Fomapan Action 400 - 35mm Film

Excellent beginner film which performs best in bright to medium light. Captures fine details well with good amount of grain to give the photos character. Fantastic bloom that gives backlit portraits a dreamy quality, and good range of tones that suit gloomier days well. Suffers a little in low light, but otherwise a great film that looks amazing at smaller scales, such as on social media.

The Fomapan Action 400 35mm captured the strut detail and shadow areas very well. The propeller quite unintentional but for me,pleasing ! Fomapan is very good where a high level of contrast is needed. Beginners may need to keep the cost of their hobby down and Fomapan is very competitively priced.

Having read loads of bad things about this film online, I decided I'd test it out for myself on the field near my house.
Positives:
I was actually really impressed with how sharp this film was, and these frames are some of my favourite close-up/detail shots I've ever taken. Fomapan (all speeds) also have some characteristics that I really like: firstly, it blooms the light, which is very evident on backlit shots and is a great look for detail and portrait shooting; also, its sensitivity seems to be more towards the red end of the spectrum, meaning red coloured details in your composition are rendered as lighter tones, whereas green coloured details are rendered darker. I've also found the mid-tones to lean towards the darker end of the histogram, producing a moody looking image that I really like. The price is also a huge positive for the film stock, as well as the ability to buy this in bulk - further pushing the price down.
Negatives:
At 400 speed I found the grain to be a little too pronounced and distracting for my liking - I much prefer the grain of the 100 speed version. The light blooming characteristics of this film which make it great for backlit detail and portrait shoots really hold it back for landscape photography, as distant details are lost to the 'bloom' and any details that do remain are so distractingly grainy (for my liking) as to be distracting. Furthermore, the ridiculously high reciprocity failure of the film makes it highly impractical to shoot this film for long exposures (anything over 100 seconds must be multiplied by 8, meaning a 2 minute exposure, for example, becomes a 16 minute exposure) unless, of course, you are wanting to work with very long exposure times on this particular shoot (maybe you don't have a high ND filter but you want to give long exposure film photography a go?).
Overall:
I gave this film 4 stars. I think, once you know what it can't do (e.g. long exposures, hold far away details across a landscape), you can use the film to produce really great images. Particularly when you shoot backlit shots or want to get great sharpness on up-close shots. It also has this moody and retro feel to its images which I've struggled to find in other black and white film stocks. Plus, with prices so low, you can afford to take a few risks and shoot some frames just to see how they turn out, rather than being precious of every shot, like you find yourself doing with more expensive film stocks. I always have a roll of Foma (usually 100 ISO) in my film stash and use it very regularly on shoots where I want close-up details, bloomed light or a moody, retro feel.

nice contrasty film. A bit blotchy occasionally, but that adds to the atmosphere. I rate it at EI320 and the latitude is forgiving. Good value on 35mm and even better in 120.

This film gave me pleasing results, both with an Olympus OM10 and a Nikon F-301. A bit of grain for character, but quite sharp and punchy images.