Kentmere 400 in XTOL ... any ideas/experience?

[Trius]

I have some Kentmere 400 which John D/emraphoto kindly gave me. Rather than resurrect this thread, which is about the film itself, I thought I'd start a new thread to ask if anyone has any experience processing it in XTol?

I'd like to use 1:1, and no, I don't have any D76 (at least not where I am now), ID-11 or other developers listed in the MDC or in Ilford's tech pub.

The times for Kentmere 400 are about 40% longer than for TX400 for D76 1:1, so I'm tempted to increase the time by about that much for XTol 1:1.

Any thoughts?

 

[dcsang]

Earl,

I saw some of that Kentmere stuff yesterday whilst I was in Downtown Camera. It is suggested that the film itself is a bit less contrasty than the original HP5+ due to, and this is what I've heard not my opinion, less silver being used in the emulsion.

I would suggest you process it, if you shoot it at 400, at maybe 640 to get a bit more contrast based on that statement.

Just a suggestion 🙂

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Timeshare]

I just picked up some Kentmere at Downtown camera today, the sales rep told me that Ilford was phasing out HP5+ and the Kentemere was taking it's place. He commented that ... "the technology of the two films is the same but the Kentmere has less silver"

I am a bit puzzled as you would think Ilford would have had some type of news release stating the demise of HP5, I would think this would be "Big" news in the film world?

I think the sales rep may have had his facts mixed up.

Would be interested to see any feedback on development times as I also use XTOL and I would like to experiment with this film.

 

[Trius]

I would be very surprised indeed if Ilford phased out HP5+ for Kentmere 400. I don't know the price of silver, but I can't imagine that, given the amount of HP5+ they sell, the savings would be significant.

My first go round was @ 400 in XTol 1:1 for 16+ minutes, and the results were OK, but not spectacular ... see below. Yesterday I processed a roll shot @ EI 250 and souped it in XTol 1:1 w/ Rodinal @ 1:100. As I told Les in a flickr mail, the negs look much better, but I won't be able to scan until I'm back in Rochester.

EI 400, XTol 1:1 ~19 minutes; highlights are blown, so dev time was too long:

 

[dcsang]

Earl,

it doesn't look too bad to me.. but then again.. you know the neg/scan better than I 🙂

I like the tonality and I, personally, like the high contrast there - maybe cut back on the dev time by a minute or minute and a half to help with the blown highlights?

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Trius]

Dave: Thanks. Yeah, I thought about continuing to expose @ 400 and cutting back on the time. After I scan the roll shot @ 250, I'll see how I want to go. I have another roll in the Minolta, set @ 250. I may dunk it in Rodinal 1:50 (no XTol cocktail) and see how that works.

I wish I had a real densitometer so I could do proper personal EI and dev time tests.

 

[capitalK]

The following message was posted in a thread in the Toronto group on Flickr re: Kentmere and Ilford @ Downtown Camera:

On behalf of Downtown Camera I would like to apologize for the misunderstanding. Some employees were misinformed and saying that Ilford HP5 has been discontinued... Ilford HP5 is not discontinued and will still be available at our store. Ilford HP5 24exp. is no longer available at the student discount price and in 10-packs. The Kentmere 24exp. 400ISO will be available at a student discount price instead. Our employees have been informed of this confusion.


http://www.flickr.com/groups/tdot/discuss/72157623362899380/

That's a shame, I bought the HP5 student packs like they were going out of style (which, apparently, they were)