What instead of Neopan 400?

Hi.

I have developed one roll of Neopan400 in Rodinal and I was suprised with the result. In my opinion this film hav a much better look than the Ilford HP5+ and Kodak TMax400.
Any opinions what to use instead of this film now that it is discontinued? I would like to continue with Rodinal, since it is so economical to use and shelf life is not a problem.

Nothing else is really like it. Just switch to any other 400 speed film. It won't be the same, but that's what everyone else did. If you want to keep using Rodinal, you might want to shy away from HP5, which looks good, but gets grainy in Rodinal.

danlud said:

Hi.

I have developed one roll of Neopan400 in Rodinal and I was suprised with the result. In my opinion this film hav a much better look than the Ilford HP5+ and Kodak TMax400.
Any opinions what to use instead of this film now that it is discontinued? I would like to continue with Rodinal, since it is so economical to use and shelf life is not a problem.

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There is nothing else quite like it. Pick an ISO 400 film and work with it until you have results that you like. Your choices are:
Ilford HP5+
Kentmere 400
Ilford Delta 400
Kodak Tri-X
Kodak TMax 400
Fomapan 400
Rollei RPX 400
Ultrafine Extreme 400 from Photo Warehouse
I have used a fair bit of Kentmere 400 and Ultrafine Extreme 400; my conclusion is they are very similar films. I'm inclined to believe that the Rollei RPX 400 might also be cut from a similar cloth, as well as the Asian film called Ilford Pan 400. All four look really similar to my eye, but I'm sure somebody could measure some differences.

Anyway. Many people had that dilemma, to replace Neo 400, and they seem to have come to the conclusion that you can't really. So you find something else and work with it until it prints to your liking, even if it won't be the same.

Good luck!

Thanks for the quick replies! I read someone tried Fuji Acros at 400 and was quite pleased with the results. Anyone here tried that?
And what about Delta 400? I have never tried it myself and almost every thread regarding 400 speed film is about HP5+/Tmax/Tri-X.

My choice is Delta 100 in 120 in this format I prefer it to HP5 as it gives finer grain, however for 5x4 I love HP5. A lot of the look etc is down to fine tuning your EI & dev times.

Ian

I'll second everything @BetterSense said above. Delta has a uniform grain structure, kind of like TMax in the Kodak family and will look very different than HP5 and TriX.

I loved neopan 400. Used a fair amount of Tri-x since and prefer it in some ways but I think delta 400 is closer to what I was looking for but this is delta 400 in dd-x not rodinal. This in a nutshell is the problem really as you are stuck with trying to find another combination that gets close to what you want. Delta 400 has bags of red sensitivity as well so I am looking forward to seeing what it can do when the sun is shining and the orange or red filter is on.

Personally I feel neopan 400 was the best 400 film out there but Fuji in their infinite wisdom decided to kill it off. Also don't believe for a second you can push Acros 100 as a replacement. Acros is very contrasty already at 100 let alone pushing and long development, its somewhat less than 100 EI in rodinal anyway if you want to see any shadow detail (I don't believe the claims many make that is 100 EI in rodinal either).

Neopan was my 400 iso film of choice. Most times I am actually shooting TRI-X 400 because I want the grain and snappy look but they are two different beast aren't they. I have seen some good results from pushing Across 100 to 400 and I want to give that try myself since I already shoot Acros 100 anyway.

I had the same problem as you many years ago when it finally ran out of stock at B&H, I use Rodinal for every other film. But I settled on HP5+ at 800 in DD-X and have found that to be the next best thing. Nothing will be similar except Acros100. I really haven't tried Acros100 at 400 yet, I suppose I should try that, but frankly I can't see that printing easily. So HP5+ in DD-X is my recommendation despite your apprehensions about HP5+ it really is a wonderfully flexible film when it comes to pushing, much better than any Kodak offering still in production IMO. Good luck!

I'm one of those oddballs who tried Neopan 400 and didn't like it. Why? The curve shape, which rolled off continuously and resulted in, to my eye, muddy highlights. However, for those who did appreciate the look, there's one other film with the same curve shape: Ilford XP2 SUPER. Try it, you might find what you're looking for.

the next best thing to neopan i have found is EXPIRED neopan.
i used to shoot a bunch of neopan and loved how it looked in caffenolC
and i never overlooked an opporunity to buy some outdated or expired film.
and it worked like a champ.
i also suggest as others have suggested that is find another film and use it
and try to find a way to enjoy it instead of neopan.
unfortunately there are not any other solutions ...

StoneNYC said:

I had the same problem as you many years ago when it finally ran out of stock at B&H, I use Rodinal for every other film. But I settled on HP5+ at 800 in DD-X and have found that to be the next best thing. Nothing will be similar except Acros100. I really haven't tried Acros100 at 400 yet, I suppose I should try that, but frankly I can't see that printing easily. So HP5+ in DD-X is my recommendation despite your apprehensions about HP5+ it really is a wonderfully flexible film when it comes to pushing, much better than any Kodak offering still in production IMO. Good luck!

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Stone I'll be more than happy to show you my TMY400 prints...now that 400 speed film kicks ass..if you know what your doing..have a great day....I still might have a sink for you

I loved Neopan 400 in 120. I had to move on around the year 2010. At first I found tri-x similar in tonality but ultimately moved on to HP5 and that is where I stay. It is sharper than tri-x (120) and that's most important to me. Although I'm happy with HP5 if Neopan would become available again I would probably go back to it. There was nothing like it. I agree, it was fantastic in rodinal and also Xtol. If you want to stick with rodinal I'd look at tmax 400 or delta 400. I never had much success with tri-x or HP5 in rodinal. Btw I develop my HP5 in ID-11 1:1.

Tmax 400 or Tri-X 400.

I'd give ilford delta 400 a try, supposed to have better contrast than hp5, but finer grain than tri-x.

Delta 400 is the closest I've found - somewhat better in some aspects I feel. The grain's pretty nice too. I found that Neopan 400 tended towards a TX-ish curve & Ilford-ish colour sensitivity.

Pushing Acros won't achieve much apart from intensely contrasty negs, been there, done that.

danlud said:

Hi.

I have developed one roll of Neopan400 in Rodinal and I was suprised with the result. In my opinion this film hav a much better look than the Ilford HP5+ and Kodak TMax400.
Any opinions what to use instead of this film now that it is discontinued? I would like to continue with Rodinal, since it is so economical to use and shelf life is not a problem.

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There's plenty of Neopan 400 still out there. The last run expired only last year I think. I've got 20 or more boxes on ice, waiting to be used and will be accumulating more. This is of course, 35mm film I'm taking about. For 120, Neopan 400 was gone loooong ago.

Sal Santamaura said:

I'm one of those oddballs who tried Neopan 400 and didn't like it. Why? The curve shape, which rolled off continuously and resulted in, to my eye, muddy highlights. However, for those who did appreciate the look, there's one other film with the same curve shape: Ilford XP2 SUPER...

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Here are the manufacturers' data sheets for both:



Compare those characteristic curves.

Peter Schrager said:

Stone I'll be more than happy to show you my TMY400 prints...now that 400 speed film kicks ass..if you know what your doing..have a great day....I still might have a sink for you

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Oh certainly, but I find HP5+ to be more flexible in terms of pushing, and now that P3200 is gone, I find HP5+ can fill two spots in one. The TMY-2 stuff is super sharp, but it doesn't push quite as well as HP5+ does, it's mostly that HP5+ has a lower contrast to begin with so pushing doesn't have as much negative (pardon the pun) impact on the image overall.

NJH said:

Acros is very contrasty already at 100 let alone pushing and long development, its somewhat less than 100 EI in rodinal anyway if you want to see any shadow detail (I don't believe the claims many make that is 100 EI in rodinal either).

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I shot Acros at EI 100, developed with Rodinal. Only two rolls (135) so far. I was surprised how much shadow detail there is. From what I hear here, you might be out of luck when scanning with a flatbed. And printing Acros is demanding for a beginner like me. Digital repro gives the shadows and highlights and I hope eventually I'll manage to make prints as good as my electronic positives.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

... Your choices are:
Ilford HP5+
Kentmere 400
Ilford Delta 400
Kodak Tri-X
Kodak TMax 400
Fomapan 400
Rollei RPX 400
Ultrafine Extreme 400 from Photo Warehouse

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...and now Bergger Pancro 400. I have a few rolls in the post, anyone tried it? Link:

http://bergger.com/nos-produits/films.html

It would be huseful to list just what characteristics you like in Neopan. Always good to have a target to shoot at.

lantau said:

I shot Acros at EI 100, developed with Rodinal. Only two rolls (135) so far. I was surprised how much shadow detail there is. From what I hear here, you might be out of luck when scanning with a flatbed. And printing Acros is demanding for a beginner like me. Digital repro gives the shadows and highlights and I hope eventually I'll manage to make prints as good as my electronic positives.
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When you do get a darkroom setup a little test for yourself on a bright day. Find a scene where you can measure a true shadow around 3 to 4 stops darker than your exposure, then do your print and see how easy or not it is to get good detail in that shadow. I found that with Acros at EI 100 in Rodinal I got some detail there and given its a 100 speed film where one accepts high contrast I found it workable but not ideal. Repeating the exact same test with Tri-X for example at EI 400 yielded for me no shadow detail at all but bags of detail at EI 200. I can't say for sure but it gave me the feeling that if I did a full on zone test with grey card the Acros would come out about 80 and the Tri-x about 250. Others who have done detailed testing of these films tend towards those sort of numbers.

The important point is that when pushing a film the shadow response barely changes as all you are doing really is ramping up the contrast back to normal levels by long development (exposure controls shadows, development controls contrast). This means on a day with any amount of scene contrast your Acros pushed to 400 is like putting your shadows down at 5 to 6 stops below your exposure value. One could of course to just use Acros at its native speed and only push in very low contrast dark scenes, the problem with that approach is that in my experience such situations need more like 800 to 1600, people use 400 speed films as it gives you options to push and pull a little to fit typical scene contrast, to give plenty of scope for using filters and still get hand holdable shutter speeds etc. etc. they are the true general purpose films.

Thomas Bertilsson said:

I have used a fair bit of Kentmere 400 and Ultrafine Extreme 400; my conclusion is they are very similar films. I'm inclined to believe that the Rollei RPX 400 might also be cut from a similar cloth, as well as the Asian film called Ilford Pan 400. All four look really similar to my eye, but I'm sure somebody could measure some differences.

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Ilford Pan 400 it is an Ilford emulsion made in Mobberley and therefore a British product.
However, it is sold mainly in the East of Europe and the Southeast of Asia.
It is a different film from the others you mentioned.
Also, you forgot to mention Ilford XP2 Super, Bergger Pancro 400, JCH Street Pan 400 and if a close to ISO 400 is required, then there is Foma Retropan 320 Soft.

Bergger Pancro 400 is reported to be similar to Neopan 400 but I have not tried it yet.