Lomography Lady Grey 400

Lady Grey 400 is a rebranded film, and Lomography does not pretend otherwise once you read past the marketing copy. The current emulsion comes from Foma Bohemia in the Czech Republic, which means what you are loading is essentially Fomapan 400 Action in a different box. Earlier production runs were rumored to be Kodak T-Max 400, and shooters who hoarded boxes from the early 2010s sometimes report a noticeably different look that supports the rumor. The OEM swaps without notice. That is the nature of boutique rebrands.

If Fomapan 400 is the parent stock, the character follows. Old-school cubic grain rather than the tabular structure of T-Max or Delta. A latitude that handles a stop of overexposure better than a stop of under, which is the Foma signature across their entire B&W line. The grain is more pronounced than HP5+ at the same speed, and the curve is less straight, with shadows that block earlier and highlights that compress harder. None of this is bad. It just reads as a more textural film than the modern Ilford or Kodak options.

Development times deviate slightly from straight Fomapan 400 published charts. Lomography's own guide lists 8 minutes in Arista Liquid stock at 20C, 7 minutes in Microphen stock, and similar numbers in D-76 and ID-11. Rodinal at 1:50 for 11 to 13 minutes gives sharp, grainy results that play to the cubic-grain character. For lower grain at the cost of acutance, switch to Microphen or Xtol.

Available in 35mm and 120 in three-packs. The 120 is Czech-made; 35mm batches have at times been Kodak-sourced based on edge markings, so the format may not be the same emulsion.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.31. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second, so a 30-second metered reading lands at about 90 seconds on the negative. That matches the Fomapan 400 published behavior, which is unsurprising given the shared parent.