I managed to get hold of some Ferrania Solaris FG Plus ISO 400 and I’ve been itching to give it a try to see what it looks like. The first thing that struck me when I started scanning my film was just how atmospheric it was appearing; throughout the course of the time I was shooting it the light was constantly changing; from a very overcast, dark and almost stormy light to full, contrasty sun…and everything in between, and I was really aware of the changes in colour temperature. The film appears to have really captured the changing light and changing colour temperature and for me it really reflects the mood of the day and the ever-changing light. It was a pretty good day to put it through its paces and one thing I would say is that this film stock does not have the latitude of film stocks such as Portra and 400H. Not that that’s always a bad thing – I have no problem with something that makes me concentrate that little bit more on my exposures – but I did notice that anything above 2 stops of over-exposure did not produce results that I would want to use. It did handle well the variety of different light, from flat and dull to really contrasty scenes. In terms of grain it’s not as fine as pro film stocks of an equivalent speed, but again I’m not really averse to grain anyway so it doesn’t bother me! With regards to the colour palette, this is really fairly subjective and I have not tried to assert any particular look to the scans, but I would consider the colours to be a cross between 400H and Portra, which I find quite appealing…the cool Fuji greens but still with some of the true to life colouring of Portra. There are even a few scenes that appear quite similar to the old Portra 400VC. All in all I’m really happy with how it’s come out and if this old film stock is anything like the new film stock that Ferrania are going to be manufacturing then I can definitely foresee a place in the market for it! Ferrania are a hot topic at the moment what with their Kickstarter campaign to raise funding for setting up to produce a new C41 film stock. They’ve done amazingly well and have already reached their target, which is pretty exciting, but it’s not too late to back the campaign if you want to support a very worthy venture and also bag yourself some of the film from the first production batch….find it here!
But anyway, here are the photos from today. All film is Ferrania Solaris FG Plus 400ISO, shot though my Leica M6 with a Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 lens and, of course, developed and scanned by UK Film Lab.
