Fuji Neopan 1600 - dev and exp suggestions

Fuji Neopan is a film I have never used so I'm looking for some pointers to get me off the ground.

So I'm wondering what the popular exposure and developer combinations are for this film: bearing in mind I'm keen to expose it at 1600.

Also people tell me this is quite a contrasty film?

Thanks for any advice.
Matt

Have you checked http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.html? If not, that could get you a bit further off the ground...

I have in the last year, been using Neopan 1600 with more than moderate success. I use it for low light situations instead of my current standard film, Neopan 400.

If you go to my gallery, you will see one picture of one of my brothers. That was shot on NP1600 on a cloudy dull day in a backyard. You will see that there is quite nice contrast, it was printed around grade 3.

One of the advantages of the Neopan family, is that you can develop NP400 and NP1600 together, according to Fuji. I have done that, it isn't that bad, but I tend to think NP1600 requires slightly less development than NP400.

I tested the film and found that with my preferred developer, D76 1+1, I got the best pictorial results at 800 asa. I did push the film to 1600 but there really is a fair bit of shadow detail loss, by comparison.

That said, the film does push quite well to 1600, you will have to test.

Mick.

By the way this film is still available in 30m rolls from Megaperls in Japan. In March 2007, Fuji will cease to supply this film in bulk rolls.

I've only shot a couple of rolls of Neopan 1600, and I used EI 800 for both rolls. One I did in XTOL (1+1, 6:45 at 20C) and got good results. The other I did in PC-Glycol (1+1+49, 5:00 at 23C) but although the density was good, the negatives were extremely grainy. Usually I like PC-Glycol, but not with this film!

I would recommend Xtol for this film since it will produce finer grain and more film speed than other developers.

I've actually been playing with Neopan 1600 for a bit now, always in xtol. It is contrasty, but I've been running with that, and letting the film go where it wants to. If it's muddy light, just try the recommended times with xtol straight or 1+1 and this film will make the midtones pop. I shoot in a lot of hard light though, and to get a handle on the contrast I went by df cardwell's semi stand tip I found on this forum of neo 1600 in xtol 1+2, 20min, 30 sec agitation, then 10 sec every 5min. I brought it down to 18min with super easy agitation, but I scan my negs and prefer them thin.

Now I either use that or 1+1 with normal agitation. Depends on what I think the roll needs.

Lastly, if you want to see some examples, you can go to my site (www.graememitchell.com) and look at the 4th gallery called NYC Journal, that whole gallery is the above combo.

Opps forgot to say that this is always rating the film at 800. If you wanted 1600, I'd personally try the semi stand as mentioned above for the full 20 min, agi every 5 min, and then adjust from there.

When using Xtol are there significant advantages in terms of finer grain when using it straight rather than 1+1 with an ei of 1600?

I find Xtol 1+1 at ei 800 to be a great combo from my experience.

Xtol used full strength will produce somewhat finer grain, but the difference is small. Using Xtol 1:1 will produce a slight increase in film speed over the +10% that Xtol gives.

Gerald Koch said:

Using Xtol 1:1 will produce a slight increase in film speed over the +10% that Xtol gives.

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Really?

Suprisingly, for a high speed film, it also works well in Rodinal 1+50. I've shot it at 1000 and 1600 (in different cameras), and both have worked well.


EI 1600:
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EI 1600, one stop underexposed:
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Ryuji said:

Really?

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That is what the two people who developed Xtol have said. Can't remember their names just now. The unofficial Xtol page http://www.covingtoninnovations.com/xtol/index.html also says 15% speed increase for faster films.

sorry for the thread necromancy, but is the 7 and 1/2 minutes at 68 degrees fahrenheit (the indicated time according to the Massive Dev Chart) what you all would consider a good starting point with Neopan 1600 shot at EI 1600?

I was considering using this film this weekend for a wedding (but not as the wedding photographer), but am worried that I'll risk botching the development given my lack of familiarity. As of late, I've been shooting Delta 100 and Tmax 400 (both of which I have run out of). The Neopan 1600 has been sitting in my fridge for a while now...

Thanks!