Extreme Film Review No. 4 – Ilford HP5+

While it has taken me a while to come to like Ilford HP5+ the one thing that this film stock can take is punishment. And I’ve done a fair bit of pushing on HP5+ in the past with some excellent success. Last year it was pushing it to ASA-1600 and developing in Fujifilm SPD with some of the best results I’ve seen. I have also seen some excellent results back on the slower end of things. So I have high hopes for this roll.

Film Specs
Manufacturer: Ilford Photo
Name: Ilford HP5+
Type: Panchromatic B&W, Cubic Grained
Film Base: Acetate
Film Speed: ASA-400, Tested Latitude: +/- 2-Stops
Formats Available: 135 (35mm), 120, Sheets

I’ll once again be setting the benchmark box speed of this roll to ASA-400, then shooting it between -2 and +2 stops, which translates to ASA-100 to ASA-1600. There are two listed times for Diafine and Ilford HP5+ a standard 3+3 time for ASA-640 and ASA-800, so I ended up developing this roll with a roll of Kodak TMax 400 for last month’s review. I used my Nikon F5 with the 35mm f/2D lens and no filters attached. I set the aperture to f/11, had the camera mounted on a tripod and used a remote release to trigger each shot and use the EV adjustment to make the changes during the shooting process.

As soon as I pulled the negatives out from the thank I knew I had winners, there was very little difference between the frames, with only slight changes in density at the extreme ends of the test shots. I was not surprised at this, because HP5+ is known for its latitude. However, once I started scanning the negatives I started to see some problems at the -2-Stop frame. In all cases you’re losing almost all your shadow detail in these images. What surprised me is how nice the over-exposed frames (+1 and +2), which is something I never thought of HP5+ doing. Now all being said, even the -2 frames are still recoverable with a bit of work in post-processing.

One thing that I can say is that Diafine works nicely with HP5+, the contrast is decent, a nice middle-ground across all the frames, showing off both highlights and shadow detail without muddying thing up. Even at +1 your highlights aren’t blocked out, but if you do go that route I would personally add a pale yellow filter to knock that contrast back. The grain isn’t too visible and has a pleasing structure and the sharpness is maintained across all seven frames without too much increase at the -1 and -2 frames.

While I did have higher expectations for HP5+, I’m also not disappointed at these results. I would honestly say that you can easily shoot and develop between +/- one-stop on the same roll and still get usable results, you could also push it to 1 1/3rd stop in either direction and get the same results. I wouldn’t go any faster without adjusting your development. If I did take the film faster I would be using a dedicated fine-grain developer like Ilford Microfine, which you can probably do the same latitude and get good results.