March 8, 2011

available light - HP5+ @ 1600

Hi again,

after Wolf got fine results with the Ilford HP5+ at EI 1600 in Caffenol-C-L and I had splendid shadow details in Caffenol-C-H at about EI 800 I gave HP5+ another try as 35 mm film in Caffenol-C-L because  I'm still looking for a replacement of the Neopan1600. HP5+ could be the film I will stick with. I could verify exactly Wolfs results, nice fine grain and still acceptable tonal range.

Minolta X-300 with Rokkor 2.8/135, 1/30 at f/4 handheld. Simple average metering. Amazingly I almost got no camera shake.

Caffenol-C-L with 1 g/l potassium bromide, 5 minutes presoak, semi stand development 75 minutes at 20 °C, agitation first minute constantly, 3 times at 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 minutes. Very low base fog level, very easy to scan from negative (Canoscan 8800F + Vuescan Pro) with only minor postprocessing.

Compared to Neopan1600 grain with HP5+ is smaller, tones are a bit more compressed and Neopan1600 easily goes up to 3200. As a replacement for the discontinued Neopan 1600 I like the HP5+ most so far. Tri-X was really disappointing @ 1600. But EI 1600 is probably end of the line for HP5+ if you want some shadow detail. TMax 400 could be a second choice, but I prefer the look of HP5+.

Cheers- Reinhold

PS: fixed the mistake, of course I used Caffenol-C-L, not -C-H for the semi stand development.

7 comments:

kyle said...

Great results. A favorable altenative to neopan 1600 in my eyes. I am curious to try pushing neopan 400 @1600.

I have been using Caffenol-C-L alot during my down time working as a photo tutor. Its been a great experience so far. I have done alot of stand development with Rodinal with and without various additives, GSD-10, PC-TEA. Caffenol-C-L has easily replaced PC-TEA and GSD-10 for standing high speed film. I found it comparable to Rodinal with additives but much simpler to prepare.

ggl said...

Well, this looks better than a couple of HP5 rolls I've processed in HC-110. Grain is less visible.

Anonymous said...

..nice!!
is there any experience with FUJI- NEOPAN 400 in caffenol-c ?

hopeful
uwe

kyle said...

Hey Anonymous

I will be testing neopan 400 @ 1600 this weekend in 35mm ill have scans ready next friday. Ill leave a flickr link when im done.

imagesfrugales said...

Hello Kyle,

good to here you will do some Neopan 400 shots. Could you send me a flickr mail for contact?

Thanks and best regards - Reinhold

retinent said...

Hello,

I tried to develop an Ilford Hp5+ @ EI 1600 in Caffenol C-L as you have described it and the result were very thin negatives.
I thought that the negatives would have become thicker, because I was at 21°C the whole time, so don't know why this happend


...next try :)

imagesfrugales said...

Hi retinent,

I bet you didn't check the soda .... ;-)