Ilford HP5+ 400asa 35mm - 36 exp

Product Information

Pulling HP5+ is a little harder to do. Many photographers swear by over-exposing every film by one stop, no matter what speed it’s rated to. This is because over-exposing film is more likely to expose every single grain on the roll, creating a fine, ‘dense’ negative. When negatives are under-exposed, the grains that aren’t developed into metallic silver get washed away by the fixer, leaving holes between large silver clusters that make the film look ‘grainy.’ Overexposure fills in those spaces, and make tones across an image change more gradually, with less grain-to-grain contrast, for a smooth, beautiful appearance. Sometimes I have the same roll of film in my camera for an entire month. This means the scenes and lighting that I’m shooting will change dramatically between photographs, and can often require radically different settings. ISO 400 may have been great for that evening stroll along the beach, but it’s not so usable in the deep dark forest nearby. So it’s always tempting to change the ISO between photographs. A lot of shots did come out on the flatter side as advertised, but when I found myself in environments with good light and shadow too, the HP5 Plus did give me that contrast. It’s said to have very good dynamic range, which means you can trust it whenever you find yourself in a similar spot. Curiously, many of the improvements HP5+ gained over its plus-less predecessor were apparently tailored for press photographers (Photo Pro issue 4, 1989). Pushability up to ISO 3200 was one of them. So was the slightly finer grain and a bit more shadow detail than its fierce competitor for the press market, Kodak Tri-X . Fully agree with your statements around the tactile experience in using a real camera. Even more so a fully mechanical one.

I’m in Michigan, in the Northern half of the US. Even up here in the frigid North it’s not uncommon for us to get a month or more of temperatures in the 90 to 100 degree Fahrenheit range. (32 to 38C)I think also talk of “developing at 800” might be a bit confusing. You can’t really develop at an ISO – the development process doesn’t care what ISO the film is rated at. You either develop as per the normal instructions, or you push or pull by a number of stops – regardless of the film speed. This film outperforms much of the competition in every scenario. When you need to capture all of the details in a scene, HP5 will not let you down. Even when pushed in low-light scenarios, the shadow details reproduced on this film are second to none. That’s one of the big reasons why I always store a roll of HP5 in my camera bag. Ilford, a Harman Technology brand was founded in Alfred Hugh Harman ’s basement in 1879 — just 52 years after the first photograph was produced. It was then named Britannia Works ; however, Alfred lost the rights to label his products with that name in a lawsuit. And so in February 1886, he rebranded his photosensitive materials in Ilford, after his hometown. As Ilford state that HP5 Plus gives best results at ISO 400 but that good image quality can be achieved all the way up to 3200 and that it’s compatible with all major processing systems, I don’t think that flexibility claim can be argued too much.

Nominally rated at ISO 400. Ilford HP5 Plus 35mm film will give you negatives with outstanding sharpness and fine grain under most lighting conditions. As with Tri-X, HP5+’s grain is present, yet not overwhelming . It neither muddies the image nor takes away from fine detail.

Specification

If we talk about this in terms of the Zone System for a moment, you’ll be able to capture grey tones across 6-8 concurrent zones with ease depending on where you place those shadows.

From my experience though, that’s the wrong way to look at it. The steady Eddie stats that make up Ilford HP5 Plus are analogous to the last part of its name. A positive, not a negative. All things considered, I really liked the results it gave me. Widely available and affordable, making it a popular choice for both amateur and professional photographers I think here you meant to say you told your camera you had *less* light than you really had, causing the photos to be overexposed. In 1939, this was replaced by HP2, an ISO 200 offering. This only lasted for two years until being superseded by the imaginatively titled HP3 in 1941, which was rated at different speeds depending on when in its life cycle you bought it.

36 Exposures or 24?

It’s okay to shoot HP5 with exposures ranging between ISO 200 to ISO 800 on the same roll with normal development. This film has an extremely wide latitude, and can tolerate a wide range of lighting scenarios without suffering any serious loss in detail. The best advice from Ilford is to overexpose HP5+ (ISO 200) in high contrast scenes, and underexpose it (ISO 800) when the scene has low contrast. It’s no wonder that this film is a steady photographer favorite out there. It’s so flexible, and creates stunning photographs in almost every situation. The results of a poll on the Film Photography Chat Facebook Group. I would have voted DD-X, but didn’t want to taint the results. In this review, I’ll share my tips and impressions after four years with HP5+. But first, let me introduce you to this film’s rich history and its impressive specs: A brief history of Ilford and HP5+.

Unless you’re trying out a certain film type for a specific reason, the less you can spend on rolls for your street photography where the results are going to be more hit and miss than studio work, obviously the better. When you’re using Rodinal large pushes, though, there is a point where it creates too much grain. If you’re underexposing film more than 3 stops, like pushing HP5+ to ISO 6400 (+5 stops) or 12,800 (+6 stops), there comes a point where not enough grains receive proper exposure to make an image, resulting in a huge loss of detail in the shadows of an image. So the developer and fixer will wash away the unexposed grains. This process leaves unexposed holes in between the large grains, causing the negative to appear grainier according to this document written by Kodak scientists about the invention of T-Grain films. Ilford’s other famous range is Delta which uses newer (est. 1990) technology with finer grain at the cost of a narrower dynamic range and a smaller margin of error for development times. HP5 is an Ilford film, which means it is manufactured here in the UK in Cheshire and ships directly to us, fresh from the factory. It is ISO 400 which means it can be shot in normal British weather, whether that is its autumn, winter, spring or summer. ISO 400 can definitely be shot outdoors, but one of the reasons that it is so loved is because it can be pushed and pulled, and still get fantastic results in terms of grain, contrast and final image.Related: Ilford Delta 3200 at 1600 vs Ilford HP5 at 1600: High Speed B&W Film Comparison Using Ilford HP5 in Plastic Cameras