Ilford XP2 Shooters?

Unfortunately, yes. I'm speaking --well, typing-- from experience. Unless I didn't get the secret handshake club's manual (which is not improbable), you need to get it fixed the C-41 way.

Fix it a lot the way you've already done it. A lot. And it may last longer, but once developed this way I'm not sure if you can go back. In about three, four years, you'll see it.

I *think* if you take the uncut roll to a lab they may process it for you; this is what I was recommended I should do, and I still doubt it would work --don't know since I never tried it. Fortunately for me, the roll I did that with (and it was an accident, btw: I didn't pay attention that the roll I had grabbed wasn't TMax...I was batch-developing) was just a test roll.
This is odd. Where does the image go? What attacks it? It's silver, after all.

I'm not calling you a liar. I've never processed either XP1 or XP2 other than as C41, and I can't really see why anyone would, so I've never paid any attention to its permanence or otherwise when processed arbitrarily in ways the makers never intended. But I'm intrigued.

Cheers,

R.
 
Indeed strange! I only develop XP2+ in c-41 once. All the other rolls were done in rodinal. My first ones over 5 years and they still are looking normal and in the same way they did.
Lets see, the film is for developing in C-41, that one uses bleach, that remove all the silver from from the film, then fix, and then the stabilizer bath that prevent organisms eating the dyes, etc. Because, color film do to bleach do not have any silver left and silver is a natural "disinfectant".
When one does a c-41 film in normal b&w chemicals, one does not bleach, so the emulsion is still going to have silver in it, right?
 
I asked this in the last XP2 thread, but since I've shot a roll of it since then, and I'm still struggling, I'll see if anyone has any tips.

What ISO are people shooting XP2 at?

My results at box speed are ...not ideal, to the point where the grain texture is obscuring some of the detail, the way bad old 400 or even 800 ISO films looked with huge grain.

this is across a number of cameras, that I've tried other films in and they're exposing correctly, I get lovely creamy results with BW400CN at 400, but the Ilford comes out gravelly.

Ilford's based near me, I'd like to support a local company with a real commitment to film, (even with the price premium) but I'm clearly doing something wrong.

I'm basing this question on the lab scans on a fuji frontier, given Ilford's involvement in Fuji's C41 Neopan (and the results I get with other films) I don't believe that's the problem, and there are some lovely images in this thread, so it's not the film, the cameras are reliable, so the problem is clearly with the user, so what am I doing wrong

My experience is that XP2 can be shot anywhere between ISO 200 - 800. If you don't like the grain structure at ISO 400, then shoot it at 200 and you will get finer grains. But as somebody else suggested earlier in this thread, XP2 tends to retain more details in highlights than in shadows, so, it is not an ideal choice for pushing to 800 or above (technically, it is not pushing, because the development recipe remains the same).

XP2's rendering is quite crisp at ISO 400, so if you get horrible grains, it may be that you are under-exposing the film. You may want to try over-exposing it by a notch to be safe. As compared to prime silver-based films, XP2 performs poorly in conserving shadow details. If you are always shooting in the shadows, probably this is not your film.

Last but not least, I would not underestimate the effect of scanning. I have noticed that certain models of lab scanners get pretty iffy when it comes to certain films. Don't assume that Fujifilm scanner division maintains an effective information exchange with the film division. Try on another scanner. I use a Nikon V ED and the results (in terms of grain and accutance) are at the same level or better than what I get from T-MAX developed in XTOL 1:1. The linear raw scan comes out generally much darker than that of silver-based films, which means the positive needs to be manipulated a little bit. Have just one shot of your films scanned professionally, and you will see if the scanner is the culprit!

Here you see a slightly underexposed shot:

xp5.jpg


See the pronounced grain and the loss of detail in darker areas.

Here is a 100% crop of my first shot at 4000dpi:

xp1crop.jpg


See the difference in the level of details between darker and lighter areas.
 
Thanks for all the responses, and apologies for not having responded to thank everyone for the advice sooner, I've been behind cameras rather than behind my keyboard for a couple of nights, which is always a nice change.

I've ruled out the cameras underexposing the film, because it's only XP2 I struggle with, and to be clear, it's the lab scans as previews that I'm judging, rather than scanning the neg, (to be honest based on the lab scans I wouldn't have bothered scanning any of the negs, at all.)

It's less the underexposure kind of grain mottling in the shadows etc, and more just that the "grain" of the film is so big and obtrusive that it starts to obscure the detail.

It's not an issue I get with BW400CN at all, that comes out beautifully, and it's clearly not an issue that others are having.

I've tried it at box speed, and at 100 through a red filter (disastrous), , next time I have a roll of it I'll remove variables and shoot it at 200, unfiltered and see if I have any joy.

Some fantastic shots in this thread, thoroughly enjoyed looking through
 
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