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More and more film fun with something other than a Leica M

chrism

Well-known member
I thought I'd try increasing development time of XP2 in HC-110 to shift the histograms of my scans towards the middle. This is ten minutes in 1+49 rather than the usual eight.

The little Downy Woodpecker has a very regular sort of mind:

Woodpecker patterns by chrism229, on Flickr

and some pretty patterns:

Snow needles by chrism229, on Flickr
Both H500c, Sonnar 150/4, XP2, HC-110, X1 scans.
 

chrism

Well-known member
As vaguely promised a week or two ago, I have continued to abuse XP2. Today's effort was to expose it at 1600 and guess the development time, and since yesterday, I used 10 minutes for ISO400, I used the rule of thumb that a 1/3 increase in time compensates for 1 stop of underexposure, and developed this for 18 minutes in 1+49 HC-110. I am amazed at the lack of grain!


Experiment in Push Processing 4 by chrism229, on Flickr


Experiment in Push Processing 3 by chrism229, on Flickr

It looks like 3200 might be possible if I can bring myself to sit and agitate each minute for 24 minutes!

C.
 

chrism

Well-known member
Well I went and did it. XP2 Super at 3200, developed in HC-110 1+49 for 24 minutes. No grain!


Experiment in Push Processing 5 by chrism229, on Flickr

If you click on the link there's a 4096x4096 85% JPEG. Click on that to see at 100% All this effort to make a file that could have come out of the Monochrom!

Chris
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Well I went and did it. XP2 Super at 3200, developed in HC-110 1+49 for 24 minutes. No grain!


Experiment in Push Processing 5 by chrism229, on Flickr

If you click on the link there's a 4096x4096 85% JPEG. Click on that to see at 100% All this effort to make a file that could have come out of the Monochrom!

Chris
That's very impressive. Apparently I have to start doing my own processing. I'm not sure if HC-110 is available around here though. Do you think this will work equally good with other developers? I believe Ilford can be found in stock here, although not their whole range.
 

chrism

Well-known member
Jorgen,
Ilford Ilfotec-HC is almost the same, and Legacy Pro make L-110 which is said to be the same but without the thickening to make the concentrate into a syrup.
I have developed XP2 in Rodinal 1+100 for one hour, with six inversions at the start and again at 30 minutes. Expose at EI 200 for best results, and it will be sharp and smooth.
I've used Diafine, but the result is too grainy in 35mm, but tolerable in 120. 3+3 minutes will do it.
When I was mixing up Quall's monobath I tried it in there but it's a bit gritty and there's no advantage in XP2 over, say, HP5 if you're getting gritty pictures.
Apart from the 1 stop pull for the Rodinal semi-stand, I haven't tried any other developers at other speeds except for the HC-110. I'm amazed at the smoothness in a film pushed three stops. 3200 has higher contrast, but what doesn't at 3200? The 1600 is a candidate for regular use. I started a thread on this at APUG, and there has been discussion about the longevity of these negatives and whether a dip in C-41 stabiliser after fixing would be better than straight PhotoFlo. It's the old thing about there being little or no silver in the film, and silver inhibits fungi, so the stabiliser contains one of the imidazole anti-fungal drugs that one uses for yeast infections (I think I read it's miconazole - Monistat in a drugstore). I've got XP2 negatives developed this way three years ago that were treated with PhotoFlo alone and there's no sign of mould.
Today I'm trying to finish a roll of 35mm XP2 at 3200 just to see what that looks like. Unfortunately we have a blizzard, so it will probably be all the usual suspects as subjects.

C.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Jorgen,
Ilford Ilfotec-HC is almost the same, and Legacy Pro make L-110 which is said to be the same but without the thickening to make the concentrate into a syrup.
I have developed XP2 in Rodinal 1+100 for one hour, with six inversions at the start and again at 30 minutes. Expose at EI 200 for best results, and it will be sharp and smooth.
I've used Diafine, but the result is too grainy in 35mm, but tolerable in 120. 3+3 minutes will do it.
When I was mixing up Quall's monobath I tried it in there but it's a bit gritty and there's no advantage in XP2 over, say, HP5 if you're getting gritty pictures.
Apart from the 1 stop pull for the Rodinal semi-stand, I haven't tried any other developers at other speeds except for the HC-110. I'm amazed at the smoothness in a film pushed three stops. 3200 has higher contrast, but what doesn't at 3200? The 1600 is a candidate for regular use. I started a thread on this at APUG, and there has been discussion about the longevity of these negatives and whether a dip in C-41 stabiliser after fixing would be better than straight PhotoFlo. It's the old thing about there being little or no silver in the film, and silver inhibits fungi, so the stabiliser contains one of the imidazole anti-fungal drugs that one uses for yeast infections (I think I read it's miconazole - Monistat in a drugstore). I've got XP2 negatives developed this way three years ago that were treated with PhotoFlo alone and there's no sign of mould.
Today I'm trying to finish a roll of 35mm XP2 at 3200 just to see what that looks like. Unfortunately we have a blizzard, so it will probably be all the usual suspects as subjects.

C.
Thank you for the explanation. I haven't done wet processing in many years... a couple of decades actually, so this may be beyond my abilities. But it's just a question of time now. I would prefer not to have to rely on labs for my processing, although I'll be trying out a couple of new ones in Bangkok for my next batch of photos. I'll check out the thread on APUG as well.
 

chrism

Well-known member
I've just hung up the 35mm XP2 to dry, and I see a problem. The same thing happened with the 120 film - some of the frames are very thin and are probably unusable. When it happened with the 120 film, I assumed that since some were fine, and some were thin, that perhaps the shutter in my ancient Sonnar 150/4 wasn't working at some speeds (they were taken on a tripod at speeds like 1/8 and 1/4 which I probably hadn't used before). But this 35mm film has just come out of an F6 which hasn't had any problems at all and it's showing the same thing. Is it possible that the film has a threshold below which it won't register much of anything? There were no problems with the films going on the Hewes reels and no indication that the film had been in contact with itself or anything of that sort.
So if it's going to be hit or miss I can't recommend 3200. When it's dry, I'll scan and show any decent ones simply to assess any graininess in the smaller format, but in future I'll limit myself to 1600 which didn't have that problem at all.

Chris
 

chrism

Well-known member
I think I've come to the end of my experiments, with ISO 800 now completed. It seems it's easy to pull XP2, and to push to 800 and 1600. 3200 is hit and miss as being a half-stop out in the exposure ruins the picture. Here's an example of ISO 800, using HC-110 1+49, for 13.5 minutes:


Experiments in Push Processing 12 by chrism229, on Flickr

C.
 

chrism

Well-known member
It's snowing quite a bit today, so I took the Pen F out for a bit, but not the Rolleiflex. I took my 48 pictures and scanned about half of them, and I was surprised to see the presentable ones were from the shots taken indoors. I may add some outdoors ones tomorrow. The XP2 holds up well in the little half-frame negatives, giving smoother results than I've had with other films.


Lladro by chrism229, on Flickr


Shaving by chrism229, on Flickr


Baby Oranges by chrism229, on Flickr

Chris
 

PenSon

New member
One crop from a paperprint. Old exhausted developer (10 year old opened bottle). The stripes are from my agitation with the tray.
Camera Mamiya C220 lens 105mmDS with yellow/green filter. Film FP4 in HC-110.

[/url]Old chemistry by Trygve Bjerk, on Flickr[/IMG]

Trygve
 
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