Totally Unscientific Generic B&W Film Test

Steve M.

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Recently someone, I think it was Raid, mentioned a seller on the auction site that had what was supposed to be a B&W C41 film that was patterned after Ilford XP2. Turns out it was made in the EU, not the US as the ad stated, and packaged in China. He dropped his price to $114. 86 w/ free Priority Shipping. I couldn't resist.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...obXqOr4%3D&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK:MEWNX:IT



He sent the film quickly, and offers a full money back refund if you're not happy. Just keep the one roll and send it all back, so the risk was about $15.

The film was in black, unmarked containers and it arrived safely in good shape. One thing I'm wondering is the expiration date, as it isn't marked anywhere. You can also forget about keeping track of your shots by the neg numbers as there aren't any! Well, there are some, here and there, but they don't match up to the actual frame numbers. In the photos of the negs on a light table, one shows the developed film by itself, the other shows the film in comparison to XP2 (the Ilford is on top). As you can see, there's no color mask like the Kodak film.

The film was taken to Walgreens for processing and scanning. This is the same Walgreens that I always use, so hopefully it will act as a control of sorts.

So, how does it perform? Good and bad, it turns out. My first look at the scanned negs on the computer monitor showed the familiar, digital-like grain structure of XP2, but it also showed a lot more grain that I am used to. In fact, at this point I was ready to send the film back. The photos looked unsharp as well.

I downloaded a free version of Noiseware's Community Edition and cleaned up a few of the negs. Wow! Made a huge difference, and now I'm considering shooting another roll at a different ISO setting, as I think a lot of the larger grain may have come from incorrect exposure for the film's true native ISO speed, whatever that is. The cleaned negs look really good (shot w/ my R2A and a Summar) but still show some artifacts that came up from filtering the files thru the software. It may need it's default filtering setting turned down.

Conclusion? I don't know. It sure looks promising, but once I use another roll I won't have 99 rolls to send back, and I guess I won't be able to return it. At this point I'm going to email the seller and ask about the expiration date, as well as possible overexposure vis a vis true ISO, and see what he says.

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Well, how many EU-made C41 mono neg films are there?

And how long can they be kept before they go off?

With C41 films, more exposure = finer grain. With conventional B+W, more exposure = coarser grain. With ALL films, more exposure = lower sharpness.

Cheers,

R.
 
I can't turn anything off. It was scanned by Walgreens. I might try rescanning the negs w/ my Minolta Scan Dual III. Might try looking at the negs closely w/ a loupe too. If more exposure equals finer grain, then it may be underexposed, as the negs look a little darkish. My R2A always exposes well on AE, so it's probably not the camera. I guess I should also see how it prints on an enlarger, but I sold mine.

To me, the normal XP2 film grain looks weird even when everything is right, which is why I use the Kodak C41 B&W film normally. That orange mask isn't the best for optically printing, but just turn the contrast up and the prints look great. I think the Kodak film just looks better, at least in this harsh light. But at $1.14 a roll for this stuff I'm willing to concede something. If I can get the film to look good after some fixing up in the computer I'll keep it.
 
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I can't turn anything off. It was scanned by Walgreens. I might try rescanning the negs w/ my Minolta Scan Dual III. Might try looking at the negs closely w/ a loupe too. If more exposure equals finer grain, then it may be underexposed, as the negs look a little darkish. My R2A always exposes well on AE, so it's probably not the camera. I guess I should also see how it prints on an enlarger, but I sold mine.

Underexposed = lighter with neg film... Darker prints, lighter negs.

Consider also the possibility of out-of-spec but still usable film beng 'dumped' overseas rather than recycled. Or consider the possibility that it's REALLY old Agfa stock from when they did a C41 mono.

Cheers,

R.
 
Are there any DX markings on the canisters? And please do try scanning the film on your Minolta scanner, I am very interested in seeing how this film performs. And very grateful to you for sharing your experience with it so far.
 
The scans look really weird. Definitely try getting different scans. What ISO did you use? I have little experience with C-41 BW films, but recall that image quality at ISO200 was better than at the box speed of ISO400.

However - I would post a different question. Steve, please, no offense intended, but it makes me wondering how much profit the film producer made if somebody out there sells the film for about $1 a roll? The buyer may get lucky and find out the the quality is fine, but given the shrinking film production, I personally (if my budget and conditions allow) would rather buy 25 rolls of Kodak, Ilford, Adox or whatever established producer than 100 rolls of rebranded film - no EU or US company can compete with price that low.

Indeed it could have been some left-over of some particular production (maybe even outdated, who knows) that finally found its way to the market. But the price is so low that it just makes me wondering ...
 
To me, the normal XP2 film grain looks weird even when everything is right, which is why I use the Kodak C41 B&W film normally.

XP-2 looks just fine if its is scanned right, which means NOT as a one hour lab run by $7 an hour 'techs'.

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Both XP-2 35mm, c-41 developed at a pro lab in New Mexico (where I lived at the time) and scanned myself on my Nikon LS-8000ED scanner
 
hi,

I use quite a fair bit of private label XP-2 in the past.

The #1 reason why I stopped using it is that there is no expiry dates on the film. After successive batches (total of 50 rolls), I came across a bad batch where the negatives were muddy and inconsistent. I have since stopped using private label XP2.

The one which I tested is the "new" C-41 B&W film which Ultrafine Online is selling (at 1.59$ a roll), the packaging is identical to the XP-2 private label except that it comes with the DX sticker. In terms of using the film, it is identical to XP-2.

My development method is very primitive for this film, soak in Rodinal for an hour stand development. That's it. I get consistent results.

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Roll#231-NEUxp2-rodinal-ei400-75mins-fixer4-m2-canon1.4
 
The seller emailed me back and said that the case of films was marked 07/2012, so it should be good for several years after that if kept in a fridge. He also said that if I wasn't 100% happy, to send the remaining ones back for a full refund, and apologized for any convenience. Nice guy.

This has worked out pretty well, and I'd consider it an acceptable substitute for the more expensive C41 B&W films, w/ the caveat that I may have to do one extra step in processing (run the files through a noise reduction plug in or software) and still need to get the artifacts out of the image. Probably by dialing down the filtering. That's no big deal, as it took about 20 seconds to open the Noiseware and filter the neg. Once I experiment w/ it and work out the exposures it should look better.

By the by, I still think Ilford has far worse grain than Kodak, although your first photo doesn't show any Chris except for the guy's legs. The Ilford grain has an edgy feel to it that look just like digital noise and makes my teeth hurt. Others have complained about this "feature".

I get great scans from the Kodak C41 film at Walgreens. Their scans actually look as good as the scans from my Minolta film scanner, but the drugstore files are smaller and over sharpened. I add a little Gausian Blur to tamp down the sharpening if I'm going to print the file. Here's one from the same Walgreens, a scan of the Kodak fake B&W.

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OK, I scanned one of the negs on the Minolta III. Lots of scratches! But the film scanner got rid of a lot of the artifacts that were probably from the Walgreens scanner over sharpening. I toned down the filtering on the Noiseware too. Looks fine to me, other than the scratches.

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"grainy" look is what I saw once when scanned XP2S in minilab. But it scans like upper sample when in film scanner.
 
These scans came from the same roll of generic B&W film, but I scanned these myself on the Scan Dual III. The problem w/ the original Walgreens scans was over sharpening. Unfortunate, as this Walgreens is usually very consistent, but on the day I dropped off this film there was someone new behind the photo counter. The image looks a lot better now. I'm running another roll thru the camera, and will post the keepers, if any, once I scan them.

The two shots of Sissy the Cat here show the difficulty of determining what a film actually looks like. The first photo was scanned as a B&W neg, the second from a scan that was set to color. They look very different.

I'm not much of a scientist, so I apologize for the half baked results. Will try to stay on top of the variables next time.

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I'm curious if anyone has any more updates on their experience with this kind of film? I impulsively purchased 50 rolls of "MADE TO REPLICATE ILFORD XP2... Packaged in China" from the big auction site (sold by amaan13). I have no relation to the seller.

I read this thread after my purchase :bang: and am second guessing my decision. I plan to process at Costco.

I will post results at a later date. Hopefully I won't be disappointment - I usually shoot BW400CN.
 
Steve,

Do you develop C-41 yourself? If not, I can't understand the point behind of taking a tonne of risque to import unknown film from 10K miles away. How much the C-41 processing costs even if you do it yourself? Not one dollar, I am sure... How about buying some excellent brand cubic grained film of your choice - especially in 100' rolls- and then DIY develop it to cost less than a buck? When I calculate my cost of one roll of HP5+ or Acros including self developing, scanning etc., it is hardly over $5 a roll and I have been doing it since decades. IMO, the real saving possibility with film is in the processing of it rather than what you pay to the manufacturer.

Tom, through his Flickr site, has been contributing to us since years through some tremendous combinations of films and developers with respectable results to meet almost all expectations. Some of the developers there take 5 minutes to mix and cost less than $5 a gallon.

Just my two cents...

Bob
 
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