ILFORD XP2 Super 400

Roger Cole · Aug 12, 2022

I've been sending all my color to Dwayne's since I did a "farewell to Kodachrome" in 2010 after learning too late about its discontinuance to buy new from regular sources and having to buy off eBay all the Kodachrome I could find and afford and sending that there. I've never had an issue (other than the usual and universal four frame strips they cut 35mm into) with their processing as such. Their scans were never very good but now that I have a v700 I expect to do my own scanning too, for quick proofing and for any color printing, unless I get a wild notion to get back into RA4 printing.

I taught myself B&W darkroom starting about age 10-12 or so to the great bemusement of my country folk parents wonder whose child this was, which would have been about 1973-75, and was the yearbook photographer my senior year of high school, 1981. Not that far off.

Lachlan Young · Aug 12, 2022

Donald Qualls said:
The point of chromogenic B&W films is that ordinary "point & shoot" users can shoot black and white without having to pay extra and wait longer for processing

With the XP1/2/2 Super series, it's a side benefit, not the main aim. The real intention was/ is to exploit characteristics of chromogenic couplers that allow significant enhancements in terms of speed/ grain/ sharpness/ latitude/ actual real-world highlight compensation.

Anon Ymous · Sep 29, 2023

Eugen Mezei said:
What is bleach bypass?

Skipping bleach and going to the fixing stage. The metallic silver developed in the first stage remains as is, along with the dye image.

foc · Sep 29, 2023

Eugen Mezei said:
Their first, the T400CN has no mask

Off the top of my head, I can't remember the T400CN but I do remember the BW400CN having the orange mask.

I had a look at the T400CN technical data sheet and this is what Kodak said about the film.

"The appearance is similar to color negative films, but with much lower D-min or base density. The film base of these processed negatives will appear light brown to orange. This is normal, and will not affect the image quality or printing characteristics."

Steven Lee · Oct 2, 2023

I finally finished my 100ft roll of XP2+ Super. And I will never be using it again. Before I list my reasons for disliking the film, I will make the mandatory acknowledgement of user skill/error and other YMMV bits. And now here are my reasons to stay away from it:

If you expose and develop it the same way as any other color negative ISO 400 film, you will end up with rough shadow grain and high contrast in all but the flattest lighting conditions. While the highlights will be remarkably smooth, the shadows look really nasty. The base+fog density is quite high and perhaps its a contributing factor. On the recent vacation I exposed the last 6 rolls of it, often side-by-side with Delta 100 and Portra 160. The results were not pretty: zones 2-4 look rough, then you have a compressed mid-range, and the highlight density shoots up quickly but never really 100% blocks. It works better on scenes that are brightly lit with minimum shadows. If you take advantage of its highlights-compressing ability the result can look really neat, but you get the same look if you just over-expose a regular CN film and properly convert to B&W. You will get more tonal range and less grain for the same price.

In most situations you'll need +2EV exposure compensation to minimize that harsh look. Essentially this is an ISO 100 film which competes with Delta 100 or TMX. But Delta 100 is far sharper and finer grained. And you get to deploy the usual B&W development tricks to expand/compress the range.

I also suspect that one can get better results from XP2+ by exposing it as ISO 100 film and also pulling or developing at a lower temperature. But this would require developing it separately from all other chromogenic films which is too much pain for me. And finally, I am noticing that the emulsion itself is more fragile and prone to scratching. In that sense it's similar to Fomapan films.

TLDR:

Not really compatible with C-41. I think it requires pulling to tame high contrast and expand the range.
You must pick: rough ISO 400 grain or ISO 100 speed
Low acutance when over-exposed
High price

Basically I see no point in using XP2+. When you do need true ISO 400 speed something like Delta 400 or TMY will work better. If you need chromogenic latitude, shoot Portra and convert to B&W. And if you need super fine grain, shoot ISO 100 T-grain B&W films. I think whoever said that the only point of it is to allow consumers to get B&W photos from 1-hr minilabs is true. That is not my use case.

[EDIT] Regarding the price: it used to be more expensive than Delta 100 but not anymore. So perhaps that point is no longer valid or geo-dependant.

Below is the typical example. +1EV compensation, center-weighted metering. The highlights are on the verge of being completely blown out, while the shadows are still crushed. Giving it more light would not have helped. Meanwhile the light is fairly soft, the sun is behind a cloud. From the lighting perspective this scene is quite manageable and it would have looked much better on Delta 400. This is also quite noticeable when you look at a linear histogram while scanning. This film just doesn't hold much range!

Roger Cole · Oct 3, 2023

Wow. Totally unlike any results I have EVER seen with XP2+. I actually really like the stuff.

If you see more grain and higher contrast than you like you don't need to develop differently, just expose more. I've always thought it was best shot at EI 200. And one of the beauties of it, and why I use it in fixed exposure cameras (especially since they're set for bright sun at 100 and I almost never shoot in bright sun, almost always lower light) is that it's almost impossible to overexpose it, or at least to expose it too much to the point that the highlights block and prints don't look good, and it becomes less, not more, grainy with more exposure like C41 color, and unlike conventional black and white. It WORKS fine at EI 100, but in my experience doesn't remotely NEED that much exposure. 200 seems optimum, 400 is just fine, and 800 is often acceptable. I don't buy Ilford's claim that it's usable beyond that though.

Oh, "shoot Portra and convert to black and white" is basically impossible for those of us doing darkroom printing. In the old days the last iteration of Kodak Panalure was actually pretty good but even then only in RC Glossy in one contrast grade. Printing color negatives on regular black and white paper is no good. The lack of sensitivity to red results in not only skewed tonal relationships but the appearance of awful grain as well.

But different strokes and all that.

"Convert to black and white" is simply not an option for us darkroom printing folks. It CAN be done, I'm sure, by making a duplicate negative on regular black and white film, but that's WAY more hassle and basically not worth it.

pentaxuser · Oct 3, 2023

I have only used it once because it's easier to home process trad b&w films but my negs looked OK and in all the test I have seen XP2 Super being put through I never noticed the issues that Steven has. Up to 800 it seems a pretty versatile film which can be developed at the standard 3 mins 15 secs

At 1600 Ian Grant recommends increasing dev time to 3 mins 45 secs but this was, he says, a better combo that trad b&w for scenes requiring 1600

However if a film doesn't meet a person's requirements then it doesn't meet them. It's as simple as that isn't it?

pentaxuser

albireo · Oct 3, 2023

Steven Lee said:
I finally finished my 100ft roll of XP2+ Super. And I will never be using it again. Before I list my reasons for disliking the film, I will make the mandatory acknowledgement of user skill/error and other YMMV bits. And now here are my reasons to stay away from it:

If you expose and develop it the same way as any other color negative ISO 400 film, you will end up with rough shadow grain and high contrast in all but the flattest lighting conditions. While the highlights will be remarkably smooth, the shadows look really nasty. The base+fog density is quite high and perhaps its a contributing factor. On the recent vacation I exposed the last 6 rolls of it, often side-by-side with Delta 100 and Portra 160. The results were not pretty: zones 2-4 look rough, then you have a compressed mid-range, and the highlight density shoots up quickly but never really 100% blocks. It works better on scenes that are brightly lit with minimum shadows. If you take advantage of its highlights-compressing ability the result can look really neat, but you get the same look if you just over-expose a regular CN film and properly convert to B&W. You will get more tonal range and less grain for the same price.

In most situations you'll need +2EV exposure compensation to minimize that harsh look. Essentially this is an ISO 100 film which competes with Delta 100 or TMX. But Delta 100 is far sharper and finer grained. And you get to deploy the usual B&W development tricks to expand/compress the range.

I also suspect that one can get better results from XP2+ by exposing it as ISO 100 film and also pulling or developing at a lower temperature. But this would require developing it separately from all other chromogenic films which is too much pain for me. And finally, I am noticing that the emulsion itself is more fragile and prone to scratching. In that sense it's similar to Fomapan films.

TLDR:

Not really compatible with C-41. I think it requires pulling to tame high contrast and expand the range.

You must pick: rough ISO 400 grain or ISO 100 speed

Low acutance when over-exposed

High price

Basically I see no point in using XP2+. When you do need true ISO 400 speed something like Delta 400 or TMY will work better. If you need chromogenic latitude, shoot Portra and convert to B&W. And if you need super fine grain, shoot ISO 100 T-grain B&W films. I think whoever said that the only point of it is to allow consumers to get B&W photos from 1-hr minilabs is true. That is not my use case.

[EDIT] Regarding the price: it used to be more expensive than Delta 100 but not anymore. So perhaps that point is no longer valid or geo-dependant.

Below is the typical example. +1EV compensation, center-weighted metering. The highlights are on the verge of being completely blown out, while the shadows are still crushed. Giving it more light would not have helped. Meanwhile the light is fairly soft, the sun is behind a cloud. From the lighting perspective this scene is quite manageable and it would have looked much better on Delta 400. This is also quite noticeable when you look at a linear histogram while scanning. This film just doesn't hold much range!

View attachment 350344

I've only used it in 120, and it's a wonderful, unique film. I wonder if it's a slightly different product in 35mm? I don't recognise the product I have used at all from the above description or example.

The only poor results I've seen around (and by this I mean results that IMHO don't showcase the full potential of the film) are from when it gets developed in B/W chemistry. Looks like a different beast altogether.

In fact this thread reminds me to buy a few dozens rolls. I just can't get that trademark highlight detail from any other film I use.

Lachlan Young · Oct 3, 2023

albireo said:
I've only used it in 120, and it's a wonderful, unique film. I wonder if it's a slightly different product in 35mm? I don't recognise the product I have used at all from the above description or example.

The only poor results I've seen around, perhaps even worse than the above, is when it gets developed in B/W chemistry. Looks like a different beast altogether.

In fact this thread reminds me to buy a few dozens rolls. I just can't get that trademark highlight detail from any other film I use.

Same stuff in 35mm and 120. I've had the same results across as you across both formats. It does change character significantly as you add exposure and is definitely fully C-41 compatible.

It has a pretty sharp toe, like most general purpose 400 speed films, but if you expose up the scale to open shadows, the DIR couplers kick in harder to restrain highlight contrast/ density, thus the long highlight roll-off. Developing in regular B&W doesn't make the couplers form, thus no DIR/ coupler effects etc.

As a result people either complain about 'poor' shadow detail, because of how they are used to (mis-)using normal BW neg stocks, or if they overexpose it, they complain about the highlights being flatter than they expected, so they punch in contrast either in the darkroom or photoshop, then complain that has crunched the shadows. Ironically, it's the one B&W film that actually delivers real-world 'compensation' effects - yet, funnily enough, all those who obsess over various half-baked 'compensating' developers often put a remarkable amount of effort into denial about XP2...

pentaxuser · Oct 3, 2023

Lachlan Young said:
Ironically, it's the one B&W film that actually delivers real-world 'compensation' effects - yet, funnily enough, all those who obsess over various half-baked 'compensating' developers often put a remarkable amount of effort into denial about XP2...

Can you say which of the "half-baked" compensating developers come under this label of "half-baked" and which work OK and why?

Thanks

pentaxuser

foc · Oct 3, 2023

This thread got me thinking back to when chromogenic film was first introduced and how they were advertised. I remember being amazed at the Agfa idea of shooting on the same film any ASA/ISO from 125 to 1600.

I did try it with Vario XL at the time and was duly impressed with the results. (that was back in the early 1980s)

Steven Lee · Oct 3, 2023

Lachlan Young said:
It has a pretty sharp toe, like most general purpose 400 speed films, but if you expose up the scale to open shadows, the DIR couplers kick in harder to restrain highlight contrast/ density, thus the long highlight roll-off. Developing in regular B&W doesn't make the couplers form, thus no DIR/ coupler effects etc.

As a result people either complain about 'poor' shadow detail, because of how they are used to (mis-)using normal BW neg stocks, or if they overexpose it, they complain about the highlights being flatter than they expected

Sounds accurate. Except I would add that if you expose it as a true ISO 400 film the shadow grain will not be pretty compared to D400 or TMY. But if you give it more light, the compression will not a problem (I think most people like it), but you lose effective film speed and sharpness in the highlights because dye clouds growing too large. Can't win. That's why I am leaving it behind. I seriously doubt that anyone would pick an XP2+ neg which was identically exposed to a TMY or D400 neg.

How do you shoot it?

Lachlan Young · Oct 5, 2023

pentaxuser said:
Can you say which of the "half-baked" compensating developers come under this label of "half-baked" and which work OK and why?

What it boils down to is whether they deliver a level of meaningful development inhibition effects or not. As an effect, the major film manufacturers have been aware of this for a very long time & have designed emulsion structures to exploit these effects with more solvent developers - then further refined the ratio of PQ (or Phenidone Ascorbate etc) developing agents used to further exploit the effects in useful ways to more optimally balance the granularity/ speed/ sharpness relationship - in other words, a fairly solvent developer can improve both granularity and sharpness when used with an emulsion designed with that knowledge in mind - but this isn't helped by end-users whose systemic methodology is poor & who spend their time insisting that developers that quite clearly have no/ very limited inhibition effects, but which merely run out of steam at a lower contrast index are somehow 'compensating'.

Steven Lee said:
Sounds accurate. Except I would add that if you expose it as a true ISO 400 film the shadow grain will not be pretty compared to D400 or TMY. But if you give it more light, the compression will not a problem (I think most people like it), but you lose effective film speed and sharpness in the highlights because dye clouds growing too large. Can't win. That's why I am leaving it behind. I seriously doubt that anyone would pick an XP2+ neg which was identically exposed to a TMY or D400 neg.

How do you shoot it?

From Jack Coote's 'Ilford Monochrome Darkroom Practice', quoting the lead engineer on the then-new XP1:

"'In XP1-400, development-inhibitor-releasing (DIR) couplers are used to restrict individual dye cloud densities and also enhance sharpness. In areas of high exposure large quantities of inhibitor are released and growth of density of individual grains is restricted. Inhibitor also diffuses to suppress the density of surrounding areas, providing a means of sharpness enhancement which is not available with conventional black-and-white development.'

From this it can be readily understood why, with XP1 film, the effects of development inhibition become greater as exposure is increased. Overexposure therefore leads to lower granularity rather than the increased granularity encountered when silver-image negatives are overexposed. The characteristic curve of XP1-400, with its long 'shoulder', also shows the influence of DIR couplers in that they prevent the build-up of excessive density as exposure increases.

The grain will be at its worst where there is least overlapping of the dye clouds. Because these same areas correspond to the foot of the characteristic curve, representing the shadow areas of a print, such graininess is not apparent to the eye"

These effects are common across all modern C-41 materials & have got more sophisticated since. If you're getting unsharp highlights that suggests such an extreme level of overexposure that they are causing halation.

XP2 Super has a significantly sharper (more HP5+/ 400TX shaped) toe to its curve - which can seem very tempting to dig into on a scan, in areas that would otherwise be crushed much more forcefully by the paper shoulder.

Shot even marginally competently, an XP2 neg on 6x7 should deliver an astonishingly clean and sharp 8x10/ 11x14 darkroom print - and scan as well as any other C-41 material. All I try to make sure is that I don't accidentally drive the exposure too far up the scale, otherwise it makes printing it in the darkroom a bit trickier.

Steven Lee · Oct 6, 2023

Lachlan Young said:
Shot even marginally competently, an XP2 neg on 6x7 should deliver an astonishingly clean and sharp 8x10/ 11x14 darkroom print.

This is a laughably low bar. All films manufactured in 2023 should deliver an "astonishingly clean and sharp" 11x14 print from a 6x7 neg!

I only shoot it in 35mm and it's nowhere near Delta 100 in sharpness. I am comparing it to Delta 100 because its grain in zones 2-5 is nasty looking unless it is exposed as an ISO 100 film. I can see how you may not see these problems in medium format where its Achilles' heel is hidden by the large negative size.

There is, of course, the possibility that I may NOT belong to the category of photographers who shoot XP2+ "marginally competently".

Donald Qualls · Oct 6, 2023

Steven Lee said:
TLDR:

Not really compatible with C-41. I think it requires pulling to tame high contrast and expand the range.

You must pick: rough ISO 400 grain or ISO 100 speed

Low acutance when over-exposed

High price

I also would disagree with these concerns based on my own experience. I routinely shoot XP2 Super at EI ranging from 200 to 1600 (800 and above with bleach bypass to leave the silver density as well as the dye image). I find it has a true speed with bleach bypass of around 640 (about 2/3 stop gain) and is relatively insensitive to the common C-41 mistakes like temperature drift and over/under development. Further, it doesn't develop the green and grainy shadows of underexposed C-41 color films (of course).

If it didn't cost so much it would be my number one choice in 35 mm and in 120 it's unparalleled (but again, pricey by comparison to the Fomapan and Kentmere I usually shoot).

Lachlan Young · Oct 8, 2023

Steven Lee said:
This is a laughably low bar. All films manufactured in 2023 should deliver an "astonishingly clean and sharp" 11x14 print from a 6x7 neg!

I only shoot it in 35mm and it's nowhere near Delta 100 in sharpness. I am comparing it to Delta 100 because its grain in zones 2-5 is nasty looking unless it is exposed as an ISO 100 film. I can see how you may not see these problems in medium format where its Achilles' heel is hidden by the large negative size.

There is, of course, the possibility that I may NOT belong to the category of photographers who shoot XP2+ "marginally competently".

It also delivers just fine at normal enlargement sizes off 35mm - ie 8-12x and more. It maybe doesn't have the outright razor sharpness of the very sophisticated (and thin) Delta emulsions (which also exploit development inhibition effects that attempt to be analogous to DIR couplers), but it is definitely not in any sense unsharp.

I reckon that something is going way off course in your processes.

Roger Cole · Oct 9, 2023

Donald Qualls said:
I also would disagree with these concerns based on my own experience. I routinely shoot XP2 Super at EI ranging from 200 to 1600 (800 and above with bleach bypass to leave the silver density as well as the dye image). I find it has a true speed with bleach bypass of around 640 (about 2/3 stop gain) and is relatively insensitive to the common C-41 mistakes like temperature drift and over/under development. Further, it doesn't develop the green and grainy shadows of underexposed C-41 color films (of course).

If it didn't cost so much it would be my number one choice in 35 mm and in 120 it's unparalleled (but again, pricey by comparison to the Fomapan and Kentmere I usually shoot).

Maybe part of the difference of opinion is that Steven is scanning it while those of us who really like it darkroom print it?

OTOH a C41 film with dye clouds SHOULD scan better, not worse, than a conventional B&W silver grain film.

Sanug · Oct 9, 2023

One big advantage of a C-41 developed XP-2 is the usability of infrared dust and scratch removal (ICE) when scanning. Silver based conventional b/w films are not suitable for ICE.

Steven Lee · Oct 9, 2023

Here's what I'm talking about. 100% crop from two identical sans. Same light, same camera/meter, similar scene, but different dates. Delta 400 is on top exposed at EI400, XP2+ is at the bottom exposed at EI200:

Links to full-sized scans:

Here's what I see:

XP2+ despite being over-exposed by a stop still delivers under-exposed shadows and higher overall contrast. That is why I will never consider it a true ISO 400 film. From the grain quality perspective, Delta 400 grain is finer, more refined, and not as big and blurry as XP2. In terms of detail, the XP2+ has the blotchy appearance and begins to fall apart at lower magnification than Delta, just look at those containers in the background, or open the full sized image and look at all zone 2-5 areas. It looks like it was scanned on a low-DPI flatbed.

Unfortunately I cannot offer a better prepared comparison of both films. But this example demonstrates my issues with XP2+ pretty well, and it was done with a fair amount of rigor. The light & equipment were identical. My processing is controlled and measured: the densities are within aim values as verified with densitometers and control strips. I scanned them using the same workflow. The same gamma, curve, and sharpening were applied to both scans.

The difference shown here represents perfectly what I've seen as I exposed the 100ft of XP2+. Its highlights look great, but everything else falls apart vs better ISO 400 B&W films.

Donald Qualls · Oct 9, 2023

Roger Cole said:
Steven is scanning it while those of us who really like it darkroom print it?

I've never had the opportunity to make a wet print from XP2 Super. I scan everything at present (still working on getting my enlarger fully operational and having time to hole up in my darkroom for most of a day at a time). With or without retained silver image, it scans very well, both 35 mm and 120, on my Epson V850 Pro. If scanning makes it worse, it's because the scanner in use can't carry the load -- and as you note, the lesser or older scanners generally have more trouble with a silver image than a dye image.

pentaxuser · Oct 9, 2023

Steven What size would these scans be if they were darkroom prints?

Thanks

pentaxuser

Steven Lee · Oct 9, 2023

@pentaxuser These are 5,600px on the wider side. Assuming 300dpi printing, the closest common print size would be A3 (about 17x12").

pentaxuser · Oct 9, 2023

Thanks. What I should have asked and thought I did but on examination of what I did ask, did not in fact ask is what is the equivalent size of print of the whole negative. If the crop represents 17x12 inches then the whole negative at that kind of a crop is a print well over 5 feet wide and possibly 7 feet tall. Am I about right?

I am not sure that as they are in the crop of the two different pictures there is much difference. What counts for me is how does the biggest print I am likely to make look like from a 35mm neg. On that basis I suspect that two prints of the same scene at the biggest print I'd want to make from those two films might not look much different

If XP2 Plus was that much better than all the other films then presumably all users of Ilford films would abandon all the others for XP2 Plus or at least it would be the biggest seller by far .

I need to be honest here and say that at my normal size of prints from 35mm say 5x7 to 11x14 I do wonder if the range of difference from the stable of 400 films is really that much different. Yes in some areas there may be marginal advantages of one over another but I am sceptical of the tendency to polarize films into distinct categories of good and bad

Still as I said in an earlier post " beauty is largely in the eye of the beholder" and in this forum and the bigger one of life that certainly holds good

pentaxuser

Steven Lee · Oct 9, 2023

@pentaxuser I certainly agree with your observation that everything is relative and for vast majority of use cases almost any film is good enough. TBH, the results XP2+ can deliver exposed at EI100 are certainly good enough for me, but I would prefer Delta 100 or even Delta 400 due to simpler (and cheaper) processing.

Roger Cole · Oct 9, 2023

Donald Qualls said:
I've never had the opportunity to make a wet print from XP2 Super. I scan everything at present (still working on getting my enlarger fully operational and having time to hole up in my darkroom for most of a day at a time). With or without retained silver image, it scans very well, both 35 mm and 120, on my Epson V850 Pro. If scanning makes it worse, it's because the scanner in use can't carry the load -- and as you note, the lesser or older scanners generally have more trouble with a silver image than a dye image.

Huh, ok.

I have never made a black and white print from a scan. The only thing I've ever scanned B&W for was a kind of rough quick contact print for evaluation. I have made a few color prints from scans but definitely in the "very casual dabbler" level while I've printed Cibachrome, Type 2203 back in the day, and RA4 as well as black and white for a very long time.

So I guess it's safe to say that's not the reason for the very different experiences.

ILFORD XP2 Super 400

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