don_spangler1

I was just looking at the B&H ad in Shutterbug. I do not see Bergger

film listed at all. There is Forte and Patterson though.

As for Fotoimpex.de. I have purchased from them for several years.

Mirko, the owner, takes a personal interest in his customers and has

formed a treasure of black & white supplies. Perhaps the best in the

world. He makes purchasing just as easy as buying from B & H.

Anyone that buys from him will be "hooked" on his great products and

service.

A leading USA photographer/lecturer/and educator recently tried

Fotoimpex's fiberbase Classic (Forte) Museum paper and has declared

it the best there is. I have used it and there is no equal. It is

available in graded and multicontrast. it is triple weight, clean

whites, beautiful tonality, slightly warm.

From all of the above and the research that I have done I am sure

that Bergger is mainly a USA company that rebadges Forte papers. Now

is this not a problem and the practice is not unique. For instance,

some of Luminos is made by Kentmere in England. The only problem I

see is that Bergger claims to be superior to other papers. And from

the comments of some above they have sold this story. As for the

heavy weight paper of Forte, I have been using it. It is easily the

best paper that I have used. It is 320 gram compared to 235 gram of

their regular fiber paper. The tonal range is fantastic. The image

is slightly warm using Dektol. The paper has a white base. I

recently introduced a very well know professional photographer in the

US to this paper. He is well known for his darkroom techniques and

wondeful portfolios. He LOVES this paper and ordered a huge amount

from Mirko Broeddecker in Berlin Germany. Mirko sells this at very

cheap prices and has special prices (without Value Added Taxes), also

special prices for shipping to the US. His e-mail address is

Mirko.Boeddecker@fotoimpex.de. His web site is www.fotoimpex.de. He

sells this paper under the label of Classic Arts Polywarmton. He has

8"X10" and the usual metric sizes. I love the 30cm X 40cm size--

slightly larger than 11"X14". Try it you will love it.

This information on Bergger film is very interesting. I suspect the

same is true for Bergger paper. I would like to know if Bergger

products are sold in countries other than the USA. I suspect their

sales efforts are mostly directed to the USA. We are more gullible

and have more money to waste on "better" products. No question that

Forte makes excellant products but changing the name to Bergger adds

nothing but price.

I have been following all this with interest. I must fully agree

with George Papantoniou (papanton@hol.gr). Volker has made a point

that is very important. Censorship is not part of democracy. Yes

there can be excesses like the proverbial crying fire in a publis

place when no fire exist. But Volker only raised questions that are

very interesting. He did not harm anyone. We have a right to

speculate on product manufacturing and free flow of information.

But I would like to take this discussion further. In the USA we are

the victims of censorship from large companies. The USA does not have

any significant manufacture of B & W materials and chemicals.

Without Europe there would be a huge void. There are many wonderfjul

products in Europe that never reach the USA. I know of one very

excellant film that stepped on the toes of the Yellow Father. Thus

it was not available. But justice was served. The Yellow Father was

shut out of Japan by Fuji. I understnad that dealers in Japan were

told they would not receive Fuji Product if Yellow father products

were sold. This is a kind of censorship that hurts the free flow of

products. I can understnad that many fine products do not reach the

USA because of economic reasons but I wonder if the reasons go beyond

that fact. The world gets smaller and smaller and we get closer

to "One World". Take the EU for instance.

So what we need is free flow of Black and White information and

products.

I use DDX developer. I ran a HD curve and got a very straight line

with a small foot. True ASA with densitometer was 320. email me if

you want more info By the way it is not just the IE that you

determine that is important BUT the contrast you are developing to is

VERY important. Push processing changes the contrast but very little

in changing the speed.

T-200 is the best. I use 120 size with Rodinal ( F09 from

Foptoimpex) diluted 1 to 100 for 14 miniutes. True ASA is around

64. Excellent tonal range. Prints on slightly hard paper with

unsurpassed tonal range.

Further----Mirko of Fotoimpex is an superior dealer. Speedy, honest,

informed and has a line of European products that are excellent. I

have purchased from him for several years. Highly recommended.