Marix Black and White 400

Marix sells this film through camera stores in Japan, and Cloudoc Corporation in Osaka is the brand owner, but the emulsion itself is Fomapan 400 coated by Foma Bohemia in the Czech Republic. Same master roll, repackaged in cassettes without DX coding, with Marix's own data sheet on the side of the box. If you have shot Foma 400 Action in any other repackaging (Arista EDU Ultra 400, Lomography Lady Grey 400, FPP EDU Ultra), this is the same film with a different label.

The practical takeaway from Marix's own data sheet: rated speed is 400, RMS granularity sits at 17.5, and the latitude claim is plus or minus two stops without development adjustment. Working photographers in Japan tend to rate it closer to 200 in conventional developers for the same reason the Foma 400 community settled there: true speed runs about a stop under the box rating, and shadow density at a true 400 goes thin in low contrast indoor light.

The character is older-school grain structure. More texture than Tri-X, more visible than T-Max 400, and the kind of look that reads as European documentary rather than modern T-grain. Develop in D-76 or ID-11 at 1:1 for clean midtones, Rodinal 1:25 at five and a half minutes for sharper edges with more apparent grain, or XTOL at around seven minutes. Pushing to 1600 works in Microphen but the shadows roughen up.

Compared with Kentmere 400, the Harman value-tier alternative, Marix runs slightly coarser and contrastier. Compared with HP5 Plus at twice the price, you trade refinement for the freedom to burn frames without thinking about money.

Available in 35mm (36 and 24 exposure) and 120 in Japan. No 4x5 from Marix directly. The underlying Fomapan 400 comes in sheet sizes through Foma's normal European distribution if you want it that way.

The reciprocity exponent is 1.31. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second on the standard curve. A 10-second meter reading runs to about 22 seconds at the negative; a 30-second exposure climbs to roughly 92 seconds. Foma's 400 has a reputation for harsher reciprocity than HP5 or Tri-X, so for tripod work past a few seconds, bracket.