Comparing HP5+ at ISO 400 and pushed to ISO 1600

franck · Jun 18, 2015

Hello!

I am currently using almost exclusively Ilford HP5+ and shooting it at box speed (ISO 400) whenever I can. However, when the lighting condition require it I am pushing it to ISO 1600 (that is quite often here in Norway). I have been quite happy with the results but to find out exactly what kind of difference it makes on my images, I have had a closer look at some of my negatives (including under the microscope).

I have written my notes as a blog post here: http://photo.fleurey.com/blog/pushing-ilford-hp5-to-1600-iso

Maybe it could be also interesting to some of you, maybe some of you have different experiences, maybe some of my assumptions are completely wrong... I any case I am happy to hear any kind of feedback you may have

Cheers,

Franck

ic-racer · Jun 18, 2015

Pushing film is controlled under-exposure and over-development. The under-exposure removes the shadow detail and the over-development increases your density range of the under-exposed images so they can print on commonly available paper.

Colin Corneau · Jun 18, 2015

This doesn't surprise me. HP5+ is a really nice, flexible film that pushes really well, from my experience.

I normally shoot all 400 speed B&W film at 800, just because I like contrasty 'snappy' images...honestly, most quality B&W films are flexible enough to shoot at 800 with very little work. It seems to be 1600 where you see the real difference in films.

OptiKen · Jun 18, 2015

Good job. Thank you for the information and doing the work for me

Mick Fagan · Jun 18, 2015

Franck, very good bit of work there.

One thing I would be interested in seeing as an addition to your excellent work, is if you expose HP5+ at 320 ASA and develop at your standard 400 ASA time and dilution.

I shoot Fuji Neopan 400 135 roll film at 320 but develop it as if it was shot at 400, I get great shadow detail, minimal grain and in flat lighting like what you seem to have exposed under, prints with a slight snappy edge to them.

Using Ilford HP5+ 4x5 sheet film I expose at 320 ASA and pull the process for bright light, or run standard process for normal light, or run with a slight push process for flat light. Under the circumstances you had in the exterior 400 shots, bottom left, that is the one with the two young boys on the rocks, I feel a slight push process with normal or possibly slight lowering of your ASA to 320, may just give you a slight kick in contrast with almost no discernible image degradation.

When I mention a slight push process, Im talking about developing for 500 ASA, instead of 400 ASA.

This is similar to what we used to do with slide film processing for product shooting in the 80s. We used 100 ASA film, exposed it at 125 ASA then push processed 1/6 of a stop, to give the highlights a pleasing snap. While at the same time, keeping almost 100% of shadow detail.

One thing I must mention, I print all of my film using an enlarger, this may be different to your final output.

Mick.

M Carter · Jun 18, 2015

I did a lot of testing early this year of HP5+ and also 3200. But… I built a set and lit it with constant light (kino diva-style biax fluorescents). I included highlight detail (styrofoam packing blocks with that tiny texture) and shadow detail (very dark flannel fabric pattern), a focus chart and a gray card, and left it setup with a camera stand locked down for a couple days of testing, same lens, same F stops, same distance.

While I appreciate your tests (and half the questions on this forum should be answered with "go test it yourself", so hat's off to you for testing AND sharing), it was really helpful to have the exact image on every neg - testing with guesswork gets kind of frustrating!

Anyway, the most interesting results I found were -

I much preferred the shadow detail of HP5+ when shot at 320 - for me it was a better balance of detail;

And Ilford 3200 shot at 1600 looked better than HP5 pushed to 800 - the grain at 800 sort of mushed up detail that was much crisper on the 3200.

Overall it left me very impressed with 3200 at lower ISOs (which many people will tell you is their experience). Gone is the insane contrast so many people get. HP5 is no slouch either - testing really helped me nail down my film to those two for 90% of the time.

(I don't have a film scanner so I haven't posted results - I did some 5x7 prints to verify what i was seeing, but not of every frame).

Colin Corneau · Jun 18, 2015

Isn't that interesting - my experience (take it for what it's worth) is that HP5+ is sharper and more detailed than the (also excellent) D3200. Vive la difference!

M Carter said:
I did a lot of testing early this year of HP5+ and also 3200. But I built a set and lit it with constant light (kino diva-style biax fluorescents). I included highlight detail (styrofoam packing blocks with that tiny texture) and shadow detail (very dark flannel fabric pattern), a focus chart and a gray card, and left it setup with a camera stand locked down for a couple days of testing, same lens, same F stops, same distance.

While I appreciate your tests (and half the questions on this forum should be answered with "go test it yourself", so hat's off to you for testing AND sharing), it was really helpful to have the exact image on every neg - testing with guesswork gets kind of frustrating!

Anyway, the most interesting results I found were -

I much preferred the shadow detail of HP5+ when shot at 320 - for me it was a better balance of detail;

And Ilford 3200 shot at 1600 looked better than HP5 pushed to 800 - the grain at 800 sort of mushed up detail that was much crisper on the 3200.

Overall it left me very impressed with 3200 at lower ISOs (which many people will tell you is their experience). Gone is the insane contrast so many people get. HP5 is no slouch either - testing really helped me nail down my film to those two for 90% of the time.

(I don't have a film scanner so I haven't posted results - I did some 5x7 prints to verify what i was seeing, but not of every frame).

piu58 · Jun 19, 2015

Very interesiting comparision. The 1600 negatives produce better results than I thought. Thank you.

bernard_L · Jun 19, 2015

Congratulations for doing these detailed tests and sharing the results. A welcome change from the all-too frequent pseudo-information: "this is what I use and I like the results".

John Bragg · Jun 19, 2015

Hi Franck. Nice work and thanks for sharing your experiences. I note that you sometimes need more contrast in the iso400 shots. Perhaps develop a roll for 6 minutes and see what happens. Either that or do 11 mins in Dilution H. 1:63 ? That way your times for "Normal" and pushed shots would be the same, and only the dilution would vary.

Regards, John.

John Bragg · Jun 19, 2015

Hi Franck. Nice work and thanks for sharing your experiences. I note that you sometimes need more contrast in the iso400 shots. Perhaps develop a roll for 5.5 or 6 minutes and see what happens. Either that or do 11 mins in Dilution H. 1:63 ? That way your times for "Normal" and pushed shots would be the same, and only the dilution would vary.

Regards, John.

summicron1 · Jun 19, 2015

I've been particularly impressed by Tri-X pushed to 1600, but because 100-foot rolls of HP5 are so much cheaper these days decided to compare.

My HP5 at that speed was sort of like what you found -- a bit grainier, very sharp but less shadow detail. Tri-X at 1600 seems, to me, to be finder grained and with better shadow detail, although in some situations I find myself printing using a 1.5 or even 1 contrast filter to tone it down a bit.

Have you ever done a side-by-side of the two films at 1600? Needless to say, for my purposes, I bought a chunk of tri-x and ate the extra cost. What the heck...

franck · Jun 19, 2015

Colin Corneau said:
This doesn't surprise me. HP5+ is a really nice, flexible film that pushes really well, from my experience.

I normally shoot all 400 speed B&W film at 800, just because I like contrasty 'snappy' images...honestly, most quality B&W films are flexible enough to shoot at 800 with very little work. It seems to be 1600 where you see the real difference in films.

Thanks for your reply, I think I will have to try ISO 800 at some point to see how it compares.

franck · Jun 19, 2015

Mick Fagan said:
Franck, very good bit of work there.

One thing I would be interested in seeing as an addition to your excellent work, is if you expose HP5+ at 320 ASA and develop at your standard 400 ASA time and dilution.

I shoot Fuji Neopan 400 135 roll film at 320 but develop it as if it was shot at 400, I get great shadow detail, minimal grain and in flat lighting like what you seem to have exposed under, prints with a slight snappy edge to them.

Using Ilford HP5+ 4x5 sheet film I expose at 320 ASA and pull the process for bright light, or run standard process for normal light, or run with a slight push process for flat light. Under the circumstances you had in the exterior 400 shots, bottom left, that is the one with the two young boys on the rocks, I feel a slight push process with normal or possibly slight lowering of your ASA to 320, may just give you a slight kick in contrast with almost no discernible image degradation.

When I mention a slight push process, I’m talking about developing for 500 ASA, instead of 400 ASA.

This is similar to what we used to do with slide film processing for product shooting in the 80’s. We used 100 ASA film, exposed it at 125 ASA then push processed 1/6 of a stop, to give the highlights a pleasing snap. While at the same time, keeping almost 100% of shadow detail.

One thing I must mention, I print all of my film using an enlarger, this may be different to your final output.

Mick.

Thanks for the inputs! That is way more advanced than what I am able to master for now but that the kind of knowledge and experiences I would like to build: fine tune the exposure to the lighting conditions and understand what to expect. I agree that the ISO400 picture on the bottom left you mention is a bit underexposed. I do not remember, exactly how I metered for that picture but I do remember that the kids were moving quite a bit When looking at the next two pictures on the negative, I think that I increase the exposure by 1 full stop (the sky is much brighter but still with a lot of details).

In terms output, I typically scan all my film and only do few prints with an enlarger. I do not really know if I'll end-up using the darkroom a lot or not. For now I am not really looking a making negatives which are necessarily easy to print but I would like to make sure that I capture as much information as possible. In that sense making low contrast and 'high dynamic range' negatives is probably a good thing but I am not sure what is the penalty.

Cheers! Franck

franck · Jun 19, 2015

M Carter said:
I did a lot of testing early this year of HP5+ and also 3200. But I built a set and lit it with constant light (kino diva-style biax fluorescents). I included highlight detail (styrofoam packing blocks with that tiny texture) and shadow detail (very dark flannel fabric pattern), a focus chart and a gray card, and left it setup with a camera stand locked down for a couple days of testing, same lens, same F stops, same distance.

While I appreciate your tests (and half the questions on this forum should be answered with "go test it yourself", so hat's off to you for testing AND sharing), it was really helpful to have the exact image on every neg - testing with guesswork gets kind of frustrating!

Anyway, the most interesting results I found were -

I much preferred the shadow detail of HP5+ when shot at 320 - for me it was a better balance of detail;

And Ilford 3200 shot at 1600 looked better than HP5 pushed to 800 - the grain at 800 sort of mushed up detail that was much crisper on the 3200.

Overall it left me very impressed with 3200 at lower ISOs (which many people will tell you is their experience). Gone is the insane contrast so many people get. HP5 is no slouch either - testing really helped me nail down my film to those two for 90% of the time.

(I don't have a film scanner so I haven't posted results - I did some 5x7 prints to verify what i was seeing, but not of every frame).

Thanks for your reply! I agree, some controlled tests on similar images are really the only way to get definitive comparison between the films. I may do that at some point but so far for me this exercise is not only about the comparison but also trying to learn how and when to use the film. The good thing about using my actual pictures is that I typically remember how I chose the exposure, how were the lighting conditions and what I was going for (or hoping for. Thanks for sharing your experience with Ilford 3200, I have never tried it partly because it is quite a bit more expenssive than HP5 and partly because I did not know that pull processing it really an option. I'll definitely give it a try! Cheers, Franck

franck · Jun 19, 2015

John Bragg said:
Hi Franck. Nice work and thanks for sharing your experiences. I note that you sometimes need more contrast in the iso400 shots. Perhaps develop a roll for 6 minutes and see what happens. Either that or do 11 mins in Dilution H. 1:63 ? That way your times for "Normal" and pushed shots would be the same, and only the dilution would vary.

Regards, John.

Hello! That is a good idea and would probably give me a bit more contrast on the negative. What I am wondering is if could have a "negative effect" on the shadows or highlight of the images. Typically, I really do not mind adding contrast to the images, it is quite easy both when scanning and when printing. I am a bit afraid that if I slightly over process the film, I will end up with good contrast but other problems in the shadows or highlights which could be much more difficult to deal with (for example more grain in the shadows and loss of details in the highlights). I guess I wont know before I try cheers, Franck

franck · Jun 19, 2015

Colin Corneau said:
Isn't that interesting - my experience (take it for what it's worth) is that HP5+ is sharper and more detailed than the (also excellent) D3200. Vive la difference!

Hehe, indeed vive la différence ;-) I'll have to try D3200 to see how it works for me and maybe compare it to HP5+ pushed 3 stops.

franck · Jun 19, 2015

bernard_L said:
Congratulations for doing these detailed tests and sharing the results. A welcome change from the all-too frequent pseudo-information: "this is what I use and I like the results".

Thanks

franck · Jun 19, 2015

summicron1 said:
I've been particularly impressed by Tri-X pushed to 1600, but because 100-foot rolls of HP5 are so much cheaper these days decided to compare.

My HP5 at that speed was sort of like what you found -- a bit grainier, very sharp but less shadow detail. Tri-X at 1600 seems, to me, to be finder grained and with better shadow detail, although in some situations I find myself printing using a 1.5 or even 1 contrast filter to tone it down a bit.

Have you ever done a side-by-side of the two films at 1600? Needless to say, for my purposes, I bought a chunk of tri-x and ate the extra cost. What the heck...

Hello, I have not used a lot of Tri-X. When looking at film options, I quickly decided that Tri-X and HP5 were the main candidates. I do not bulk load my film so far so the cost was pretty similar. I tested both and what made me choose HP5 had nothing to do with the images, it is just that when Tri-X dries it cups so much that it makes the film difficult to scan. I am using a Nikon LS-2000 scanner and I noticed that the scans were not sharp across the whole images. After a few days of the film being flattened in a binder, it behaves a bit better and it is possible to get a perfectly sharp scan. I do not have any of these problem with HP5 and can scan the film as soon as it is dried. The few rolls of Tri-X I shot were developed with ILFOSOL and I do not think that I pushed any of those so I cannot really compare the results to what I am seeing with HP5.

Cheers,

Franck

John Bragg · Jun 20, 2015

franck said:
Hello! That is a good idea and would probably give me a bit more contrast on the negative. What I am wondering is if could have a "negative effect" on the shadows or highlight of the images. Typically, I really do not mind adding contrast to the images, it is quite easy both when scanning and when printing. I am a bit afraid that if I slightly over process the film, I will end up with good contrast but other problems in the shadows or highlights which could be much more difficult to deal with (for example more grain in the shadows and loss of details in the highlights). I guess I wont know before I try cheers, Franck

Good luck with your testing. Dont forget that you have a 3rd variable in addition to time and dilution. By changing your agitation routine, you can affect the contrast in the image. More dilution and less agitation will give better shadow development and still retain highlights, in effect, pushing the shadows.

This example is HP5+ exposed at ei200 shot in contrasty summer sun, and developed for 12 mins @20c in HC-110 dilution H 1:63 with 15 seconds initial agitation and then only 2 gentle invertions at 4 minutes and 2 invertions again at 8 minutes.

Lunchtime at Mevagissey. by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/25714267@N06/

Xmas · Jun 20, 2015

franck said:
Hello, I have not used a lot of Tri-X. When looking at film options, I quickly decided that Tri-X and HP5 were the main candidates. I do not bulk load my film so far so the cost was pretty similar. I tested both and what made me choose HP5 had nothing to do with the images, it is just that when Tri-X dries it cups so much that it makes the film difficult to scan. I am using a Nikon LS-2000 scanner and I noticed that the scans were not sharp across the whole images. After a few days of the film being flattened in a binder, it behaves a bit better and it is possible to get a perfectly sharp scan. I do not have any of these problem with HP5 and can scan the film as soon as it is dried. The few rolls of Tri-X I shot were developed with ILFOSOL and I do not think that I pushed any of those so I cannot really compare the results to what I am seeing with HP5.

Cheers,

Franck

Suggest you need to dry it more slowly my Trix and Tx dry flat about 10c 60-80 relative humidity.

PittP · Jun 20, 2015

franck said:
Hello! That is a good idea and would probably give me a bit more contrast on the negative. What I am wondering is if could have a "negative effect" on the shadows or highlight of the images. Typically, I really do not mind adding contrast to the images, it is quite easy both when scanning and when printing. I am a bit afraid that if I slightly over process the film, I will end up with good contrast but other problems in the shadows or highlights which could be much more difficult to deal with (for example more grain in the shadows and loss of details in the highlights). I guess I wont know before I try cheers, Franck

Franck, thank you for sharing your very instructive and helpful work!
I'm absolutely with you favouring a snappy negative - as far as micro-contrast is concerned, however trying to contain the overall contrast, keeping shadows and highlights in a range convenient for printing (is scanning more forgiving?).
As I'm "coming" from slides and often snap under harsh, contrasty light, I've got used to pre-flashing to raise the shadows (i.e. a pre-exposure, -3 or -4 stops, through the bottom of a plain white plastic cup - and get caught-up by events when using that camera that doesn't allow double exposure). I feel this helps a lot though I don't have any proper comparisons at hand (sorry, I'm thus one of those saying "... and I like it"). May be this gives you more leeway towards a more contrasty development.
BTW, I prefer "a bit more" agitation, either slow rotation (~20 rpm) or at least 1'-inversions: I find this gives a more defined grain and improved sharpness (using APX 100 and TriX in Rodinal, Athiril's modified Rodinal=THE Hit, Xtol).

All the best and thanks again for sharing!
Pitt

franck · Jun 23, 2015

John Bragg said:
Good luck with your testing. Dont forget that you have a 3rd variable in addition to time and dilution. By changing your agitation routine, you can affect the contrast in the image. More dilution and less agitation will give better shadow development and still retain highlights, in effect, pushing the shadows.

This example is HP5+ exposed at ei200 shot in contrasty summer sun, and developed for 12 mins @20c in HC-110 dilution H 1:63 with 15 seconds initial agitation and then only 2 gentle invertions at 4 minutes and 2 invertions again at 8 minutes.

Thanks for the tip, and nice shot! I am amazed by the dynamic range and tones which can be achieved with film (when used properly. The way you developed it seems to be somewhere in between a "standard" development and a stand development. So far I have done "standard" development only but I have, at some point, to give it a try. Cheers! Franck.

franck · Jun 23, 2015

Xmas said:
Suggest you need to dry it more slowly my Trix and Tx dry flat about 10c 60-80 relative humidity.

Good point, I did not think of it too much but it make sense that I am probably drying it wrong. The way I do it is that I just hang the film in my bathroom after a last rinse which contains a drop of PhotoFlow. I do not do any form of squeegeeing at mostly because I am afraid to scratch the film. The water I use has almost no minerals so it does not leave marks on the film. I do not measure the humidity in my bathroom but it is typically not very dry and the temperature probably around 20°C. The film is typically dry in about 2 hours. Do you do any squeegeeing of your Tri-x? How long does it take for it to dry?

Cheers,

Franck

Gerald C Koch · Jun 26, 2015

franck said:
I am currently using almost exclusively Ilford HP5+ and shooting it at box speed (ISO 400) whenever I can. However, when the lighting condition require it I am pushing it to ISO 1600

A film has only one ISO rating and that is determined by the manufacturer. If you shoot at a different speed then that is called an exposure index, EI not an ISO. A small point but it makes any discussion easier if one sticks with standard terminology.

Comparing HP5+ at ISO 400 and pushed to ISO 1600

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