XP2 processed as C41 vs traditional B&W chemistry

[LocalHero1953]

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I have been trying various films before settling on a couple of preferred stocks. This has led me to shoot 5 rolls of XP2 Super. I was curious how it performed when processed in traditional B&W chemistry at home compared to professional processing in C41 chemicals. When I mentioned this in another thread others were curious (including @ianman, I think) so I'm explaining my conclusions here. 

[TL/DR: choose C41 every time!]

I was not at all rigorous in shooting the same scenes in the same conditions, but almost all the shots were in familiar areas around town where I have plenty of experience of what they look like in different lighting and with other films (and digital).

All five films were run through a Leica iiif with a Nikkor 3.5cm f/2.5 LTM lens. I processed two of them at home in HC-110 Dilution B using the guidelines in the Massive Development Chart. The other three were processed by AG Photographic. I scanned them with a Leica SL2-S and Apo-Macro-Elmarit-R 100mm fitted with the appropriate ELPRO that gives 1:1 magnification - it was mounted on a tripod stand, looking down at the film in an Essential Film Holder over a Kaiser LED panel. I set manual exposure so that the base film border highlight was just not blown - about 1 second at f/8 and ISO 100. I inverted them and cropped them in Lightroom, then exported them as TIFFs, and reimported them - that made subsequent processing intuitive - the sliders went the right way.

The C41 images were initially much flatter and required a u-shaped tone curve to deepen the shadows and increase contrast in highlights. The HC-110 images were much more obviously contrasty, needing at most the Lightroom 'medium contrast' tone curve. They also took a lot more work to lighten the shadows. Frankly I found the images a bit ugly, with quite a lot of deep shadow which was difficult to lighten, not a lot of midtones, and similar highlights to the C41 images. The latter showed good tonality in midtones and shadows that were not easily blocked.

I will show comparable scenes and images in the next posts. I repeat that they are not direct comparisons of the same scenes under the same conditions, but illustrate the points I have just made.

[LocalHero1953]

Two stretches of the river with houses and trees. Although I have tried to process them fairly neutrally, the image developed in HC-110 has more and deeper shadows and less detail in the shadows.

First: HC-110

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Second: C41

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[LocalHero1953]

The area known as the Mill Pond.

First HC-110. The original was much darker than this, even though the highlights were OK.

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Second C41. Excellent midtones IMO, and a much easier image to 'manage'.

[LocalHero1953]

The Mathematical Bridge at Queens' College.

Although they are different angles on the same scene, I am sure HC-110 would not have coped with the framing shade under the concrete bridge in the second scene anywhere near as well as C41 did.

First HC-110

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Second C41

[LocalHero1953]

One of the punting stations on the Cam, overshadowed by taller brick-clad buildings.

As with the other images, the HC-110 image has too many too deep shadows, while the C41 shows better midtone tonality.

First HC-110

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Second C41

[LocalHero1953]

I'm still looking at a comparison of grain, but will have to do some carefully focused rescans of similar images, to avoid being misled by slightly off focus in the scans.

I have no doubt from what I have seen so far that developing in B&W chemistry, although possible, is not an acceptable substitute for C41 processing. I am not encouraged to try other developers, or different development times and agitation.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who has tried the same experiment.

[RayD28]

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Paul, interesting test.  I just assumed XP2 had to be developed C41 and B&W chemistry was not an option.  

[LocalHero1953]

3 minutes ago, RayD28 said:

Paul, interesting test.  I just assumed XP2 had to be developed C41 and B&W chemistry was not an option.  

My wife, a chemistry graduate and occasional photographer describes it this way. Both traditional B&W and colour negative films start from the development of a silver salt image. The C41 process is a next step that uses the silver grains to generate dye clouds. For colour negatives, the dyes are coloured. For XP2 the dye is black. The development of XP2 in traditional B&W chemistry stops after the silver image has been formed and doesn't proceed to the dye stage of the process.

[Ouroboros]

1 hour ago, LocalHero1953 said:

...I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who has tried the same experiment.

Not exactly the same method as you, but I remember a good while ago, maybe around 25+ years,  processing XP2 in something like Acculux just to see what the outcome would be.  I never bothered again, I dislike stopped shadow detail as much as I dislike blown highlights.  XP2 is a chromogenic emulsion and needs to be processed in C41 to get the best from it, but I think you've already found that out.  

I always preferred BW400CN processed as C41, which gave better (to my eye) tonal transitions than XP2 on medium format and was my stock bw film for weddings, studio portraits, canine and equine images prior to my full business conversion to digital in 1999. 

  

Edited November 30, 2022 by Ouroboros

[hansvons]

@LocalHero1953, great experiment! And the best thing is, I don't have to do it myself. Well-conducted, good photography, couldn't have done it better. You definitely know what you are talking about. THANKS!

My 2 pennies:

I have an ongoing project that requires both colour and B&W. B & W digitally acquired is not B & W in the sense of the real thing. It's not only me but also my clients who acknowledge the difference. Since this is for a social media campaign, the resolution isn't an issue. But I wanted the best possible results.

Hence I was testing a couple of fast enough stocks for almost any situation and fine-grained enough/well resolving to be as satisfying as possible. Shooting 35mm was a given, as I needed the vertical format and the convenience of 35mm. I gave the usual suspects a spin, TriX, Agfa/Rollei 400, HP5, TMax400, and Delta400. Long story short, I shortlisted TMax400 and Delta400. Delta400 has the edge over TMax400 in holding the highlights better, so I ended up with Delta 400. 

I omitted XP2 because I cannot process it at home with a regular B&W developer (I use Xtol, as it yields fine grain, holds the speed and is pretty sharp). But I was curious about what I might miss. Now I know—nothing to miss. I even find XP2 somewhat soulless. Where's the grain?

 

2 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I'm still looking at a comparison of grain, but will have to do some carefully focused rescans of similar images, to avoid being misled by slightly off focus in the scans.

For my project, I already shot over 20 rolls. Mostly, the results are ok, even great at times. Focus is an issue with old-school film photography, has always been. But this can be resolved by technique and training (getting better by the day). Exposure is easy, as in the old days. Just rate the stock half a stop slower. Negatives mostly turn out well with the proper density. BUT I find the digitisation and subsequent sharpening unexpectedly challenging.

First, the macro lens I'm using is the Elmarit 60mmR @f8. Unfortunately, it renders the corners not as sharp as the centre. That's somewhat a given for any lens, but for digitising film, it's distracting as the grain gets soft in the corners. I'd like to know what you use and what your experience is. 

Secondly, the grain should be as sharp as possible. That is determined by stock and the developer, the scanning process, and the sharpening in the end. Currently, I'm experimenting with C1#s sharpening tools and Topaz Sharpen. 

What do you think about XP2's grain? Unfortunately, I cannot say much about it when looking at your scans. But perhaps that's precisely what you get with XP2?

Thanks again!!

[LocalHero1953]

10 minutes ago, hansvons said:

What do you think about XP2's grain? Unfortunately, I cannot say much about it when looking at your scans. But perhaps that's precisely what you get with XP2?

Thanks again!!

Thank you for your kind comments!

As I wrote, I am still looking at grain. When I scan, I tend to focus the first frame of the strip of 6 (or whole roll if I have developed it at home, uncut), and then shoot each subsequent fame without refocusing. For the best scans, and to look at grain, I ought to accurately focus each frame - this is what I will do next.

From what I have seen so far there is not such an obvious difference in grain between XP2 at ISO 400 developed in HC-110 and C41; both are noticeable at 100% enlargements, but quite fine. Like you I have settled on Delta 400 as my main B&W film; my initial impression is that XP2 is finer, but I really must look at this more closely.

One thing I have found is that digital detail tools (Lightroom noise-reduction and sharpening, Topaz Denoise & Sharpen) are not very effective with film grain. Movements of the sliders that would make a big change to a native digital image have limited effect on film grain and on improving the crispness of an image - at worst they just create and emphasise artefacts. I don't know why this is; perhaps now that these tools are AI based, they are trained to recognise digital noise but not film grain? There is certainly a market gap for tools that can improve film detail in the same way that Topaz has revolutionised digital detail (in its ability to reconstruct blurred faces, eyes, hair, building structures etc.) 

[250swb]

Here are two articles published by Ilford that make interesting reading

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/processing-xp2s-in-black-and-white-chemistry/

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/ilford-xp2-super-in-black-and-white-chemistry/

 

[johnwolf]

I tried a couple rolls at 400 ISO in HC-110. I can't post here because they weren't from Leica equipment. 

To my eye they look more like T-grain films than conventional BW films. Much less grain and overall smoother transition between tones. 

I prefer the more organic look of Tri-X and HP5+. XP2 in C41 also has that look.

Anyway, I wasn't much of a fan. But the process worked really well and the scans were very nice. 

John 

Edited November 30, 2022 by johnwolf

[LocalHero1953]

15 minutes ago, 250swb said:

Here are two articles published by Ilford that make interesting reading

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/processing-xp2s-in-black-and-white-chemistry/

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/ilford-xp2-super-in-black-and-white-chemistry/

 

Thank you. I had read those articles a while ago and forgotten about them. The second is most comparable to my trials, and I note Chris Moss says that at ISO 400 "the scans were a bit dark with a histogram crowded to the left" - my conclusion also.

I am inclined to rush to judgement, so my post #6 about the usability of B&W chemistry for XP2 is probably a bit premature; Chris Moss suggests longer development time - with HC-110 and dilution B, I used 5.5mins, and he was using the more dilute dilution E. It would be tedious to have long development times, but acceptable if the results were as good as the C41.

[LocalHero1953]

1 hour ago, hansvons said:

First, the macro lens I'm using is the Elmarit 60mmR @f8. Unfortunately, it renders the corners not as sharp as the centre. That's somewhat a given for any lens, but for digitising film, it's distracting as the grain gets soft in the corners. I'd like to know what you use and what your experience is. 

 

I use the Apo-Macro-Elmarit-R 100mm with ELPRO to give me 1:1 at 35mm - this gives me nearly 24mp with the SL2-S (allowing for a bit of cropping).

To be honest I haven't looked closely at how this lens performs in the corners. All my 35mm film lenses are old (the most modern is a Summilux-M 50mm pre-asph), so any deficiencies in the R lens are likely to be hidden by the bigger corner deficiencies in the negatives. I should check it out though  - if I can find a suitable target. 

[oldwino]

I think its best in C-41, but I've had good results (better than yours anyway) in Diafine.

 

Edit: I will add that XP2 is more contrasty in Diafine than C-41 still.

Edited November 30, 2022 by oldwino

[hansvons]

1 hour ago, LocalHero1953 said:

To be honest I haven't looked closely at how this lens performs in the corners. All my 35mm film lenses are old (the most modern is a Summilux-M 50mm pre-asph), so any deficiencies in the R lens are likely to be hidden by the bigger corner deficiencies in the negatives.

Agreed. But when scanning, I like the grain to be as sharp as meaningfully possible evenly across the image, as the original camera's lens doesn't influence its sharpness/gestalt. That's the most significant advantage of a scanner. But then, all affordable scanners have many other deficiencies. 

[johnwolf]

My examples are not taken with Leica gear, but here's a link to my tumblr XP2 tag: 

https://johnwolf-photographs.tumblr.com/tagged/xp2

The first three are C41 and the remaining four in HC-110. 

I much prefer the C41 versions. They have more of the look I like in BW film. If I could afford to, I'd use XP2 all the time and send it out for processing. 

John 

Edited November 30, 2022 by johnwolf

[hansvons]

This guy developed XP2 in Xtol 1:1. Dev time 10:30 and exposed one stop slower.

https://www.jrwyatt.com/new-blog/2021/6/4/ilford-xp2-and-xtoldoes-it-work

The resolution is spectacular; the grain is virtually gone (but you never know how far people go when denoising their stuff). The shadows are still pretty inky. It looks a bit like an overly contrasty cine film stock (ECN-2) in B&W, which shows a similar resolution. Not sure what to do with that. But it can be sexy (cine film in ECN-2 is super sexy, but they don't shine brightest at box speed).

In stock Xtol, the dev time should be in the regular 7 ½ minutes. I'd suspect grain and sharpness/acutance will be a tad more pronounced, but the resolution will remain roughly the same. I should give it try.  

@LocalHero1953, thanks again for bringing this up. Super curious now.

@johnwolf, great photos. Thanks!!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 30, 2022 by hansvons

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[LocalHero1953]

Here are some examples of grain. I have shown a reduced resolution of the whole image and a 100% crop of a suitable central part. No noise reduction or sharpening have been applied (nor Lightroom's 'clarity').

The crops are all 1231 pixels on the long edge. The images are all rescanned from the previous posts, with care taken to focus as accurately as possible.

 

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Edited December 1, 2022 by LocalHero1953