Just when I got the Foma films dialed in, I tried Delta 100 in 35mm

[NB23]

Ilford definitely has most of my business, as testified by my stash of one hundred 120 rolls of HP5, 10 bulk rolls of pan-f, 2 bulk of hp5, 50 boxes of 11x14 papers waiting to be printed... as opposed to only 16 bulk rolls of tri-x and about 15 single left rolls of tmx100 (down from 500), and 30 rolls of TMZ.

Which is funny because there is no TMY at all in my stock, and yet I do recognize that it’s the best film ever made, ever. It’s simply insane.

I would also rate FP4 the best medium speed film, with TMX and Delta 100 right behind. These 3 films are so different than one another that they shine in different situations. Delta 100 is definitely the one with the most grungy look of all three. Tmx is too clean and FP4 as well.

I have much more experience with Kodak TMY than others. Mostly medium format. Amazing film. I have been using Ilford sheet film and have had great results. These tabular grain films are amazing compared to what came before, no matter if it's Ilford or Kodak. One thing to consider, Ilford is the only company to offer the entire range of black and white products. No other company has such a range of film, paper, chemistry, and hardware.

 

[Lachlan Young]

But it is nowhere near the fine grain of TMX100. It has a look that, despite “D” grain (and not “T”), is rather old school in looks.

Delta's granularity goes up pretty fast when overexposed. In some developers, it may be 1/2 a stop faster than TMX. Correct for that, and the playing field evens out quite a bit, though Delta is still the sharper of the two and TMX a bit finer grained. The spectral sensitisation of Delta seems to have been very carefully chosen - and from what I recall of some of the published spectral sensitisation charts, has some similarities to Kodak Portrait Pan's sensitisation (which both Paul Strand and Ansel Adams had, in the early 1950s, essentially agreed was "very fine - perhaps the best quality for the kind of work we do" - when developed in D-23).

 

[Moose22]

I just shot my first roll of Delta100 a couple weeks back. I'd tried FP4+ before, and I like it very much, but the Delta is a fine film. Good shadow handling, and nicely sharp.

I don't know much about B&W film, I'm just now trying out different stocks to see what they're like. But this was good enough I threw another roll in the camera before trying T-Max. I really liked it.

 

[DonW]

Delta 100 and PyroCat-HD is a match made in heaven!

 

[flavio81]

I am dumbfounded by what I am reading. Sure, Delta 100 is an excellent film. But it is nowhere near the fine grain of TMX100. It has a look that, despite “D” grain (and not “T”), is rather old school in looks.

I liked the tonality of Delta 100 more than Tmax 100 and Acros 100. Really good tonality, despite the grain being a bit bigger than TMX and Acros.

For overall image quality i think Delta 100 can't be beat. Acros what I use most only because of the fine grain (35mm), otherwise in medium format Delta 100 wins for me.

As for FP4, really since using Delta 100 i'm not going back to FP4 never ever.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Several years ago (pre-Pemberstone) Simon Galley said Ilford had looked pretty seriously into making a Delta 25. That would have been quite something for people who liked things such Agfa APX 25.

From what I recall, the only reason it didn't go to production was because it would've been difficult to keep it and Pan-F in production - they'd have cannibalised each other's sales at a time when Ilford were not wanting to be seen to be withdrawing products, especially ones with established name recognition. Looking back from 2021, I'd rather have seen Pan-F replaced with Delta 25.

 

[pentaxuser]

[QUOTE="Lachlan Young, post: 2452629, member: 9175" Looking back from 2021, I'd rather have seen Pan-F replaced with Delta 25.[/QUOTE]

Yes and there have been a number of additional things count against Pan F since Harman's decision such as its poor latent image retention, the seeming desire for lower speed films and then the pluses of better grain at 25 and the fact that it would be yet another film to try.

Of course it means breaking the promise that Ilford will not reduce its range of films but I thought this was a previous management promise and is counterbalanced by D25 being an improved substitute and frankly I am not sure how much the new film buying public values the former promise anyway.

pentaxuser

 

[Lachlan Young]

That's the story I remember too. I suppose the conclusion at the time was the combined demand in the 25-50 speed range would not have been sufficient to support the regular production of two films, as opposed to the cases for medium and high speed films.

I think the other key aspect was that the market for specifically photographic (as opposed to repurposed aerial/ industrial/ technical) films under ISO 100 is very much smaller than the extremely vocal audience who make post after demanding post about their entitlement to slow films (but then tell everyone in excruciating detail how long they eke out a roll for) - Adox essentially implied the same thing when they launched CHS II - they couldn't really afford to make it slower if they were going to have a chance of selling enough to keep making it.

Then again, people who want a really slow, sharp film could just use Ortho+ and develop it in diluted PQ Universal - Ilford claim it hits the heady heights of ISO 25 in daylight at G-bar 0.62 in PQU...

 

[Lachlan Young]

...which reminds me, what’s the graininess of Ortho+ like? Similar to say FP4+?

Subjectively, yes. They seem remarkably close in overall behaviour, apart from colour sensitivity.

 

[relistan]

Nice shot Karl!

Thanks, Tai!

 

[Film-Niko]

Knew something was up just from looking at the negs hanging in the bathroom. I've never seen negatives like these. These sorta glow, as if lit from inside, and talk about sharp! N8008s w/ 90 Leicaflex lens, Y fltr, shot at f2.8-f4 (EI 64, the camera takes off another f stop for the filter)) dev in F76+ 1:8 for 6:15 minutes. Time to break out the Ilford FB papers.

In my humble opinion Delta 100 is just outstanding, and Ilford's overall best film:
Outstanding sharpness, excellent resolution, extremely fine grain, works very well with lots of different developers (better in that regard than TMX), can be very well fine tuned by developer choice, development time and inversion scheme, has short fixing time (much shorter than TMX).
My results with Delta 100 in 35mm are quite close to my results of FP4+, Fomapan and so on in 6x6. So I can benefit from all the advantages of 35mm and modern 35mm cameras and lenses, without sacrificing significant quality.
A real progress in film quality and handling.

 

[gone]

The 11x14 prints came out exactly like the proof scans, from the first neg to the last. This was the 2nd print made on llford MGRC RC Glossy. It's hard to tell from this crappy, downsized phone pic, but it looks fine in person. None of the watercolour looking stuff in the background is actually on the print, that came from downsizing the file for here. There's grain on the prints, but it's tight, and looks really good. Excellent tonality. I'm looking forward to printing some of this on FB matt.

Its such an easy film to shoot! Just meter it at 50-64 and you're good. The developing is also very straight forward. I know Pyro is supposed to be the bomb w/ this film, but I can't see any reason to use anything other than the F76 that was used on this first roll.

 

[Steve York]

Blessed to have so many choices for B&W film, now 20 years after all the big mouths on these type of forums declared film was dead. So kudos to all for keeping it alive. I echo the comments about Delta 100 being a great but almost too perfect, and I too really like Clayton F76. That developer tends to bring out a sharp, clean look, although with a limited shelf life measured in months. Although I've read and seen QC issues with their MF, there's no bang for the buck greater then Foma especially if you want a character film. It's downright inexpensive when bulk loaded, and it's not going prevent you from getting great pictures, which are more dependent on light and composition than anything else. Really though, any B&W film is better then -- ha, ha -- digital!

 

[jerrybro]

I love Delta 100. This is from my M2/Summarit-M 35mm in my PC-512 Borax developer:

View attachment 282275

I love this.