Ilford HP5+ 400asa 35mm - 36 exp

Product Information

Ilford was founded in 1879 in the English town of the same name. They are B&W royalty in the photography industry thanks to their 140-year heritage and their support for photographers with chemicals and development as well as film. In the mid-20th Century they produced several well-regarded camera lines (including one given to Princess Elizabeth that was later stolen!) but today they are focused on producing the best films and development processes that they can.

It’s wide exposure latitude makes it a great choice for beginners, those returning to film as well as the more experienced professional users. I used Delta 400, expired in the 1980s, at EI200 to photograph the Autumn Equinox at Primrose Hill in London. The crushed dynamic range made for some contrasty results, and I’m pleased with the results. Grainy and atmospheric, but with enough visible detail for the story to remain clear. These will fit in nicely with a wider project which includes some very grainy night-time work made on in-dated Delta 3200. 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. I far prefer the grain on HP5 Plus to the overbearing style I got with Ilford Pan 400. I found it to be noticeably sharper than Kentmere 400, although that’s not surprising given Kentmere is the budget brand from Harman, the company behind Ilford.Fully agree with your statements around the tactile experience in using a real camera. Even more so a fully mechanical one. Of course, there are plenty of other solid options for pushing HP5+. The developers above are both fine-grain developers, which means they have a solvent in them that reduces the size of the grain, and potentially some of the sharpness of the film. If you’re personally a big fan of grains, then you’ll want a High-Acutance developer like Rodinal or diluted HC-110. I’ve been developing at home with this film for three years straight, and have learned a lot about working with it to get the best results. This HP5 review is going to go over a number of development strategies that I’ve used to get great results. The chart below goes over the best developers for every situation you’ll encounter.

Another new thing to point out is this film’s exposure latitude, as well as its aforementioned dynamic range. Traditional grain films do tend to excel with wide exposure ranges, and HP5 Plus is no different. exposure rolls can help you make your mind up about a film without committing to a full roll of 36 exposures. A full roll of film may take you a while to finish, and this is great for when you have a project or specific idea in mind that you need a lot of images for. However, if you are simply testing a film, or want to experiment by trying a favourite film in a new way, 24 exposure is the faster and more cost effective way to go.

Your photos on cool stuff.

It is probably worth mentioning but for the photos shared above I shot the film both over exposed and under exposed. Sadly from a scientific point of view I was just winging it on the day and guessed the exposure. What I can say is some images were shot in very under exposed conditions with the light being probably -2 stops under. Highlights and shadow detail 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. For me, that’s missing the point. I’m not saying it isn’t average. It is, but in a good way rather than bad. Nothing is outstandingly wrong and the attributes just seem to add up to more than the sum of their parts to give clean, sharp, and just really nice to look at results. Overall it means that unless the film expired relatively recently, there’s a fair chance that the experiment will fail, and I’d rather trust fresh film.

The original Kentmere 400 film box branding said “Kentmere 400” on the side (white box and cassette label). The new branding reads “Pan 400” on one side and it has a pink-purple box design. (“Kentmere” is written on the other side). If Kentmere 400 becomes known as Pan 400 it is very easy to confuse this film with the Ilford Pan 400. They are different film from my own testing but no wonder people get confused! I thought I would mention it. AGFA Photo APX 400 vs Kentmere 400It’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. This sequentially numbered HP range has remained at ISO 400 ever since, through the 1970s and 1980s in the form of HP4 and HP5, and on to today with the introduction of HP5 Plus in 1989. Assuming both APX 400 and Kentmere 400 are the same emulsion I chose to buy Kentmere as it was slightly cheaper online. Kentmere 400 street photography It would be very easy to lift a sentence straight from the horse’s mouth, reword as if we were an e-commerce retailer, and use that to answer that subheading. Something like the following:

Hey Jennifer, you have some really nice and interesting examples here, which do a great job of illustrating what’s possible, especially the impact of pushing. I’m usually a colour shooter, but now I feel inspired to load up some HP5 and have a play!

Specification

I have a few film cameras that all mean something emotional to me (my Olympus XA2 I won in a photographic competition aged 12, my OM1 was my only camera for about 20 years until I added my Minolta Autocord, the Nikon F801 is a copy of one I took travelling around the world and I look after my Dad’s Nikon FE that he bought when I was a nipper) but I don’t use them anywhere near as much as I should, not least because I love my digital camera (Fuji XE3) with it’s perfect blend of retro feel, image quality, size and convenience. In 1931, a mere ~45 years after Alfred Hugh Harman started selling his first gelatine dry plates from the basement of his home at Cranbrook Road in Ilford, the company decided to supplement it’s successful SELO orthochromatic films with two high-tech newcomers: Hypersensitive Panchromatic (HP) and Fine Grain Panchromatic (FP) roll films. They were a show stopping 160 ASA and 28 ASA respectively. Timeline wise, the original ILFORD Hypersensitive Panchromatic film was released in plate form in 1931, some nine years before Tri-X’s sheet film debut in 1940 – it was rebranded to “HP” in 1935. If we’re comparing the time between 135/120 format film, ILFORD HP was released in 1935 compared to Tri-X in 1954 – nearly two decades later.