Arista Edu Ultra 200

[DeBone 75]

Ok what am I doing wrong. I've shot several 4X5 negs of this. This is my first attempt at this film. I started to develope them the other day. First off I think I under exposed them. I rated them at box speed, which I do with all my films. Now for the big problem. They are coming out way to contrasty. Almost no mid tone at all. I tryed three different developers. Beutler High deffinition, my favorite and usuall at 1:1:10 at 7.5 min. The others were Ansco 130 1:5 at 6-7 min. and Thorton 2 Bath at 4 min each. All just black and white. Temp at @ 68 deg.

[TheFlyingCamera]

First off, I would recommend shooting it at 1/2 box speed. That will help with your shadows and midtones. I've not used the Beutlers or the Thorton at all, and I've not used Ansco 130 for film, so I can't comment on those. I've had great success with the Arista.EDU Ultra 200 in Pyrocat HD. This combination has produced a negative with a nice long tonal scale for alt process printing, but not excessive contrast. Try exposing your film at 100, and 50, and developing for the same time/dilution/agitation combination you have been using and see which you like better.

[Poohblah]

that's odd. i've used this film (35mm) before and it always came out too thin and muddy.

[mikepry]

This is a really great film in my opinion. I just love it. I use it in 35mm and love the tonality it has. It is quirky to tame but once you dial it in it's splendid. I actually rate mine at 160 and develop in Pyrocat HD using minimal agitation. I mix it at 1:1:150 and do a total of 15 min. Agitate for the first minute, and 2 inversions at 10min and 5 min (splitting total time into thirds) and it comes out a winner every time. It is actually Fomapan 200 and if you search groups in flickr under that name there is a wealth of info on it. Rodinal is my #2 choice for this as well (1:50).

[Neal]

Dear Leslie,

If the negatives have too much contrast you developed them too long. Try reducing the time and/or increasing the dilution.

Neal Wydra

[Ian Grant]

This is a strange film which requires approx 2/3rds of the development times of any other film I've used recently.

Typically Tmax 100/400, APX100, FP4, HP5, Delta 100/400, EFKE, Fuji etc all require around 15 min in Pyrocat HD 1+1+100 to achieve the same contrast & tonality for my work. But when I first tried Fomapan 200 (same film as Arista Edu Ultra 200) I found like you that it was extremely contrasty. So I did some tests and found the ideal EI was 80 - 100 ISO with a dev time of only 10mins.

So give it an extra stop exposure and cut the development time and that should tame the contrast your getting. If you search APUG you'll find most people have similar experiences with this film.

Ian

[el wacho]

i've used it with a few variants of thorntons two bath and always came out underexposed - even ei'ed at 25 ( the 100 iso stuff ) and still not happy with it in two bath. comes out nice in pyrocat hd though...

[srs5694]

Fomapan 200 (aka Arista.EDU Ultra 200) is an ISO 200 film only in developers that provide at least some speed-increasing characteristics. I'm not familiar with the developers you mentioned, Leslie, but unless they're speed-increasing developers I'd try cutting the speed and, given your results, the development time.

FWIW, I shoot it in 35mm and MF at ISO 200 and develop it in DS-10. I've not verified that it's really ISO 200 in DS-10, but I doubt if it's more than 1/3 stop off. I get very good results like this. For this film, DS-10 should be pretty similar to XTOL, so if you want an off-the-shelf developer, you could try that.

[Barry S]

There are bombproof films (like Tri-X) and temperamental films--Fomapan 200 falls into the later category. I'm not sure it's even an EI 100 film in Pyrocat-HD (for normal printing). I'm going to shoot my next batch at EI 64 or 80 and shorten my development to see if it helps tame the contrast. I'm already developing for only 8 minutes, but it still seems a little contrasty. I think it's a decent film once you dial in the development, if you can put up with the soft emulsion and hellish reciprocity failure. I have gotten some great results, but it's a tricky little film.

[juan]

After testing for printing on a normal contrast grade paper, I, too, came up with a speed of about 80. I don't remember my development times in Pyrocat PC, but they were relatively short. As most everyone else has said, if there's too much contrast, expose more and develop less.
juan