In 1963 Federico Fellini shot his famous film 8½. Starring Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale it is still considered to be one of the greatest Italian films of all time. 8½ was shot in black and white using Ferrania P30 film stock. The look that P30 gave 8½ created a demand so high that Ferrania produced both 35mm and 120 versions so that non-professional still photographers could ‘feel a bit Fellini’. It was a huge success.
FILM Ferrania was originally founded in 1917 in Liguria on Italy’s Riviera. It became one of the worlds most important photographic film manufacturers making famous stocks such as P30, Ferraniacolor and ScotchChrome. By the early 2000s because of the global turn to digital camera technology, it like so many film producers was suffering economically. Ferrania eventually closed its factory in 2010. In 2012 a small dedicated team decided to rebuild Ferrania and have been tirelessly working toward that goal since. In spring this year P30 Alpha began shipping to photographers worldwide.
Ferrania is one of only three factories in the world able to research, develop and manufacture colour and black & white film totally in-house. They are truly committed to the rebirth of analogue film and I certainly wish them the very best, thanks guys.
P30 Alpha is a new film and Ferrania have asked the film community for technical feedback, so here's my bit:
I Shot Jessica on an overcast day at box speed using a CONTAX S2 with Zeiss Planar 50mm ƒ1.7 lens.
• Developed with Tetenal Paranol S (1:50 Dilution) for 14 minutes at 20ºC with Continuous inversions for the first 30 seconds then 10 inversions every minute
• Stop with Tetenal Indecet 1 minute at 20ºC
• Fix with Tetenal Superfix 5 minutes at room temperature
• Wash for 10 minutes
• Scanned on Nikon Coolscan 8000
Model: Jessica Louise Gladstone
All photographed with CONTAX S2 on Ferrania P30 Alpha film.