Extreme Film Review No. 2 – Ilford Delta 3200

I’ve never been a fan of films faster than say ASA-800, they just don’t look good in my mind. But the modern high-speed offerings often have some of the widest latitudes in modern black & white emulsions. Among them is Ilford Delta 3200, this is the fast film that lived. If I had to choose between Delta 3200 and TMax P3200 I would take Delta 3200. I feel it has a lot cleaner look and feel and a bit more contrast than its Kodak cousin. But it’s still a fast film so it isn’t my first choice. But it should be fun to see how it stacks up with Diafine.

Film Specs
Manufacturer: Ilford Photo
Name: Ilford Delta 3200
Type: Panchromatic B&W, Tabular-Grained
Film Base: Acetate
Film Speed: ASA-3200 (True Speed, ASA-1000), Tested Latitude, +/- 2-Stops
Formats Available: 135 (35mm), 120

It is widely accepted that the true speed of Delta 3200 is ASA-1000, but for the sake of this test I’ll be using ASA-3200 as the benchmark EI as it is the ‘box speed’ the speed that is printed on the box. I’ll be exposing it in the range between ASA-800 and ASA-12800. For the sake of transparency, there is no official listed time for Diafine and Delta 3200, instead I’ll be going with a time of 4+4 at 20°C. I shot the film through my Nikon F5 with the 28mm f/2.8 lens with the aperture set to f/11 and no filters attached. In the example images they’ll be shown -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 from left to right. All adjustments were done using the EV controls. The camera was mounted on a tripod and the shutter tripped using a remote trigger.

I’ll admit, I didn’t have high hopes for this roll. First, I was using a time that is an educated guess. Second, I don’t like these fast films. When I pulled the negatives out of the tank, I was impressed that there were actually images on the roll; they looked thin, but I had results. Now I know that the Delta 3200, despite stating 3200 on the box, performs far better at a slower speed, and this test showed that to be true. At the top end (-2 and -1), you lose a lot of shadow detail, and the images appear dark. I’m okay with the zero mark (ASA-3200), but it opens up nicely at the top end (+1 and +2) with an ideal performance somewhere between these two points. Which makes sense, as the only other fast film I’ve used Diafine with is TMax P3200, which instructs you to rate the film at ASA 1280.

Now I have a love/hate relationship with fast films, I don’t normally shoot films over ASA-800, but I have to say I like the results I got from Delta 3200 when developed in Diafine. The lighting conditions that I was working with were low contrast and overcast. But Delta 3200 performed well with plenty of contrast and the grain and sharpness were certainly tamed a great deal. Now I’m sure it would have performed better with a bit more light and a bit of filtration to bump it up. But if I had to choose the best results I would as I mentioned peg it right between the +1 and +2 frames so something between ASA-1600 and ASA-800, which in my past review of the film stock Delta 3200 performed best.

As I mentioned earlier, I estimated the development times for this roll because no official times were listed. I no longer recall where I obtained the times from, but they were a combination of information I found on Flickr and my own calculations. Then again, isn’t that where most film development times come from? I’m glad I found a workable time for Delta 3200 and Diafine, as I like the results I got, and it provides a nice benchmark. And most importantly, by putting this information online, it can help the next photographer who is looking for that information. While I wasn’t too happy with the faster results, I think that with some tweaking, you might be able to get a bit more speed out of this combo if you need to achieve that speed when shooting Delta 3200. As for the slower-than-box results, those were fantastic and ones I’ll keep in my back pocket for the future.