Ferrania P30 is a film with a history richer than its silver content and has caused a wide variety of opinions among film photographers. Love it or hate it, Ferrania P30 has definitely carved out a bit of a niche for itself and has a look all its own. In short, there is enough information, history and opinion surrounding P30 not just for a Film Friday but for an entire book.

As we like to do, let’s begin with a bit of the Ferrania backstory as a means of placing P30 in historical context. The original Ferrania company has an extremely long history and can trace its origins all the way back to 1882. Beginning in the 1930s it shifted business over to the production of photographic plates and was one of the primary Italian manufacturers of film during the heydays of Italian cinema in the 1950s and 60s. In 1964 they were acquired by 3M and produced film under the Solaris, 3M and Scotch brand names. They were perhaps the last manufacturer of 126 film, which they discontinued in 2007, eight years after Kodak had ceased production of 126 film. By 2010 the company had pretty much ceased all production.

Then 2013 happened. In July of that year co-founders Nicola Baldini and Marco Pagni formed a new company out of the ashes of the old Ferrania. This company, FILM Ferrania, had a declared goal of resurrecting Italian film manufacturing, specifically color positive film. In 2014 they concluded a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over $322,000. The success of this campaign gave film photographers worldwide renewed optimism for the continued resurrection of film photography, which at the time had seen numerous discontinuations and other setbacks. Ferrania quickly met with unexpected obstacles that exposed a certain amount of naivete on their part regarding the complicated process of bringing a color slide film back from the dead. The factory was discovered to have asbestos problems, the Italian government caused further delays, and of course there is the novel coronavirus pandemic. This is all to say that Ferrania has fallen well short of their (and their backers’) expectations regarding when a new color slide film will become available.

But this is a story that has a silver lining… or if you will excuse the photo joke, a silver halide lining. During the process of testing equipment for production of slide film in 2017, Ferrania started running test batches of film coated with only two layers of emulsion (instead of the eight that would be eventually required for color slide) as a means of running and evaluating the manufacturing equipment and process. The results of this process were a black and white film that would become the Alpha batch of P30. That early run of film reignited optimism for a Ferrania film and even though the Kickstarter backers were still left waiting, at least we all had a new film to play with.

Blue Moon staff member Peter Carlson photographed playing with a stereo camera in his backyard on a roll of P30 Alpha film. Image made with a Nikon FM2n.

Ferrania P30 Alpha was based on a hand-written formula that dated back to 1958. It was meant to emulate the black and white cinema films used by the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni but initial results were quite varied, with common factors including high contrast and deep, deep shadows that had virtually no detail. This produced a look similar to film noir. A large contributor to bevy of results had to do with the dearth of published developing information. The experience with P30 Alpha in the darkroom during this time was one of experimentation, which is naturally included numerous failures as well as successes. But Ferrania took the interest, excitement and information to heart and applied to the continued production of new batches of P30 film. Which brings us more or less current to today.

It should be noted that today’s P30 is a refined version of that earlier Alpha generation. Developing times have been refined, most production issues - such as the heavy, omnipresent scratching - have been ironed out and dedicated manufacturing have increased the availability of the film to the point that in late 2019 Ferrania announced that we now have a final version of P30. So let’s get into the film itself, shall we?

Staff member David “Young David” Malmborg modeling for a P30 shot. Image made with a Nikon FM2n.

A brief introductory summary of Ferrania P30 runs like this; P30 is a low ISO, panchromatic negative film known for fine grain, deep shadows, silvery highlights and a moody look that is still reminiscent of the film noir comparison.

Let’s start at the top.

If you don’t mind low film speed then Ferrania P30 will reward you with some incredibly fine grain. Perhaps coming as little surprise given its ISO 80 rating, close inspection of P30 prints or scans is an enjoyable process. As we were dust spotting the scans of images selected for this Film Friday we were impressed again and again by how nicely fine P30 grain is. Since the film is currently only available in 35mm format (with plans for 120 format already announced) it is nice to see 35mm images with little apparent grain in them.

Ferrania P30 has no published data sheet that we could dig up online, but all our reading refers to it as a panchromatic emulsion. Without seeing an actual spectral sensitivity chart it is hard to really quantify this but assuming the film really does have full panchromatic sensitivity we’d say that it has significantly less sensitivity at the red end of the spectrum. Time and again we were surprised by how dark skin tones turned out and especially characteristics like freckles really stood out. In certain distinct ways, P30 really behaves like an orthochromatic film, especially when portraiture is involved. This is an important element to keep in mind about this film. Skin tones will darken. Freckles, acne, blemishes, even veins will darken and stand out more. Used in the right manner this can produce some awesome and dramatic results, but if stumbled upon unexpectedly can be a bit surprising.

The son of one of our staff, showing how much features such as freckles stand out when photographed with P30. Interestingly enough, the boys eyes are a light blue when seen in color. Image made with a Nikon FM2n.

The contrast of Ferrania P30 is probably the trickiest part of it to pin down. To be sure, the film has a wonderful mood to it driven by its usually high contrast and deep shadows, but the exact nature of this look can be highly influenced by how P30 is developed. In our darkroom here, we usually develop P30 in D-76 at a 1:1 dilution with times from the Massive Dev Chart. The results show high contrast but generally not unusably so. However our research indicates that typical minilab machine processing, which often runs fast and hot, can produce negatives of exceedingly high contrast. At the other end of the scale, there is a lot of input online by photographers who hand develop P30 using very diluted developers at extended times to create negatives with gentler contrast and more shadow detail. Another experiment we tried with a great deal of success was to rate P30 at ISO 40 and then pull it one stop in development. This also produced negatives with increased shadow detail and more manageable contrast. In short, the look of P30 is driven by its contrast and deep, black shadows but depending exactly on how you process your film, this look can vary a great deal and is a big component to how tricky this film is to master. A photographer trying out P30 for the first time might be referencing images that were processed in a diluted developer but then send their first finished roll of to a lab for developing, getting high contrast images back. Also, rated at ISO 80, Ferrania P30 has absolutely no forgiveness for underexposed shadows. Your metering has to be right on and if any important info lies in the shadows, you are best off metering for those shadows specifically.

The look of Ferrania P30 can be incredibly smooth across midtones and highlights but don’t expect it to hold onto shadow detail for you. Image made with a Canon AE-1.

So let’s recap our look at Ferrania P30 real quick, because if you have made it this far you have had to process a lot of info thus far.

Ferrania P30 Do’s:

Do try this film. It is a lot of fun and has a wonderful look that can produce dramatic images.
Do mind how you meter for it - shadow detail falls off fast.
Do research how your favorite P30 images online were developed and match your developing to their’s.
Do try rating a roll at ISO 40 and pull-processing. This seems to tame the film in a wonderful way.

Ferrania P30 Don’ts:

Don’t expect your first roll of this stuff to be your best; it takes some getting used to. Figure a learning curve of a few rolls.
Don’t machine process in a hot and fast developer - super high contrast will result.
Don’t load this in a camera that requires DX-coded film canisters - P30 lacks DX coding.
Don’t get too hung up on Ferrania’s troubles producing color slide film and fulfilling its Kickstarter pledges. It is frustrating but they seem to legitimately be trying and in the process they have created a new and unexpected b&w product for us to use.

Hopefully by this point you are not only curious to try some Ferrania P30, but have a good foundation of information that will help that next roll turn out as good as possible. The supply of P30 has still been a bit streaky, and prone to periodic shortages, but it is usually a safe bet you will find it in stock on our site. To get there, simply hit up this link.

Meanwhile, let’s send this Film Friday on out with a few more of our Ferrania P30 images.

Angela photoing landscape timberline.jpg

Our nod to Shel Silverstein. Image made with a Canon AE-1.

Film Friday - January 26th, 2024. Ferrania P30