HP5+ Grain or Pixelation?

Hi all!
I'm fairly new to film photography, I have sent two rolls of Ilford HP5+ shot and developed at ISO 800 to a local lab for scanning. (Development was done in a different lab.) I am somewhat dissatisfied with the results, I find the pictures noisy and not in the pleasant grainy way that I am used to. I have uploaded some sample images (as a I have received them from the lab) here.

Do you guys think this is due to low quality scanning, or is this simply the way HP5 looks? Should I try to send the negatives to a different lab?

Thanks,
Peter

where is your beef. they look pretty good to me;wouldn't expect any better fom a 400 ISO film!

The images are excessively grainy, however it's difficult to say why without looking at the negatives and also knowing how the lab developed the film. Should be a lot finer garin than that even pushed to 200 EI.

Ian

The operator has cranked up the sharpening to quite an extreme level.

Lab scans are somewhat hit-and-miss. Most labs scans I have obtained have had the contrast boosted and sharpening added. It seems that both corrections have been applied to your images.
Your options here are to scan the images yourself, find another lab, or shoot TMAX 400 or Delta 400.

These look grossly overdeveloped. Never good when trying to avoid excessive grain.

I agree could be over developed, grainy, but not objectionable to me (used Rodinal and Tri-x for many years).
However, even though the grain looks pretty hefty, the grain in the scans doesn't look sharp - I would say no sharpening applied yet, I think the grain in these comes from the film.

I'm going to disagree with George here. That doesn't look like film grain to me.

D'oh ! Send that film to multiple labs for scanning...AFTER you discuss this with them. Compare.

Also..."asking" for 800 means nothing ...how did the lab actually process the film and how did that differ from N ?

I have had HP5 come out that grainy before, might be the film. It's odd though, HP5 usually pushes tremendously well. 1 stop is nothing.

I admit being a total novice when it comes to HP5... but that looks like over-sharpening when viewed at 100%.

Here's a crop from the far right about 1/4 of the way from the top (level with the openings in the fortification):



Those jagged lines around the white spots are either sharpening artifacts, or high-compression JPG artifacts. Or both.

Eventually, I've sent the negatives for a second scan to a more trusted lab. The results are slightly better, I've uploaded them here. Still, I'm not sure if this is the best HP5+ can do.

Peter, when I went back to film photography from digital, like you, I started with lab-scans and lab-processing. As somebody else said, the results from a Noritsu will be extremely hit-and-miss, and very much operator-dependent. In your samples, I see a combination of the following

-highlight clipping - probably due to automatic exposure
-blocked shadows
-oversharpening
-the first set of pictures seem to have a color dominant. Easily verifiable by importing in photoshop and checking whether they're in 'RGB' rather than 'grayscale' colourspace.

I only really started to enjoy my results again when I transitioned to self-scanning and self-developing. It's a long learning process (just as complex as wet lab printing, whatever the purists might say) but once you master the workflow you will get much better results than these.

Another point. You mention you are new to film photography. Why did you decide to push the film? I would say, first learn your chosen film inside out via exposure and processing _strictly_ according to manufacturer's specifications. Then when you master your tools, move on to experimenting with pushing and pulling.

Actually, I've shot a roll of Tri-X and Ilford Pan 400 pushed two stops previously (the latter being very similar to HP5, as I was told), and the image quality was noticeably better. So I was curious were could have things gone wrong - if they did at all.

And yes, my conclusion was the same. Film photography yields the most, when you have control over the entire process.

PeterAgoston said:

Actually, I've shot a roll of Tri-X and Ilford Pan 400 pushed two stops previously (the latter being very similar to HP5, as I was told), and the image quality was noticeably better..

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I see - well, in any case, in my opinion the actual exposure decisions you took played a minor role in what we're seeing. I would say the results here are more due to the digitalisation choices made, perhaps automatically by the Noritsu.

Others have commented on the excessive sharpening. I agree, that's nasty. But there is more. I took the liberty of opening one of your scans in photoshop. The original is on the left. That's an RGB image, hence the colour (bluish in this case?) dominant. You might like or not like that - I personally don't. The grayscale version is top right. The histogram of the grayscale version is bottom right. What you can see immediately is that the highlights are clipped. Of course, we would need to check the negative, first, to understand if they are clipped as a result of your exposure choices or of the chemical processing.

We don't have your negatives, so let's assume that the information is in the negative. I strongly suspect it is.

Then, it is likely that in an effort to preserve detail in the rocks, the scanner software probably did an automatic assessment and decided the highlights were worth losing to save the general tone of the image - an Ansel Adams fan would say that the scanner software 'tried to place the rocks in the foreground in zone V'. If you YOU had done that scan, you would have decided which gray tone to place those rock, and would have perhaps made them darker, in order to save the highlights, that frothy seawater which is now a white indistinct mess.

I in 100% agreement with Albireo, when I was getting back into analog I got a couple of rolls scanned by the lab. It almost made me pack the cameras back up, I've since purchased an Epson flatbed so I can scan 135 and 120 and the difference between what I can get and what the lab gave me is just crazy. Even auto settings in SilverFast without doing much of anything is an extremely good scan compared to anything the lab gave me!

If you're going to be taking the analog shooting seriously, getting a scanner or finding a lab with someone doing more than clicking auto (Or that will rescan for free to fix a poor exposure) is the way to go. I've already paid for a good bit of my scanner by having a lab just develop instead of develop and scan for what I've shot this summer and fall.

They look pretty darn good for EI 800! I've been using HP5 for about 25 years, and always expose it between EI 200-250. But can't really tell if they're grainy on my phone screen... If they are, it's probably because they're underexposed.

I think scanning them in oil or scanning fluid (quite common in highend scans) will be like night & day and would be more like what you were expecting.

I just wouldn't trust any lab or anyone else to develop my film. It's so easy to do. Then you could cater your negs for scanning. HP5 is a lovely film to work with.

Andrew O'Neill said:

I just wouldn't trust any lab or anyone else to develop my film. It's so easy to do. Then you could cater your negs for scanning. HP5 is a lovely film to work with.

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How does one cater the negs for scanning? Appreciate any resources on this.

PeterAgoston said:

Do you guys think this is due to low quality scanning, or is this simply the way HP5 looks? Should I try to send the negatives to a different lab?

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You should learn how the medium works, HP5 in 35mm format, pushed to 800 delivers mostly that. Shot it at "ISO" EI 200 or in 6x7cm MF you will have quite less grain. What developer ?

The scanner used is a very good Noritsu Koki, still an smother depiction and edition could be made, probably.

As you are starting then you may go FP4, Pan F 50, Delta 400, Delta 100, TMax 400 or 100, APX 100, CHS 100. You tokk the film the coarsest grain in the ilford range and the you pushed it to have still more grain.

Start with the film that delivers the grain you want in 35mm with your lab. Don't try to change your Lab, just adapt yourself to the way the Lab works.

I would start using lower ISO film slightly overexposed rather than pushed. In the future you'll develop a good criterion to know what materials you want to use.

Your next step will be developing and scanning your film, but as you don't have an scanner for the moment then developing won't be enough, so I'd recomend you to try other films that deliver what you want, don't push if you don't want that grain, pushing film increases grain.

Let me suggest next, take a roll of next films: Pan F 50, TMX 100, Delta 400 and shot scenes with bracketings, this is also underexposing and overexposing a bit each scene (say) three shots per scene, to see the effects.

MattKing said:

I'm going to disagree with George here. That doesn't look like film grain to me.

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+1

@albireo looks like s/hes nailed it to me. Its showing sharpening and clipping.

Having said that, its actually a cool effect and suits the excellent composition and interesting subject matter but... if youre doing such nice work you need to have your own setup to have total control over your images imho - easier said than done i know with space and budget but im sure everyone here will peer pressure you into doing the right thing and taking your very fine work to the next level!

Mesabound said:

How does one cater the negs for scanning? Appreciate any resources on this.

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You don't - and shouldn't. If you are not blasting your negs to ridiculous levels of overdevelopment (and even then) & have a scanner with competent Dmax, just develop correctly for the grade of paper you normally aim for & they should scan fine - if your basic techniques are ok.