Ilford HP5+ 400asa 35mm - 36 exp

Product Information

So, what are the pros and cons of pushing HP5+ this far? Well, there’s a fair bit of grain, but HP5+ is never the smoothest film anyway, and the structure is pretty good, adding a nice grittiness to the shots. Deep shadows get pretty crushed, but what else can you expect shooting at night? Honestly, being able to take a camera out in the evening or at night and either set-and-forget exposure, or use it the same way you would on a sunny day, with a wide range of shutter speeds and apertures available, is a fantastic experience. Being able to shoot at night, handheld, with a variety of apertures and speeds available, is great, though if using a rangefinder you do need to find a bright area to focus on. In contrast, my other camera, loaded with Fuji Press 800 at box speed, needed to be on a tripod for all shots. Almost empty streets have a ghostly feel under the streetlamps – but with a high ASA you can capture people in the moment, where long exposures would blur them out. This is a really cool process that works to reduce the negative contrast and increase sharpness by allowing the developer to exhaust itself on the highlights while having more time to interact with and develop the shadows. Ilford’s technical data sheet says the best overall image quality and film speed for HP5+ is attained using Ilfotec DD-X. That said, a poll conducted in a large group of film photographers on Facebook suggests most users prefer to push HP5+ using Kodak HC-110 developer.

Ilford HP5 Plus Film Review | Analogue Wonderland

Founder, overlord, and editor-in-chief at EMULSIVE.org. I may be a benevolent gestalt entity but contrary to increasingly popular belief, I am not an AI. 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.However, if you push- or pull-process your HP5+, it’ll likely become more sensitive to over- and under-exposures and require finer metering for best results. Another feature unique to XP2 SUPER is the ability to shoot different speeds between ISO 50 and 800 on the same roll and still process as standard. (If you push or pull other films you have to keep the ISO settings consistent and process it against that ISO). It’s wide exposure latitude makes it a great choice for beginners, those returning to film as well as the more experienced professional users. This film is developed using C-41 chemistry, which is normally used for color films. Also, you can actually shoot it at any speed between ISO 50-800.

HP5 PLUS 120 - Ilford Photo HP5 PLUS 120 - Ilford Photo

Rated at EI 6400, there’s much more detail using Microphen than with DD-X – so it is absolutely fine to push to this limit even using a 35mm film. Depending on a scene, shots might not even look like they are shot on such high sensitivity. I’ve mainly shot this film at box speed (setting my light meter to ISO 400), but as you can see from the examples below, this results in a lot of mid tones, which may or may not be your thing. After beginning my Ilford acquaintanceship with the relatively obscure Pan 400, HP5 Plus was my first foray into the brand’s better-known films.Ilford XP2 is a rather unique B&W film since it doesn’t fall into either the PLUS or DELTA PROFESSIONAL camps. Microphen is designed to give you a really flat (or grey) negative, which allows you to edit in the contrast however you’d like when printing or scanning the photos. That feature is what we measure when suggesting a developer for pushing — and in Microphen’s case, it might even be the very best developer on the market for pushing film!