Ilford XP-2 film

Herzeleid · Jan 28, 2009

Well, It is a kind of repeat of other posts. Xp2 is really fine grained, prints look good, scans great.
I really like this film's grain, sharpness and tonality, I wish there is a similar film in terms of grain that can be developed in bw chemicals.
C41 is an advantage as well as a disadvantage.
You can not do expose for shadows and develop for highlights thing. You can not compensate underexposure in the development and underexposed XP2 negs look awful, horrible. Giving your negatives to a lab is a risk. In my experience noritsu machines scratched lots of my XP2 negatives. If you do C41 dev. yourself it would be safer.
Again, I really like this film but I don't trust the commercial labs so I would pick Hp5+ or tri-x over XP2 anytime unless I develop it myself.

wogster · Jan 28, 2009

Herzeleid said:
Well, It is a kind of repeat of other posts. Xp2 is really fine grained, prints look good, scans great.
I really like this film's grain, sharpness and tonality, I wish there is a similar film in terms of grain that can be developed in bw chemicals.
C41 is an advantage as well as a disadvantage.
You can not do expose for shadows and develop for highlights thing. You can not compensate underexposure in the development and underexposed XP2 negs look awful, horrible. Giving your negatives to a lab is a risk. In my experience noritsu machines scratched lots of my XP2 negatives. If you do C41 dev. yourself it would be safer.
Again, I really like this film but I don't trust the commercial labs so I would pick Hp5+ or tri-x over XP2 anytime unless I develop it myself.

The whole point of using a C41 film is that you can dump it at the local mini-lab and let them deal with it. If a lab machine scratches negatives it's because the operator is careless, either careless in handling the film, or careless in making sure the machine is cleaned and maintained properly. Figure that if they aren't taking care of the machine, they probably aren't taking care of the chemistries either. Last time I got scratched negs from a machine, I complained to the manager, I also never went back to that lab again.

If your going to process yourself, then unless your home processing colour as well, it's better to use traditional B&W film and chemistries.

Herzeleid · Jan 28, 2009

wogster said:
The whole point of using a C41 film is that you can dump it at the local mini-lab and let them deal with it. If a lab machine scratches negatives it's because the operator is careless, either careless in handling the film, or careless in making sure the machine is cleaned and maintained properly. Figure that if they aren't taking care of the machine, they probably aren't taking care of the chemistries either. Last time I got scratched negs from a machine, I complained to the manager, I also never went back to that lab again.

I agree, the reason why picking a c41 film. But these mini-labs don't care what did you shoot or how important it is for you. May be they developed 100 films that day and the 101th is your film. End of the day the chemicals are exhausted and the film is ruined. That's the risk that I was saying.

wogster said:
If your going to process yourself, then unless your home processing colour as well, it's better to use traditional B&W film and chemistries.

It is all about tastes, may be someone would pick XP2 over any other traditional B&W films and chooses to do it at home and do no color film at all. Who knows?

wogster · Jan 29, 2009

Herzeleid said:
I agree, the reason why picking a c41 film. But these mini-labs don't care what did you shoot or how important it is for you. May be they developed 100 films that day and the 101th is your film. End of the day the chemicals are exhausted and the film is ruined. That's the risk that I was saying.

It is all about tastes, may be someone would pick XP2 over any other traditional B&W films and chooses to do it at home and do no color film at all. Who knows?

Most mini-lab systems use some form of replenishment, and can actually go months or years without exhausting them chemistries. However once in a while it's a good idea to dump everything and throughly clean the machine and tanks.

The one time I tried processing C41 I found it a pain in the mule, it needed to be heated to a high temperature, had to be maintained in a very tiny range, you needed to mix large quantities of working solutions which would expire within a short period of time....

Ian Grant · Jan 29, 2009

C41 is very easy at home, also quick and simple, certainly no harder than B&W. It's no big eal keeping the chemistry up to temperature for such short times. Buy the right kit and just make up what you need.

Ian

wogster · Jan 29, 2009

Ian Grant said:
C41 is very easy at home, also quick and simple, certainly no harder than B&W. It's no big eal keeping the chemistry up to temperature for such short times. Buy the right kit and just make up what you need.

Ian

The time I tried it, you could get a 1L kit for $25 (probably about $100 in todays money), the developer was 5 small bottles, one of which were only about 5ml in size, so you couldn't mix up a part batch, and the stuff was good as a working solution for about 72 hours, so the only way to make it economical was to save up enough rolls to do in 1L of chemistry, and do them all within a day or two. Maybe it's changed, that was 1982 after all. Keeping the chemicals within ½℃ of 38℃ isn't always easy when the darkroom is barely 10℃

B&W always just seemed to work, and you have all the advantages of playing with development.

alan doyle · Jan 29, 2009

hello guys i am new here...
i love ilford xp2 super and i love the company...they listen..which i always think is a good thing..
kodak and fuji makes this type of film..fuji is good but thats because they used ilford technology..
this is a very mature product for ilford so they rule here.
i always try to use a better quality lab for processing..but have had good results with crummy places as well..it is pretty bullet proof exposure wise...rating some frames at 100 or 1000asa and still pulling usable shots out..
here is something nobody would have ever seen...
i did a bbc doc years ago and used some custom loads of super 8 film...the walking shot is the stunning and extinct agfa apx 25 and the mini interview is xp2..press hd on you tube to see better quality and bear in mind this is super 8 size film..
this upload looks crap but the original broadcast tapes looked fantastic...would have loved to have shot those 2 films in 16mm..
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0o2FGm_FyXs

bob100684 · Feb 2, 2009

daleeman said:
I finally found the images I wanted to share of the Kodak version of the B&W film that runs in C-41. This was shot with my M-2 with the 35mm sumacron. This was what made me think I would like to try the Ilford x-2 super.

It could be that this film was old and mistreated, considering the source, CVS drug store, but it was in date on the box.

Take a look at this and see if this is normal for that kind of film? Does one think I would get better results out of the Ilford film?

Lee

Something looks wrong. Are these images scans from prints that you made? or scans from the lab?

bob100684 · Feb 2, 2009

Herzeleid said:
I agree, the reason why picking a c41 film. But these mini-labs don't care what did you shoot or how important it is for you. May be they developed 100 films that day and the 101th is your film. End of the day the chemicals are exhausted and the film is ruined. That's the risk that I was saying.

It is all about tastes, may be someone would pick XP2 over any other traditional B&W films and chooses to do it at home and do no color film at all. Who knows?

No understanding of how a minilab works. Chemicals are replenished at a set rate for consistent results. Your film will receive equally good developing at the end of the day as it will at the beginning.

Herzeleid · Feb 3, 2009

bob100684 said:
No understanding of how a minilab works. Chemicals are replenished at a set rate for consistent results. Your film will receive equally good developing at the end of the day as it will at the beginning.

In a perfect world, yes.

Mark Antony · Feb 3, 2009

Well I'd say unless your replenishment pump is broken you should get consistent results. I used to test our pump output every morning while the control strips went though, I think from memory we replenished 20-30ml per film.
Test strips went though 3 times a day, circulation pumps and filters checked/changed weekly.
With modern minilabs the films are sensed automatically, rep is automatically measured, it is impossible to load films with the rep tanks dry as an alarm goes off. The temprerature is the same too high or low and alarms and no work can get through.
Some of the more advanced machines self clean with spray jets.
Yes it is certainly possible to get poor processing, and that would mean you lab was not a good one, a modicum of care will yield good consistent results.

I think there is a culture of 'blame the lab first' and as a former lab owner I've seen all sorts of photographer errors blamed on the lab, my favourite being it's blurred because you dropped the film
Good labs give good results find one and support it.

tim_walls · Feb 3, 2009

Mark Antony said:
I think there is a culture of 'blame the lab first' and as a former lab owner I've seen all sorts of photographer errors blamed on the lab, my favourite being it's blurred because you dropped the film
Good labs give good results find one and support it.

Personally, I'd trust a minilab to get consistent results far more than I trust myself to. Obviously I do my best, but equally I've read the Kodak process monitoring documentation and I can safely say a lab doing all that has a far better handle on its process than I ever will! (Obviously, I don't use a replenishment system which avoids much of the headache, but the point remains that unless you're regularly processing test strips and measuring your output you can't even know whether or not your output is consistent; I wonder how many home-colour-developers even own a set of control strips.)

On the other hand, there is a big psychological difference between handing over your film and having someone else bugger it up (which can of course always happen,) and buggering it up yourself. The first is an outrage ("I'll never use minilabs again!") and the second is a learning experience ("I'm going to remember not to do that again...")

Of course, the main reason I DIY my own E6 (and C41 for that matter, but I hardly ever shoot C41 so it's mainly E6) is that it avoids the embarrassment factor of paying good money to a professional lab only for them to see how bad my photography actually is and wonder "who is this muppet?"

hoffy · Feb 3, 2009

tim_walls said:
Of course, the main reason I DIY my own E6 (and C41 for that matter, but I hardly ever shoot C41 so it's mainly E6) is that it avoids the embarrassment factor of paying good money to a professional lab only for them to see how bad my photography actually is and wonder "who is this muppet?"

I knew this is why I decided to take up this home processing malarkey!

Paul Verizzo · Feb 3, 2009

It's the human element at the minilabs. Sort of like modern airplanes, disaster is hardly ever a mechanical malfunction. The minilabs are designed so that idiots can get consistent results. However, because idiots often run the minilab now, they do idiotic things like ignore "DO NOT CUT!!" instructions marked all over the envelope with Sharpie marker, the canister with masking tape and marker, and on the film leader.......

Sigh.

Ilford XP-2 film

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