FerraniaP30

Ferrania P30 is an ISO 80 black-and-white negative film made by FILM Ferrania in Italy. It is sold as panchromatic and is based on an old cinema emulsion formula, first relaunched as P30 Alpha in 2017 [3]. Reviewers describe deep shadows, restrained highlights and very fine grain [4].

Look and color

P30 turns colors into grays in a way reviewers find unusual for a panchromatic film:

• Reds render dark. Reviewers report “significantly less sensitivity at the red end of the spectrum” [7]. Red buildings showed “very little response” in a filter test [6], and commenters on another review call reds darker than on typical panchromatic films, closer to an orthopanchromatic behavior [5]. Ferrania calls the film panchromatic and publishes no curve, so this is reported, not measured by the manufacturer [1].
• Skin gets denser. One review warns that “freckles, acne, blemishes, even veins will darken and stand out more” [7]. Another finds skin “flat or slightly darker than expected” on light complexions [4]. The two reports point the same way but differ in strength.
• Filters. In the same filter test, red and orange filters showed the low red response, and green filters behaved more predictably [6].
• Our style. Converting our test RAW files with the style’s estimated weights makes a sky 6.6 L* lighter and skin 3.3 L* darker than the base render [2]. These weights are estimates, not a measurement of the film.

Tonality

• Shadows and highlights. Reviewers describe “clean, inky, detail-rich shadows with bright mids and restrained highlights” [4] and “deep shadows, silvery highlights and a moody look” [7].
• Contrast is a matter of development, and sources disagree. Ferrania’s US director says P30 “is not inherently a high-contrast film, but has a wide tonal range” [6]. Yet D-76 gave “high contrast but generally not unusably so”, and machine processing gave “exceedingly high contrast” negatives [7]. One reviewer sums it up: send it to a lab for contrast, develop at home for tone [5]. Our style follows the contrasty description most reviews give.
• Exposure. Ferrania recommends box speed 80 and, for other results, exposure compensation instead of a different ISO [1]. One reviewer found that one stop of overexposure gave “pretty powerful” negatives with recoverable detail [6]. Others rate it at EI 40 for more shadow detail [7].
• Developers. Ferrania’s chart lists times for EI 80 in D-76 (7 minutes, stock, 20 °C), D-96 (8 minutes, 21 °C), HC-110 dilution B (5 minutes) and Rodinal 1:100 (60 minutes, semi-stand), among others [1]. It notes that D-96, a cinema developer, is the closest to the original 1960s one [1].

Grain and sharpness

• Ferrania publishes no RMS granularity or resolving power in its guide [1], so no comparison table with other datasheets is possible.
• Reviews call the grain ultra fine and “universally small across all densities” [4], with virtually none visible when processed gently [5].
• The style sizes its grain from these descriptions, not from a number. In our render tests it sits between the Pan F Plus 50 and Plus-X 125 styles [2].

Names, status and history

• Origin. Ferrania’s US director says the team found the original hand-written formula from 1958, updated slightly in 1964 for still film [5]. The original company stopped photographic production in 2009 [3].
• Relaunch. FILM Ferrania was founded in 2013 and ran a Kickstarter campaign in 2014 [3]. P30 Alpha appeared on February 1, 2017, as an ISO 80 film with a high silver content [3]. The final version reached North America by December 2019 [3]. Sources differ on how it came about: one review says the Alpha batch came from test coatings made in 2017 while the company was testing equipment for slide film [7].
• Formats. 35 mm first, then 120 [8] [9]. Later Ferrania films are separate emulsions: Orto (ISO 50) and P33 (ISO 160) [3] [8].
• Status. In production, but retailers listed it as out of stock at times in late 2026 [9]. Wikipedia reports that FILM Ferrania was acquired in April 2025 by the owner of ORWO [3]; we could not check this against a second source.
• Official site. We do not link the company’s website: at the time of writing, its .it address redirected to an unrelated gambling site. Use a retailer or the guide copy cited above.