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ILFORD XP2 Super 400

@albireo The granularity characteristics you describe are exactly as they should be for a chromogenic film. The effect of the long shoulder is quite noticeable in terms of steadily compressing highlight densities (thus making them more easily printable, if a little muddier - a trade-off that everyone has to make decisions about) - and well controlled highlight densities often render a yellow filter moot anyway.
 
This summer in Alsace...

Suzuki Optical Co. Press Van • Asahi Kogaku Takumar 1:3.5 F=75mm
Ilford XP2 Super 400 @100 ISO developed in Caffenol CLCS 70min stand @ 15-20°C
Scanned with Plustek OpticFilm 120 at 2400dpi with Silverfast AI Studio 9

Écomusée d'Alsace
Ungersheim • Haut-Rhin • Alsace • France



Caffenol CL
500 ml Filtered Water
8gr Anhydrous Washing Soda
5gr Vitamin C
0.5gr KBr
20gr Instant coffee ("Cora")
10 inversions then let stand for 70 minutes
 

Thanks Lachlan. I have to say I quite like the effect of that highlight compression. It seems to nicely render fine highlight detail in high contrast scenes, which is something that I enjoy capturing quite a bit.

A couple more examples below - this time Winter sun, early afternoon. Fuji GA645i 6x4.5 camera. XP2+ exposed as per leaflet, exposure via Sekonic incident meter and standard development in Tetenal C41. Linear negative scan followed by inversion and gamma correction. No local tonal adjustment or digital dodging/burning in post-processing.

This thread got me interested again in XP2+ so thank you everyone. Just placed an order for 20 rolls, hopefully Ilford keeps making this stuff for a long time.



 
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Lachlan Young said:
@albireo ... and well controlled highlight densities often render a yellow filter moot anyway.
Click to expand...

True ! I rarely use XP2 with filters and get beautiful skies in most cases.

albireo said:
A couple more examples below - this time Winter sun, early afternoon. Fuji GA645i 6x4.5 camera. XP2+ exposed as per leaflet
Click to expand...

Again excellent results here - and not to forget the Fuji GA645 series cameras are great tools !
 
macfred said:
Again excellent results here - and not to forget the Fuji GA645 series cameras are great tools !
Click to expand...

Thank you Macfred. I really like my GA645. I will be sad when/if eventually dies, I suspect I won't be able to get it fixed.
 
albireo said:
Thank you Macfred. I really like my GA645. I will be sad when/if eventually dies, I suspect I won't be able to get it fixed.
Click to expand...

We better knock on wood - my GAZi died about two years ago - GA645 and GA645Wi still running flawlessly ...


FUJI GA645 - EBC Fujinon 60mm/ f4 - XP2 Super in C-41
 
albireo said:
This thread got me interested again in XP2+ so thank you everyone. Just placed an order for 20 rolls, hopefully Ilford keeps making this stuff for a long time.
Click to expand...

Super! Have fun!

fs999 said:
This summer in Alsace...
Suzuki Optical Co. Press Van • Asahi Kogaku Takumar 1:3.5 F=75mm
Ilford XP2 Super 400 @100 ISO developed in Caffenol CLCS 70min stand @ 15-20°C
Click to expand...

Makes an interesting comparison with C41 processed high contrast scenes. TFS.
 
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macfred said:
We better knock on wood - my GAZi died about two years ago - GA645 and GA645Wi still running flawlessly ...

View attachment 289418
FUJI GA645 - EBC Fujinon 60mm/ f4 - XP2 Super in C-41
Click to expand...

Again - superb! In your experience is there a normal, non C41 film that will somehow approximate the subtle highlight tonal gradations XP2+ produces in C41? Based on Lachlan's comment, I guess my question should be rephrased as: which black and white film currently in production (if any) has a long shoulder approximating XP2+?
 

You might want to take a look at Orwo's UN54/ Lomo Potsdam Kino - though the only curve I can immediately find is for Orwo's D-96 equivalent.
 
This is where you shouldn`t be asking about a film, but rather about a film and developer combination.
In which case you should expect to here from:
1) pyro developer fans; and
2) replenished X-Tol - in my case, with T-Max 400.
 
Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
Developing XP2 Super in B&W chemistry can be helpful here.

p.s. Looks like someone deleted all the scanning related posts from this thread except that of the moderator which triggered the scanning discussion.
Click to expand...
Yes, I can see that extended B&W development could raise negative contrast.
 
MattKing said:
This is where you shouldn`t be asking about a film, but rather about a film and developer combination.
Click to expand...
Not quite.
A coupler based chromogenic film yields for its design means on contrast control that no sillver-image film has.
 
AgX said:
A coupler based chromogenic film yields for its design means on contrast control that no sillver-image film has.
Click to expand...

Hey @AgX, what're these means of contrast control in chromogenic film? Would you mind elaborating?

@RalphLambrecht's Way Beyond Monochrome book has a chapter on sensitometry of XP2 Super in C41 process. It's the only reliable source of user generated sensitometry data I've found for XP2 Super. The only contrast control mechanism they discuss is varying the development time. So I wonder what are the other means of contrast control in chromogenic films that you're talking about.

Thanks in advance.
 
You got coupled to two image forming systems. The halide system which is sensitive amd image forming, the dye system is only image forming. The combination of both gives the emulsion designer means to play with. This was the reason why Agfa and Ilford chose to bring colour film technology into the b&w white field.
 

You could engineer a material to behave like this (Delta 3200 in solvent developers does something not altogether dissimilar) - it would require the slow emulsion(s) to produce strong inhibition effects, but those can be very developer dependent - especially if the developer is not solvent/ active enough to access and release the inhibitors in the emulsion(s) - along with whether the developer has the right ingredients/ ingredient balance to produce inhibition effects. As C-41 can use specific couplers that have strong inhibiting effects (DIR, DIAR etc - they also play a significant role in the grain:speed advantages of C-41) it is probably more straightforward to produce the effect as long as people don't go off-label with their developer choice. For what it's worth, inhibition effects seem to be able to deliver much better (or at least more controllable) sharpness than any from metol exhaustion etc.
 
So, I needed to test a couple of film cameras, (Nikon FM) & ( Konica AS2) rangefinder and decided to try my first roll of XP2 Super 400. I exposed it from ISO 200 to ISO 800 and was very pleased with the results. Here's one with the Konica. IIRC at 1/500 sec f/11 ISO 400

 
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  • Acere
  • Deleted
  • Reason: to make changes
Merged two threads per Acere's request
 
I noticed this film gets considerably grainy when shot at ISO 800 and slightly underexposed.

 
Acere said:
I noticed this film gets considerably grainy when shot at ISO 800 and slightly underexposed.
Click to expand...

This appears to be the look of a very underexposed scanned negative, probably 2-3 stops under. I guess even XP2 is not that miraculous
 
By my metering it was about one stop under. All were scanned the same at my local lab. Personally, I like the results, specially the convenience of having it developed locally with C41.

 
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