Chromogenic monochrome film. For all those who value the convenience of C-41 processing over total control.
Ilford XP2 is one of the few chromogenic monochrome films on the market. This means that you have a film which is processed via our well-known C-41 process as normal colour negative film, but will produce black & white negatives/prints. Actually, depending on the lab and the expiry state you will get sepia-esque prints, but that’s another story and not necessarily bad, in fact I love it, just like here in this series.
Its 400 ISO speed makes it a wonderful all-rounder and often a great alternative if only slow true monochrome films are available. It is super sharp and a bit on the contrasty side I’d say – which I love. It is also well suited to be processed as traditional black & white film due to lack of the heavy orange mask found in other films like Kodak BW400CN, although this is supposed to produce negatives of lesser quality (but also cheaper and faster to do). I will have to try out for myself sometime in the near future (using what else Rodinal, which is supposed to chew nicely through anything that isn’t silver-related).
In the meantime, I love using this as a fast monochrome all-round film and looking at weirdly tinted prints from our escapades! Enjoy!
8 comments
pangmark
Kick-ass gallery. Nice lil story book.
hewzay
gallery feels like a silent movie. Awesome!
staceybridie
My favourite film ^^
cyan-shine
Thanks a lot :D
fed
Looks like Selenium toned RC paper prints.
I like your results although I still prefer to develop B&W myself. It whats fun about B&W! Then I do some toning in Photoshop and when I achieve something I really like I try to reproduce it in the darkroom.
The girls are gorgeous and look like they had a lot of fun during the session.
Great review!
nural
I love the sephia-ish tones!!!
jaalvarez
Wonderful article ... I like it so much !!!
Congrats !!!
cyan-shine
@fed The prints weren't toned, expired chromogenic monochromes have that quirk.
@jaalvarez thx!