommended developer by Ferrania for this film) and found the shadows dropped off quickly and the highlights were unforgiving. It's a film that really demands a decent exposure from the get-go, as not much can be saved in scanning without ugly side-effects. However, it is lovely and sharp and does deliver on that promise of bags of contrast.

Overall, I would say that film would perform best on flatter weather days to counteract the contrast of the film. It is a good portrait film but be warned, this film controls you, not the over way around!

I chose to shoot this film at a local custom car show, and it really did the business for me. Bags of contrast make this film perfect for photographing bright, shiny subjects, where bright whites, inky blacks, and a whole array of tones in-between are the order of the day.
It develops nicely in HC110 B, and is easy to load onto the Paterson spiral.

If you've not tried this film, why not grab a roll and give it a try!?.....I'll certainly be shooting more in the future!

I had to try Ferrania P30 to see what the fuss was all about and I am not disappointed with it. I can see whay Italian Film makers stayed loyal to Ferrania P30, it has that classic cinema feel to it. I found it to be a very good experience as I shot this film with my Nikon F801s and relatively modern 50mm f/1.8 D lens. I like the way it renders rich blacks yet still has shadow detail. I developed my roll in Kodak HC-110, but will be trying another roll and developing it in D96, the recommended developer for this film, at some point in the future. It just has a timeless quality that i like and it's well worth experimenting with.

I am on my first roll of P30. With other reviewers and a youtube video discussing the care needed in exposing this film, I cut the film after 12 exposures, to see how my results looked.

After developing in Fotospeed FD10 for 5 mins, the negatives are good.

My best images were of high contrast scenes, with clear bold shapes. The tonal range is great, blacks are dark and the grain very fine. By contrast, a shot in the shadow side of a large building, looked dull and under exposed. Even a second shot of this scene, rating the film at 40 ASA, didn't look much better.

So for the remaining shots on my roll, I'll take studio, portrait and architecture images, with high contrast, bold shapes, uncluttered backgrounds and enough directional lighting, whether strong or soft.

This looks to be a wonderful film. I am glad to be trying it and recommend it.

I purchased 3 rolls of this film recently and tried the firs out in my Nikon F4 Putting a Dx lens on this beast is not a good idea and exposure was way of. Changed to a rather ancient vivitar zoom and 8 min was suggested for D96. The resulting negs looked very thin. but some of the images looked ok after minor adjustments in Lightroom. I plan to try development in Rodinal and Ilforsol 3 and report the results here The film definitely has a character to it being contrasty and fine grained I could get used to this type of image