NP27 Webphota film... can it be???

I just did a test development of NP27 (ASA400) film from Webphota in

Berlin. They cut it to size for my 15X12" camera, and the film was

packaged in an Orwa box. I've heard from a few sources that this film

might very well be from the same production as Bergger and / or Forte

Pan.

 

So my question is this...the pre-soak water was almost a lime green

(with a tinge of blue) when I turned on the lights after development.

Now my Efke pre-soak water turns a nasty blue-black, and HP5 too gets

funky. Does this bright green sound familiar to any users of Bergger

or Forte Pan film? or any other brand? I'm just trying to confirm if

this film is actually from the same production as some of the other

"Big Names".

 

Thanks!

I have not developed any Bergger film for several months but my recollection is that the pre-soak water was green, but a rather dark green with a bit of blue. The pre-soak water of HP5+ is a very dark, purplish black color. I have not used Forte Pan film.

 

Sandy King

Yes, the Bergger that I have developed recently has been a very dark green with a tinge of blue in the presoak. At least that portion of the similarity coincides with your experience. I know that when I enquired with the Bergger distributor here in the states recently they would have been happy to accomodate my size requirements with the 400 ASA material. I would be interested to learn of others experiences with the new film as it becomes available.

I use Fortepan 400 and Bergger BPF200, and they both have the same green

/green blue color in the pre-soak, the amazingly sharp coarse edges to the

film, AND the maddening paper interleaves. More evidence of my suspicion

that Bergger=Forte=(now)NP27. Great stuff for high contrast scenes. Just don't

plan on enlarging it too much (or at all). The grain is of heroic proportions.

 

Clay

Well then it could very well be...I should add, I usually do my pre-soak in a red or gray tray, and this of course influences the appearence of the used water when merely looking at it sitting there in the sink.

With the NP27, because of it's sheer size, I needed a much larger tray, and grabbed a white, 50X60 for the pre-soak. So that blueish green pre-soak water really showed it's true colors in that white tray.

 

The grain is rather robust, but with a negative size of 12X15" I'll just be doing contacts (just...;-) ) but not until I get some larger Azo paper. Man this is getting expensive!

 

Thanks for the help!

Webphota is new name of ORWO company. OWRO was located in East Germany, they produced NP15, NP22 and NP27 films (also NP20 in the past), paper, chemicals and some lith films. As far as I know, emulsions remains the same under new name. I used ORWO films in the past, now I use Webphota. They are cheap here and available in 13x18 cm.

Forte, on the other hand, is Hungarian company. I never used their films, but papers are first class.

I think that there is no connection between those two companies.

First, so as not to make life more complicated than it need be, the German film producer is "Wephota" at www.wephota.de, not "Webphota."

 

Clay's description of Fortepan 400, which I've used as "ClassicPan 400" from fotoimpex.de is right on. I experimented with it in a few different developers and just couldn't get enough contrast for contact printing on Azo, but for high contrast scenes, it might not be so bad. The emulsion also seems more prone to scratching than any other film I've used, so it doesn't take well to tray development, and the base is thinner than Kodak base. I suspect the interleaving sheets are a necessity to reduce scratching.