Ferrania P33

I had big plans to take my Nikon FE everywhere with me for a couple of weeks as I tried my first roll of Ferrania P33 black and white negative film. I had been reading good things about this film and wanted to give it a proper test drive. Fate had other ideas. A friend was looking for a nice FE and asked if I would sell mine. Just about the time I was asking if I could finish off the roll of film I had in the camera, he sent the PayPal payment. So, I clicked off a half a roll at my desk and around the house, rewound the film and packed up his camera.

Ferrania P33 is an ISO 160 film manufactured by Film Ferrania, an Italian company that has been making film since 1923. Film Ferrania calls P33 “a breakthrough in black and white photography blending innovation and tradition.” From the few shots I made with my test roll, mostly close ups of some of my gear on the white surface of my home office desk, P33 may become my go-to black and white film. I like it a lot.

The film has very little grain and and a pleasing range of tones; inky blacks, subtle mid-ranges and crisp whites. The speed of this film is perfect for me as I shoot a lot of 100 speed black and white film. Kodak’s Plus-X Pan 125 was one of my favorite films when it was in production, so P33 hits a special sweet spot for me. At $11.99 per roll, Ferrania P33 falls right into line with a number of similar black and white emulsions. I liked it so much, I ordered a few more rolls from Freestyle Photo. I am excited to try more.

Rollei RPX 400

This is not a proper review of Rollei’s RPX 400 black and white film. This is a grumbly review because while shooting this roll during my recent weekend in Mendocino, my Pentax Spotmatic decided to jam up on me. The film advance just stopped dead winding from one shot to the next. Grrrrr! I got about a dozen frames into the roll. Rather than tear up the sprocket holes, I rewound the film back into the canister and called it a day. Oddly enough, when I got back home and fiddled with the Spottie, everything seemed fine.

Rollei RPX 400 is a high speed black and white negative film that was recommend to me by fellow photographer Gregory Gross. It’s distributed by Maco (Hans O. Mahn GmbH & Co. KG, Maco Photo Products), a Germany-based supplier of photographic films and chemicals, licensing the Rollei brand name. The company says that Rollei RPX 400 is a new film that is based off of the original Agfa APX emulsion. Some digging revealed that this film is most likely made by Ilford. Whatever the truth, I loved the old Agfa APX 100 film and was anxious to try RPX 400 and the slower, finer grained RPX 100. I only wish my Spotmatic would have cooperated.

Here are the frames that were salvageable.

The shot below was a difficult one for the Spotmatic’s basic TTL meter. I was afraid if I metered for the shadows, the Pacific beyond would have just blown out or I would have lost the clouds entirely.

As I said up top, my review of this film is tainted because I get cranky when one of my old cameras lets me down in the field, especially when I’ve traveled so far to make photographs. But there is something interesting and a bit haunting about this emulsion that makes me want to try it again. I’m glad I have another roll of the 400 speed and two rolls of the 100 speed in the fridge. Next time I’ll pop the film into my trusty Nikon F and bring along a Minolta Autometer IV F that I just picked up my local camera shop. The meter came with attachments for incident, reflected and spot metering.

Double X in Mendocino

I had a pleasant weekend up the California coast in Mendocino a few weeks ago wandering about with my Nikkormat FT3 loaded with Eastman 5222 Double X film.