ILFORD XP2 Super 400

pentaxuser said:

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

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No, because black and white is much easier to develop yourself. Also for those of us shooting large format, XP2 (+ Super etc, whatever) is not available in sheets. One reason I shoot HP5 and FP4 in 120 is that I also shoot them in 4x5. Otherwise I would strongly consider standardizing on XP2 since I have a Jobo and C41 isn't really any harder than black and white. I very rarely shoot black and white in 35mm anymore. Come to think of it, I rarely shoot 35mm anymore.

Roger Cole said:

black and white is much easier to develop yourself.

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This is just not true. C-41 (even with separate bleach and fixer as with Flexicolor chemistry) is no more difficult than B&W. Trading off against the temperature control requirements (much relaxed for chromogenic B&W materials like XP2 Super) is that there's only one developer. No arguments about "Rodinal is better than Xtol" or vice versa or same for fifty other developers, some of which you can't buy but have to mix yourself, and all of which (at least in some eyes) give subtly different results.

Donald Qualls said:

This is just not true. C-41 (even with separate bleach and fixer as with Flexicolor chemistry) is no more difficult than B&W. Trading off against the temperature control requirements (much relaxed for chromogenic B&W materials like XP2 Super) is that there's only one developer. No arguments about "Rodinal is better than Xtol" or vice versa or same for fifty other developers, some of which you can't buy but have to mix yourself, and all of which (at least in some eyes) give subtly different results.

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I have done both and I consider conventional black and white quiet a bit easier unless one has a decent temperature control bath other than a tub of water and a thermometer. It can be done that way, I've done a lot of both C41 and E6 that way going back to the late 70s, but it's a PITA IMHO.

What you are saying is that it's SIMPLER, with only one developer choice. That's not the same as "easier." As for relaxed temperature requirements for XP2/chromogenic black and white, I can see why that's true but wasn't considering it.

As I said, I now have and use a Jobo and it's all the same really.

Yes I agree with Roger that b&w home processing is generally easier in the sense that (a) most newcomers feel that in C41 accurate temperature is more difficult and as it has more steps then that "complicates matters" and (b) the equipment needed is more expensive so it becomes more of a "fuss" to do it

I cannot speak for the U.S. but in the U.K. the number of towns/cities with mini-labs only offering C41 way outstrips the number offering both processes so while home processing of C41 is more expensive and perceived to be more difficult by newcomers the temptation is to try home processing traditional b&w first.

I certainly never gave home C41 any thought for a couple of years or more after I was home processing b&w. The end result of either process is a darkroom print be that a b&w print or an RA4. Here I was very happy with even my first b&w print whereas the first RA4 print I was happy with was many prints down the line.


pentaxuser

I consider C-41 significantly more cumbersome. Yes, it's easy to do. But it takes almost twice as long, mainly mixing chemicals and waiting for everything to get stable at 100F. Using C41 kits speeds things up, but you pay more and get gradually deteriorating quality after the first run.

These were both shot with XP2, exposed at EI-400 and C-41 developed at a lab. I scanned the film myself with my Nikon Coolscan V.

Steven Lee said:

I consider C-41 significantly more cumbersome. Yes, it's easy to do. But it takes almost twice as long, mainly mixing chemicals and waiting for everything to get stable at 100F. Using C41 kits speeds things up, but you pay more and get gradually deteriorating quality after the first run.

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If you're going to develop it yourself, you would be better off using a traditional B&W film like Tmax 400. Regular B&W films are less expensive, easier to develop, and more archival than XP-2. People shoot XP-2 because they don't want to develop the film themselves and very few photo labs do good quality traditional B&W film processing, and the ones that do are very expensive. As a C-41 film, XP-2 can be developed at a lot more places for less money.

@chriscrawfordphoto Wholeheartedly agree 100%. That was the point I made earlier in the thread: the primary benefit of XP2+ is its lab-friendliness. I am not impressed with IQ at all.

Roger Cole said:

I consider conventional black and white quiet a bit easier unless one has a decent temperature control bath

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With sous vide cookers accurate to half a degree F available for under $40, even color C-41 is no harder than B&W. My opinion, I do both. Haven't done E6 yet, though my class ran a big batch of E4 in high school back around 1975. Yep, water bath in several large tubs (we had a dozen rolls or more -- one for each student and one for at least one of the teachers). My 620 slides were awesome even with the low-tech process...

Roger Cole said:

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.

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@Roger Cole, thanks for the above - In the quote above I have highlighted those two points you made because in my experience they summarise well two of the properties of this film I've grown to appreciate. I have not found a traditional black and white film that, in my own workflow, can give me those - though admittedly I haven't tested all film types currently offered, so perhaps some of the premium Kodak or Fuji stuff might approximate some of the above.

Here's an example. XP2+ developed by a commercial lab in C41. Rolleicord Va with a Xenar lens. This was taken just before sunset. A spot measurement was taken with the internal spot meter of my Nikon F90X set for 320EI on the bark of the tree bottom left and placed in zone III. The negative was scanned as a raw 16bit/channel linear positive (for our wet-lab print friends: this means there was NO automatic software interpretation performed by Vuescan, the tool I used), manually inverted, gamma corrected. No further edits were carried out (no digital burning, dodging, grain manipulation, etc) apart from setting the black point to taste+ a resize.



Now I don't normally go looking for scenes with such a dramatic dynamic range, but if I do it again, I will know that XP2+ is my friend.

Here's a square crop from the original real 4000dpi - detail from the highlight-rich area of the negative. Importantly, I didn't bother measuring any of this with my F90X. As Roger up here suggests, I went ahead and trusted XP2+ to do what it does well.



Another scene, very different lighting. The whitewashed surface of an old building in late morning light, approaching midday. Rolleicord Va. A spot measurement was taken with the internal spot meter of my Nikon F90X set for 320EI on the shaded area under the balcony, and then moved to zone IV. Other methods exactly as above.



In retrospect, I could have gone down to 250 or 200 EI to further highlight the burning intensity of the 'whiteness' of that surface, but this was one of my first rolls with the film so I was still going by the book.

But yes. I'm really pleased at how this film, at least in 120 format, renders highlight detail (which is mostly what I'm after in my hybrid film workflow). Another advantage is that I really trust the lab that does C41 for me (I develop my B/W myself but send my C41 out - I tried it at home, it works, but it's boring imo) so sometimes it's refreshing to think that I can forget about any development-related variables and just concentrate on exposure-related decisions. Also, time is scarce anyway, and I'm shooting a lot of Kodak Gold and Ektar, so throwing in a few rolls of XP2+ in the order doesn't hurt.

Ilford if you're reading this - I'm a fan of this product

Steven Lee said:

@chriscrawfordphoto Wholeheartedly agree 100%. That was the point I made earlier in the thread: the primary benefit of XP2+ is its lab-friendliness. I am not impressed with IQ at all.

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I've gotten great results with XP-2, but I found I got better tonality scanning it and adjusting the tonality in Photoshop than I did printing it in the darkroom. I used to like Kodak's C-41 B&W film, which went under a couple of names (T400CN, Portra BW) over the years that it was made. Kodak's films had the orange base like a color film; so it printed better in a color minilab printer (the old optical ones) than the Ilford stuff, which always had color casts that were really hard to zero out (I worked in a one hour photo lab when I was in school). The orange mask on the Kodak made darkroom printing harder; I got best results scanning it, too. I liked it better than Ilford; its too bad they stopped making it years ago).



Ilford XP-2, 35mm, C-41 processed.



Ilford XP-2, 35mm, C-41 processed.



Kodak Portra BW, 120 film (645 format), C-41 processed.

I started this topic nearly 2 years ago and I'm truly enjoying XP2 and its characteristics and I've always used my local lab to develop and scan my negs. I like applying a light Topaz AI to reduce the noise(grain) in some occasions.
This pic was taken with a Nikon N80 w/ 50mm @ f/1.4. Cropped, resized.

First pic w/ Topaz AI

Rolando

I still expose my XP2 (just as the Neopan 400CN) with EI 250 and I can confirm that this film can be developed in almost any commercial C-41 lab without problems and with very good results.
Scanning is easy but also wet-printing is no witchcraft.
XP2 can also be developed at home without any problems - whether in the C-41 process or in b/w.
However, I prefer the development in Caffenol CL using the semi-stand technique for 65 minutes
@ 21 degrees Celcius.


Rolleiflex 3.5F - Planar - XP2 in Caffenol CL semi-stand


Rolleiflex 3.5F - Planar - XP2 in Caffenol CL semi-stand


Rolleiflex 3.5F - Planar - XP2 in C-41 lab-developement


Rolleiflex 3.5F - Planar - XP2 in C-41 lab-developement

It seems to be a versatíle film ín many areas. It's not everyone's favourite film but I don't think I have ever seen any matter on Photrio or, no doubt, any other forums where there is a unanimous view on anything. The day we get that then I will conclude that the micro-chip that all the governments plants in us when we receive any injections of any kind have worked

pentaxuser - no longer a boy but still proud