I was saving a roll of Fomapan 200 for a sunny day, and we were blessed with a run of sunny days at the back end of May and into June. It would have been daft not to avail myself of the opportunity to use it, so I loaded it into my Olympus OM-2 and set the iso to 100. I have long known that Fomapan 200 responds well to a one stop pull, but never really had the weather to do it justice until now. I headed into town to see how the changes to the town centre are coming along. It was also my wedding anniversary and I had to pick up my wife's anniversary present, so off I toddled.
No, I didn't forget my wedding anniversary, it just so happened that pay day fell on the same day this year and my wife was also going to town to buy me a card. 21 years of wedded bliss and 25 years together in all. My wife deserves a medal.
Change takes time, but the pace seems to have gone up a gear as the demolition of The Galleries continues. It's still sad to see it being torn down as the machinery ate away the bricks and concrete. The inside of a lift shaft was exposed when I got there and the winding gear was still perched on top, waiting to be removed before the brick eating monster took a nibble at it.
The sunny weather has also brought with it a lot of dust that has blown from the demolition works. The workers try their best to keep it down with a spray of water, but in the hot spring sunshine it soon dries out and the breeze carries it around town.
I made my way up Standishgate, capturing a few scenes that took my interest before arriving at the old Market Gate entrance to The Galleries. The glass front has gone and the machinery is cutting through the concrete floors that I have walked along many times over the years. The sound of jack hammers busy pounding away reverberates around the town centre, but I guess we have got used to it now. I got through 24 shots before it was time to head home. I finished my roll of Fomapan 200 a couple of days later with another quick journey into town. Change does indeed take time, but at least we have nice weather for it.
I decided to develop my Fomapan 200, shot at 100, in Rodinal 1+50. A quick calculation thanks to some sage advice from Mr Alex Luyckx had me develop it for 7 minutes at 20 celcius and it wasn't long before it was hanging to dry in my bathroom. The negatives looked nice and when it dried, which didn't take long on a hot spring afternoon, I scanned it with my Ion Slides2PC 35mm scanner and processed the photos with Affinity Photo 2
I'm very happy with how this film responded to the sunshine with a one stop pull. There's a broad consensus that Fomapan film speeds are rather arbitrary. Fomapan 400 gives great results when shot at 250 iso and Fomapan 100 is excellent when pulled one stop to 50 iso, but a lot of folk will shoot it at 80 iso and get great photos from it. It's all down to experimenting and finding your own sweet spot and I reckon shooting it at 100 iso on a sunny day is as sweet as It gets.
Here's a few of my favourites from my roll of Fomapan 200 and I have placed them and more in an album on Flickr you can visit using the link below. I had fun taking these photos in the sunshine, I hope you enjoy them.Fomapan 200 - Olympus OM2 - Zuiko 28mm f/3.5
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