Ilford XP2 film

Simon R Galley said:

Dear All,

Stone , good luck with your degree, delighted you are going to start printing I hope you love it as much as me and all the other printers here.

We have clearly stated that we wish to re-introduce HARMAN Direct Positive and we are working on it
as always I will update you when I have soemthing of substance to report.

Our technical service do recommend XP2 Super if indeed the final outcome is a scanned only image.

Regards

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited

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This is why I didn't PM Simon, because I knew he would get back when he had the time, thanks Simon!

dorff said:

Yes, I got that. But I believe the market for that would be so insignificantly small that it would never justify the existence of this material. It is the pinhole and LF photography crowd that would drive most sales. It is not coincidence that Harman bundled the direct positive paper with their pinhole camera kits.

As for B/W positives, I struggle to see how they would substitute for E6 and how that relates to B/W printing. Nobody I know of starts with colour slide film to specifically end up with black and white prints. There are better ways to get black and white prints if that is your end goal, and even colour negative film offers a better starting point. Chrome prints are out of the equation, so is direct positive B/W paper (for the time being, at least). That said, nothing prevents anyone from doing B/W reversal - I just see limited use for it apart from projection. I am aware of DR5 and the claimed advantages, which seem to make sense in a digital post-process, but not for traditional darkroom printing.

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I think you misunderstood me, or at least inferred some things I didn't mean to imply. I know that using the direct positive paper to print from B&W transparencies, assuming it worked reasonably well, would be a marginal and limited market use at best, but it's still an intriguing idea, to me at least, since I'm wanting to experiment with black and white slides. And I certainly don't think reversal processing of B&W is a "replacement for E6" at least for the vast majority of photographers who don't seem to shoot for projection anymore. I think they mostly shoot E6 now for scanning and hybrid printing. But I do shoot for projection. Specifically, I participate in some group activities I document all year on slide film, and then when we have an end of year winter holiday party and recap my slide shows have become traditional. When/if I can no longer do them on E6, I may try black and white. And, for that matter, I like black and white and would like to shoot some for projection now. So if I'm projecting why would I want to print? Well you never know when you'll get a shot made for projection from which you'll also want to print. I could scan the negative and output via ink jet or lightjet, but if I could wet print it I'd like that better.

This would, I agree, be a tiny niche, but it's something that interests me personally.

Roger Cole said:

This would, I agree, be a tiny niche, but it's something that interests me personally.

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Hi Roger, no, I did not misunderstand you. Like you, I am also intrigued by the possibilities of direct positive paper, and the prospect of being able to print directly from slides, be they monochrome or not, is something I hope we will still have some time in the future. The orthochromatic nature of the Harman DP paper is slightly problematic for printing from colour slides, since essentially reds will turn into blacks and skies will burn out. One could temper this with some colour filtration, but not to the extent necessary to achieve an even panchromatic response with reasonable exposure times. But this is off-topic.

I agree that B/W slides have a place in terms of projection, and as part of a digital workflow. But we started out on the subject of XP2 Super, which apparently is blue and not grey as a positive developed in E6. That impacts the projection use (for better or worse). As far as I'm concerned, whether I start with a blue positive or grey negative and scan into a digital workflow would make little difference, but for printing directly, it is worth considering that paper is most sensitive to blue, and this may cause contrast issues if your film is a blue-based image. In that case it could make more sense to use a silver-based film rather than a chromogenic one. I hope someone has enough Harman DP stashed somewhere to try it for us.

The other possibility is replacing the CD-3 in E6 with CD-4, but following the rest of the E6 pathway to achieve a reversal. In theory, shouldn't that allow the correct dyes to form, that will be black rather than dark blue? That should then give you a straight grey positive instead of a blue one.

Ah yeah I see. I don't worry too much about the original topic. I find that kind of consistency another hobgoblin of little minds, but I'm in a bit of a minority.

I can see how a blue tint could work well for some slides, say snow scenes or some water, but maybe not for general use. I wouldn't have thought of mixing my own E6 from scratch but that's an idea, probably no harder than getting the stuff together for B&W reversal. I have no idea about forming black dyes by using CD-4. Is that a key difference between C41 and E6 developers? Could you just use C41 color developer followed by E6 bleach, reversal etc?

Roger Cole said:

Ah yeah I see. I don't worry too much about the original topic. I find that kind of consistency another hobgoblin of little minds, but I'm in a bit of a minority.

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It has nothing to do with little-mindedness, and everything with staying on topic for the sake of others that follow the thread or look for information at a later stage. We can agree to differ on this point.

Roger Cole said:

I have no idea about forming black dyes by using CD-4. Is that a key difference between C41 and E6 developers? Could you just use C41 color developer followed by E6 bleach, reversal etc?

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I am not a chemist, but as I understand the chemistry of colour films, the dye is formed via the reaction of the dye couplers with the colour developer, which is CD-3 for slide film and CD-4 for colour negative film. The dye that is formed depends on the combination of dye coupler and colour developer, hence using different colour developers for different film types. When you cross-process film, you intentionally marry the wrong dye coupler and colour developer to give weird colours. A key difference between reversal film and colour negative is, logically, the reversal bit. So E6 has the extra steps of removing the first silver image, then fogging and redeveloping the remainder of the silver halide, before the rest of the process runs more or less the same as C-41. I asked because I don't know the rest of the chemistry well enough to know whether there are subtle differences that will affect the dye formation. So the question still stands: Does E6 processing with CD-4 instead of CD-3 on XP2 Super give a black and white slide? Or some other colour? My understanding is that the Fuji 400CN chromogenic film, which is also manufactured by Ilford, has a more neutral base than XP2 Super. Which, if the case, would make it the better option for 35 mm slides.

dorff said:

It has nothing to do with little-mindedness, and everything with staying on topic for the sake of others that follow the thread or look for information at a later stage. We can agree to differ on this point.

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Also, apparently, on what constitutes humor.

Still, I like to see threads as conversations, which start one way and meander where they happen to go.

If you have blue slides, would a light yellow filter in the slide projector solve the problem?

I used a little XP1 20 years or so ago, and it was convenient in a pinch. XP2 Super is much better and I have started using it again recently. It scans marvelously, but the main reason I use it is its latitude. I use it in old cameras with limited or "untested" shutters and sometimes limited apertures. The film has such good overexposure latitude that I can use it very casually when guessing exposures. It's sharp, smooth and mostly grainless, and responds to filtration much the same as "normal" b&w film. I'll be buying it regularly.

Developing is the easiest part of B&W photography for me. Printing is what takes the time. Having to go out and get C-41 development is much less convenient way for me to obtain negatives for darkroom printing. In the past I have shot XP2 and got minilab prints and the results were actually pretty good; seemingly better than color minilab prints because at least I didn't have to gripe about the colors being wrong, and there was surprisingly small amount of color cast in the prints.

In the old days of XP1 I would buy Ilford's XP1 kit for development. It came in a box and had everything you needed to develop your XP1 film. I still have a box from those times, but doubt it's any good. There were a few articles in the old Darkroom Techniques that dealt with XP1 or maybe XP2 development with developers like Rodinal, but I don't remember much about those articles. The only way I would start using XP2+/Super is if I could do all the processing myself. I might check into this later in the summer, but just a little busy now. JW

Macodirect.de is selling a product called "Imago Postitive Paper RC". No idea how similar it is to Harman's DPP, but it uses standard paper chemicals according to the sales page.

BetterSense said:

Developing is the easiest part of B&W photography for me. Printing is what takes the time. Having to go out and get C-41 development is much less convenient way for me to obtain negatives for darkroom printing. In the past I have shot XP2 and got minilab prints and the results were actually pretty good; seemingly better than color minilab prints because at least I didn't have to gripe about the colors being wrong, and there was surprisingly small amount of color cast in the prints.

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It's true it's easy but it's time consuming. I have 20+ rolls and at least a dozen sheets backlooged in my fridge now, some old enough I'm worried about the latent images even with cold storage (in ziplocks with silica packets, never had an issue from that.) And I, and plenty of others, have a Jobo so C41 is intrinsically no more difficult than regular black and white and actually often faster given the development time, but I would have to stock the chems.

I understand totally what you are saying but especially for someone who shoots 35mm and still has access to a local lab that will do it cheaply, it can be an advantage (also for those with no darkroom at all who want to shoot B&W film and work in hybrid mode - conventional black and white developing is a lot harder to find and often more expensive if you don't do it yourself.)

Arctic amateur said:

Macodirect.de is selling a product called "Imago Positive Paper RC". No idea how similar it is to Harman's DPP, but it uses standard paper chemicals according to the sales page.

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see this thread for similarity:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

BetterSense said:

Developing is the easiest part of B&W photography for me. Printing is what takes the time. Having to go out and get C-41 development is much less convenient way for me to obtain negatives for darkroom printing. In the past I have shot XP2 and got minilab prints and the results were actually pretty good; seemingly better than color minilab prints because at least I didn't have to gripe about the colors being wrong, and there was surprisingly small amount of color cast in the prints.

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Well actually their calibration was off a bit if you got a color cast. Minilabs typically print to color paper.

But that knife can cut both ways. One of the interesting "perks" of printing B&W films to color paper is that you can dial in your "toning" preference (the color cast) if you please.

Mainecoonmaniac said:

With all these positive postings, I might give XP2 a try.

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I recently started with XP2 Super and Digibase C-41 developer kit. Developing isn't that much more trouble than standard B&W, just make sure your thermometer is reasonably precise
The reward is certain, smooth prints, beautiful highlights, and rich grey tones.
You should give it a try
Peter