Review: HP5+ in 35mm
My friend Neal Thorley recently published a review on Ilford’s HP5+ film in the 120 format on his blog (read it here) and I chimed in with a comment about how it’s also fantastic on 35mm. He wanted to link to me, and I realized that for all my complaining that I never have any good content for my blog, I never thought to do a film review. So, here goes.
Ilford’s HP5+ was my first black-and-white film. It’s ISO 400 (which used to be considered “fast” in the old days, but by now is “normal” speed…) and gives a classic tonality that’s similar to Kodak Tri-X. In fact, from what I can tell, HP5+ and Tri-X are very nearly (say, 95%) the same exact film. Some people claim that Tri-X is a little bit better at push development, but I have yet to test the limits of HP5+’s capabilities. I enjoy it so much at 400, and if I’m ever in low light, 1600 gives me no problems. I doubt that it would fail to hold its own against Tri-X though.
There are a lot of reasons I went with Ilford. First, most people start off with Tri-X as their general black-and-white film, and I wanted something just a bit less popular. Second, a 50-foot roll of HP5+ was cheaper than a similar roll of Tri-X. Third and most importantly, Ilford remains a small, purely film-photography company while Kodak is shrinking and has a lot of their fingers in digital pies. Since I started film photography in early 2010, they’ve discontinued Tri-X 320 (the supposedly ‘professional’ version of the film) and have begun to kill off various formats of Plus-X, the ASA 125 sister of Tri-X. While the film market is now only starting to stabilize, I’m fairly sure Tri-X will not be going away any time soon, but I’ve got even more faith in HP5+ sticking around. Besides, since I do both color and black-and-white work, Kodak has plenty of new color films (Ektar 100, Portra 400, Portra 160) that they can use to get my money. I have no problem sticking to Ilford for most of my black-and-white work, only occasionally trying out different film manufacturers for comparison.
One of the things I love about Ilford HP5+ is its versatility. I’ve already discussed its ability to be pushed at least up to ASA 1600, but it also does a great job no matter what developer you chose to throw at it. I started off my photography hearing great things about Kodak HC-110, following it up with the evidently stellar sharpness of Agfa Rodinal. A few months later, I was reading great things about Kodak XTOL—especially if instead of dumping it after development, you re-used the solution with a portion replenished with fresh stock. I’ve tried all these developers with Ilford HP5+, and I’ve gotten great results every time. There doesn’t seem to be a developer for which it’s ill-suited. Furthermore, the only time I’ve noticed results that weren’t sharp, it’s been thanks to my poor focus or unsteady hand. HP5+ has never let me down when it comes to sharp photographs.
Of course, since a picture is worth a thousand words, why not show you some? From my entire collection of photos that were shot on Ilford HP5+, here are a few samples from my 35mm cameras. I’ve tried to mix up the cameras and developers a bit to show what the different developers do to the film. All were scanned by me on my Epson V700 scanner, and please forgive any dust I didn’t bother to clone out.
Camera: Nikon FE2 (w/ 24mm lens)
Developer: Agfa Rodinal, 1+50 dilution
Camera: Konica Auto S2
Developer: Kodak HC-110, dilution B
Camera: Konica Auto S2
Developer: Rodinal 1+100 followed by Kodak HC-110, dilution B [I used two-bath developing to both stand-develop (tame contrast) and push the sensitivity up to ASA 1600. This is the most I've abused the film and you can just start to notice the grain.]
And of course, I saved my favorite sample photo for last…
Camera: Olympus Trip 35
Developer: Kodak XTOL, replenished stock
So, long story short, Ilford HP5+ is my go-to black-and-white film and a perfect alternative to Kodak Tri-X.
…To Holga
Note that the title does not mean I’m giving up the Hasselblad in any way, shape, or form. You can have it when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Moving on…
I bought a Holga from Randy over at Holgamods* a while back. I had been using it mainly to try out sprocket hole photography. (See my second review of Sharp Photo and Portrait.) I had shot a roll of cross-processed color film in it, with somewhat pleasing results, as shown in the post about cross-processing.
* – Extra modifications to the Holga included interior flocking, closer focusing, aperture modification, and the inclusion of both a cut 6×6 back and a factory 6×6 back.
Anyway, I finally decided to shoot some black and white film in the Holga. The camera manual (isn’t that cute? They come with instructions.) suggests using 400-speed film, but I did some calculations first. The shutter speed on the Holga is somewhere around 1/100 of a second, and the aperture is anywhere from f/8 to f/16. Sunny 16 tells me that on a sunny day I should really be using ISO 100 film, so I loaded my last 120 roll of Ilford Delta 100. Results are below:
Overall, I’m very happy, and I’m sure that these will make excellent prints in the darkroom. I’m surprised how much vignetting of focus there is. Note that I used the factory 6×6 mask, and apparently this results in less darkening in the corners, a claim that I’ll have to test out. Next on the agenda, I want to see what results look like when I use HP5+ and FP4+…
Caffenol – Developing Film in Coffee
Want to develop film in common household items? well, here’s a good recipe for a developer:
Caffenol C-M
1. Measure out 500mL water.
2. Dissolve in 27g of washing soda (NOT baking soda)
3. Dissolve in 8g of Vitamin C powder (check a health food store)
4. Dissolve in 20g instant coffee (the cheaper the better)
Let sit for a few minutes to let the bubbles settle, but use the developer within the hour. Generally, 15 minutes of development with 10 seconds agitation per minute is a recommended starting point. For more details, you can check out Reinhold’s Caffenol Blog (caffenol.blogspot.com) but it’s so simple, I just wanted to post the recipe so you can try it out.
Also, of course, some results of my own on Ilford Delta 100:
The B&W Twins – Kodak and Ilford
I’ve noticed a bit of talk around Flickr about Kodak Tri-X 400 and Ilford HP5+. A lot of arguing about preference aside, they’re essentially 99% identical in terms of characteristics. They’re traditional-grain films that can really be pushed, and the only difference I’ve heard is that sometimes the grain of HP5+ is a bit more pronounced once you’re pushing past EI 1600. So let’s just say for all intents and purposes that HP5+ is Ilford’s equivalent of Kodak’s Tri-X, putting ever-so-slight differences aside.
That got me thinking.
It turns out Ilford’s Delta 100 is a tabular grained film, much like Kodak T-Max. Not only that, but both also come in ASA 400 and 3200 varieties. Hmm… So, I started making my Equivalence List.
Chromogenic Film:
Ilford XP-2 Super = Kodak BW400CN
Tabular-grained films:
Ilford Delta 100 = Kodak T-Max 100
Ilford Delta 400 = Kodak T-Max 400
Ilford Delta 3200 = Kodak T-Max 3200
Traditional-grained films:
Ilford HP5+ (400) = Kodak Tri-X 400
Ilford FP4+ (125) = Kodak Plus-X 125
Ilford PanF+ (50) = …
Wait a minute, what’s the equivalent for Pan F Plus? Well, it turns out that Kodak’s equivalent hasn’t been around for years. According to my local film vendor, Pan F Plus was developed as an answer to what was called Panatomic-X (ASA 32), which was discontinued in the mid-eighties. Various internet posts and discussions suggest there may be a few more differences between Pan-X and PanF+ as opposed to Tri-X and HP5+, but if you’re like me and are only old enough to experience Panatomic-X vicariously through the photographs of others, it might be worth trying out a roll of PanF+, maybe shot at EI 32. It’s on my list of films to try along with the other low-speed films I mentioned in recent blog posts.
For what it’s worth, some people claim that Adox/Efke 25 is more of an appropriate replacement for Pan-X, as is Rollei 25. Kodak’s Technical Pan, a high-resolution technical film, might find its equivalent in Adox CMS 20.
