ORWO NP27

NP27 was the fast end of the East German still-film catalog. VEB Filmfabrik Wolfen coated it through the 1970s and into the early 1990s, an ISO 400 panchromatic stock sold alongside the slower NP15, NP20, and NP22 under the ORWO trademark imposed in 1964 after Western trade rules barred the plant from using the Agfa name. The NP prefix stood for Negativfilm Panchromatisch, the cubic-grain silver chemistry the Wolfen line ran on from its prewar Agfa days through liquidation.

Character matches the rest of the NP family with the compromises you would expect from a 400 ASA cubic-grain emulsion of that era. Grain is more pronounced than NP22 at the same enlargement, the toe rolls off softer, and the curve is straighter through the midtones. Compared with Western contemporaries like Tri-X 400 from the same decade, NP27 reads less aggressive in the grain texture but loses to Tri-X in shadow separation.

Development recipes from the East German amateur clubs favored A49 (the local Atomal-derived fine-grain developer) and ORWO's own ORWO 31. ID-11 at 1:1 reads close enough that current users can substitute without rerunning a test. Rodinal 1:50 punches the grain harder than most photographers want from a fast stock of this generation.

VEB Filmfabrik Wolfen entered liquidation in 1994 and NP27 production ended there. The FilmoTec successor at the same Bitterfeld site continued the cinema line but did not bring back the still-photography NP series. What circulates today is sealed freezer stock from estate sales and eBay lots out of Germany and Poland. Rate at EI 200 or 160 to compensate for accumulated base fog.

Format coverage was 35mm and 120, sheet sizes rare even when the film was current. Edge markings show NP27 and a frame number.

Reciprocity exponent is 1.31. Zone Light Meter applies the correction past one second, so a metered 30-second exposure climbs to about 90 seconds at the negative. With aged stock the math piles on top of whatever speed loss the roll has already taken. Bracket where you can.