Delta 100 vs FP4 and Delta 400 vs HP5

[x-ray]

I agree there's no substitute for doing your own testing. My comments are purely my personal experiences that most likely won't translate to your experiences. We all have different taste in images, some of us wet print and use a variety of enlargers, papers and developers and others scan on a variety of scanners with different profiles. This is why you need to text film yourself.

 

[RObert Budding]

No film is inherently more contrasty or less contrasty.

Given a correct exposure, the contrast depends entirely on development time. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding on this point by some...

Rolfe

Agreed. It's important to stay with a film/developer combination long enough to understand how they behave together. A roll or two commercially developed is pretty much meaningless.

 

[bluesun267]

No film is inherently more contrasty or less contrasty.

Given a correct exposure, the contrast depends entirely on development time. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding on this point by some...

Rolfe

My 'fundamental misunderstanding' on this point leads me to point out the following films:
Ferrania P30
Kodak High Contrast 5363 Motion Picture Film
Technical Pan
Rollei (Agfa Aviphot) Retro 80s
Microfilms

While it may be possible to find a developer that will give interesting, even great, results for pictorial purposes with these films (a couple of these are among my favorites), you cannot reasonably claim to be able obtain a tonal range equivalent to a film designed for pictorial purposes. To say contrast is all about the developer is to deny any objective and/or engineering philosophy on the part of the film manufacturer. Perhaps they should discontinue every film except one if your assertion is true.

In a purely scientific sense, contrast is dependent on both developing time and rated ISO, but is it really practical to shoot a film at an ISO of 0.5 and develop for 15 seconds to obtain those results?

 

[Deleted member 65559]

FP4 HP5 et al

FP4 HP5 et al

Ilford FP4 is my favourite film. I use it in 35,120,4x5 & 5x7. Although I've processed it in XTOL I usually use Pyrocat HD in glycol. I like the contrast range a lot. Although I've used a lot of HP5, and gotten good results, I prefer the look of TriX and TMY-2 by a wide margin. I've used a little Delta both 100 & 400...& gotten good images. I prefer traditional films over the T-grain alternatives. If push came to shove I would use the Delta films but FP4+ is my go-to