HP5+ Grain

Hello APUG - Although I've surfed passed APUG many times I've never had the courage to post a question on line, but I now have a good reason to do so. I've recently been able to get back in the darkroom and start developing and printing again. I chose HP5+ as my film and DD-X as a film developer, coupled with Agfa RC Glossy developed in Neutol. I've developed the film in DDX for 9 mins at 20'c and the negs look fine - nice contrast. However, when I print them out - even at 7x5 - they look quite grainy. Is this normal for HP5+ or am I doing something wrong. The prints are fine, but I'd just prefer them to be a little smoother (if that makes sense).

I'd be very grateful for any comments on this from others who no doubt have far more experience in this than me.

Thanks

Nick

Nick,
Many have made the observation about grain & HP5+ Anothe developer may help but for finer grain, a slower film I thnk would help more.
I think if you tried a search for HP5+ you would have a bumper crop of info.

You don't say what format you are using so I will assume it is 35mm.

HP5+ is not the finest grain film. To me, it is pleasing and far from objectionable. When I shoot it, I develope it in ID-11.

And as John said, if you are looking for fine grain and "smoothness", try a slwoer film . Give Fp4+ or Pan F+ and ID-11 a try.

HP5

Nick-I would try baking off a little on the developing time. Seems like you're getting a little too much contrast for such a small print. You should also try HP5 with HC-110. I can give you times for 4x5 film. Xtol is lovely at 1:1@75 degrees
for 8 minutes and HC-110 1:63@24 degrees celcius for 10 minutes. Lovely tonality with the HC-110. You know that TriX and HC-110 was the preferred look of Ansel Adams and many others for a long time. I think that this combo is even better. Hope this helped a little
Best, Peter

Welcome. Hp5+ is a good film and I would think DDx would yield pretty fine grain; though I haven't used ddx, I like this film coupled with xtol. If we're talking about 35mm in this speed range my (subjective) opinion is that trix has similar qualities as hp5+ with just a little tighter grain. Have you had a chance to compare?

The developer makes a big difference. Sometimes, I will want the a 'grainy' look. In which case, I develop in Rodinal 1:25 8 minutes at 20'C. For noticibly finer grain, I use Perceptol 1:2 13' at 24'C. In both cases, I expose at ISO 200.

I believe Perceptol would be close to the extreme in terms of a fine grain developer. Just make sure it is diluted (i.e. 1:2) verses using stock or 1:1. Otherwise, sharpness will suffer...

I believe the recommended dilution for perceptol is 1:3 and the times are quite long. But you'll get fine(r) grain and acutance.

Perceptol is Ilford's equivalent of Kodak's Microdol-X. These developers are funny animals. I don't see much point in using them, especially with 35mm format where handheld shooting and speed are often paramount concerns. Undiluted they will give you grain that's as fine as can be expected from HP5+ at the cost of about 1 stop of film speed and some resolving power. Rate your film at EI 200 and things will be ok, but not as sharp as they could be. Start diluting the developer and at 1+3 you get back the resolving power and film speed, but you loose the fine grain. In between dilutions will get you in between results. You'd be much better off choosing a slower film like FP4+ in DD-X. Grain will be finer than anything you can get with HP5+, and resolving power will be much better. The old rules still apply. Faster films = more grain and slower films = less grain. There's no getting around it. Developers have some influence, but the largest contributor to grain size is film speed.

Nick, welcome to the board.

I have used HP5+ quite extensively and as fschifano has stated, you can get vastly different results with different combinations of exposure and developer.

As a general rule I expose HP5+ at 320 ASA and depending on the look I wish to get, I develop it in different dilutions of D76, which is virtually identical to the Ilford ID11 developer.

With undiluted developer, I get smooth almost soft negatives. With 1+1 dilution, I find this is the nicest setting with grain noticeable but not obtrusive. When doing 1+3 dilution, grain starts to show more but it isn't overbearing either.

I use a diffused enlarger head, if you are using an enlarger with a condensor head this may show grain a bit more.

Experiment a bit and ask more questions, you'll get there.

Mick.

Hi,

I like HP5+ a lot but feel the current versions of Tri X or Fuji 400 give equally nice tonality and significantly finer grain. In my experience HP5+ is somewhat sensitive to developer type and temperature and agitation issues. Specifically, if the temperatures of the different solutions including the wash vary more than 2 degrees F or if agitation is more than 4 gentle torsional inversions per minute, graininess increases noticably. My favorite combo for HP5+ is Xtol 1to1 @68 F for 11minutes. I get 8X10 prints from 35MM negs that have excellent acutance and very unobtrusive grain.

Good Luck

Jay L.

I use HP5+ in Perceptol 1:3 all the time (and Microdol-X when Perceptol was gone). I think that most people have their own opinions about how much grain is too much, or too little so you may find a bit of experimentation is in order. Personaly, I kind of like the look of Tri-X and HP5+ used with Perceptol @ 1:3, but others obviously dont. It never hurts to run some controled comparisons of your options and then sit down with the results and see what you think.

Interestingly enough, using stand development I can get really nice negatives with Rodinal and HP5+. Other than Diafine, those are the only developers I've used with that film, but as I said before, everyone's tastes are different in that regard.

Film speed is something that is variable in my opinion, depending on the lighting conditions at the time of exposure, so I can't give you any advice in that regard other than to consider the old adage 'expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights'

- Randy

I just finished developing some negs I shot over the weekend.

HP5+ at 250 developed in ID-11 1+1 for 12 minutes. They are beautiful.

I will post some images when I can.

Hello Nick,
It does not state in your posting whether you rated your film at box speed, but assuming you did, try a test film at 200ASA and cut your dev time by 25% as a starting point. This may well smooth out tones, and reduce apparent graininess for you. It also produces negs that are easier to print with a minimum of dodging or burning.
I have never used DDX with HP5 but the above method produces wonderful results in ID:11 diluted 1:1
Regards, J.B.

I agree that ID11 1:1 is the way to go. If you want guts and grain go for rodinal 1:25.

reellis67 said:

...I think that most people have their own opinions about how much grain is too much, or too little so you may find a bit of experimentation is in order...

Click to expand...

Herein lies the crux of the matter, in my opinion. Your question is a valid one, but it is difficult to answer "properly" without quantifying various aspects of it a little bit more. I know that the ability to do that comes largely from experience, but I think you will get better help if you can provide a bit more informations, such as:
-when you say "too grainy", do you mean compared to other films of that speed(400)? Or is it a matter of just not living up to your expectations as far as grain is concerned, period?
-have you been able to get better results from this film or others (if so, which ones?) before or on different occasions?
-try scanning a print if possible and posting it - while the transformation to pixels is a very flawed way to view a print, it is better than nothing for our purposes.
Without that info, I can only say that I have used HP5+ a fair bit, and it is not my favourite 400 speed film but only due to personal taste and matters of appearance rather than any fault of the film. Actually, since I prefer the traditional emulsions such as HP5 and TriX, and don't want to hand over any more cash to Kodak, I have picked up HP5+ more of late and am trying to find a way to get it the way I want it - and I have to say, with some work on my behalf, I am finding that a large part of what I didn't like about the film was due to the fact that it didn't do it for me "right out of the box" and instead of trying to find a way, I found different films. Now, with some work, I see plenty of potential - and again, keep in mind, that this was always a matter of "I prefer film x" rahter than "HP5+ is a bad film" for whatever reason.
As far as grain, I find that HP5+ has a distinctive look that you either like or do not like, but the size of the grain is by no means out of line with other 400 speed films of this type (for example, I found the - now defunct - APX400 in its last iteration to be just flat out more grainy than others and even I found the grain objectionable, especially in 35mm - not the case with HP5+).
Then again, I am a guy who likes grain - I feel it is akin to the brush strokes and texture of a painting - so please keep that in mind also. That and the fact that I like almost everything in Rodinal...
Well, once more, I have written an essay - sorry about that! Try to post some more info and along with more explorations and experiments on your behalf, I am sure we'll find a good solution.

Peter.

PS I recently souped a roll of 35mm HP5+ (shot at box speed) in Acufine, and found the results to show a lot of promise, relatively fine grain beingone of the results.

To take another tack in response to the question, if fine grain in an ISO 400 film is desirable, another film may be in order. T-grain films (Kodak T-Max 400 and Ilford Delta 400 in this speed) have slightly finer grain than do conventional films such as HP5+ and are therefore worth trying. I personally don't like the look of the grain I get from those films, but that's a matter of personal preference.

Another option is to use a chromogenic (C-41) B&W film. Kodak's BW400CN (or whatever they're calling it this week) and Ilford's XP2 Super are both ISO 400 films that produce a much smoother "feel" than most ISO 400 B&W films. The downside to these films is that, if you want to develop them yourself, you'll need to learn to do C-41 processing. This isn't all that hard, but if you also want to use slower films, you'll need to stock two sets of chemistry. The chromogenic images are also formed by dyes, which might not have the archival qualities of conventional B&W negatives. Kodak's film has an orange mask, but Ilford XP2 Super looks more like a conventional B&W film, with just a faint purple mask. Both can be printed on conventional B&W paper, but the Kodak produce is likely to require longer exposure times and perhaps a slightly higher grade of paper.

HP5 is a bit grainy, but IMHO is not that bad.
DDX does a great job with it, and 9 minutes at 20C seems right on....
Have you cheked your thermometer your temperature maybe off ??

Could you post and example?

Nick Vezey said:

Hello APUG - Although I've surfed passed APUG many times I've never had the courage to post a question on line, but I now have a good reason to do so. I've recently been able to get back in the darkroom and start developing and printing again. I chose HP5+ as my film and DD-X as a film developer, coupled with Agfa RC Glossy developed in Neutol. I've developed the film in DDX for 9 mins at 20'c and the negs look fine - nice contrast. However, when I print them out - even at 7x5 - they look quite grainy. Is this normal for HP5+ or am I doing something wrong. The prints are fine, but I'd just prefer them to be a little smoother (if that makes sense).

I'd be very grateful for any comments on this from others who no doubt have far more experience in this than me.

Thanks

Nick

Click to expand...

Recently, I've been using a lot of HP5+, both 35mm and 120, in an aim to support Ilford. My main developer for it is DD-X with the same times as yours -- 9 mins at 1+4.

The 35mm negs are a bit grainy but not that much worse than other ISO 400 films I've tried. The negs I get are quite smooth with a nice tonality. But I must admit I prefer my old favourite of Neopan 400 in Rodinal and it's this I'm going back to now. I just prefer the punch and slightly gritty nature of Neopan 400. Not as gritty as TriX but more so than HP5+.

I'll be keeping to HP5+ for 120 as I prefer the smoother tones in that size to Neopan 400.

The one thing I do like about HP5+ is that it's very forgiving. Recently, I accidently presoaked my film with water at about 60 - 70 degrees -- I forgot to add cold water to the water out of the hot tap!! Then, in my anxiety I mixed up the dev using 150ml of DD-X and 350ml of water (at 20 degrees this time!), instead of 1+4. The 120 negs were a bit dense, but no great increase in grain and they printed fine at grade 1.5 or 2! I did something similar about 7 years ago with Delta 400 and it was a disaster.

Mike

Nick. I began photographic life on a college evening course not that many years ago, using HP5, Pan F and FP4+ at box speed and ID11 at a 1:1 dilution. The negs and prints were OK but nothing special and I can't say that using progressively finer grain film made things look noticeably better. I have recently tried HP5 at EI 320 as well as FP4+ at EI80 both with Perceptol . The negs and prints didn't seem any better than those at box speed in ID11.
My last set of negs were HP5 at 250 in Perceptol at stock solution. The negs had very fine grain compared to what I'd been used to with ID11 and the prints were easier to print and "sparkled". All were done at Ilford's recommended temp of 20 degrees C and at its recommended agitation.


I cannot offer any scientific explanation as to why they were better but it clearly wasn't my imagination. OK only I have looked at the negs but friends have said how much better the prints look. There has been no change in my print process.

So in my case a change to EI250 and using Perceptol at stock solution has definitely brought about a change for the better. On balance with the advantages of an EI of 250 compared to FP4+ at 80, I think I'll stick to this combination for a while at least.

pentaxuser

I really like HP5 and find it very versatile. For a finer grain and smoother tones I rate it at ISO200 and soup it in ID11(1+1). For a grittier effect I rate it at 800 and soup in Microphen (1+1). I usually shoot on 6x4.5, but have had reasonable results in 35mm. It's all a matter of personal taste - if it works for you do it - if not try something else.

Rob

I have been using HP5+ with PMK. Almost invisible grain in full frame 8X10 35mm prints. Seem very sharp. PMK is nice for those of us who are somewhat sporadic in exposing/processing. Unlimited shelf life. Relatively short times.

John Koehrer said:

Nick,
Many have made the observation about grain & HP5+ Anothe developer may help but for finer grain, a slower film I thnk would help more.
I think if you tried a search for HP5+ you would have a bumper crop of info.

Click to expand...

John,

Thanks for this - I think I'll try FP-4 or Delta 100. I don't want to stray too far from basic combinations as I have no real foundation yet to
build on.

Nick

david b said:

You don't say what format you are using so I will assume it is 35mm.

HP5+ is not the finest grain film. To me, it is pleasing and far from objectionable. When I shoot it, I develope it in ID-11.

And as John said, if you are looking for fine grain and "smoothness", try a slwoer film . Give Fp4+ or Pan F+ and ID-11 a try.

Click to expand...

Thanks David,

I think Fp-4 or Delta 100 will be my next step. I need to try a find a good combination to start with before I start some of the more esoteric options.

Nick

Here are a few links to some of my photos....

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I think it is a great combo and once you learn how to use, you will be very pleased.

I would recommend FP4+ and HP5+ .

Give them both 2/3 of a stop more exposure (ie. 80 and 250) and process in ID-11 1+1.