Tri-X or HP5 Plus?

For me HP5 always makes everything look overly gray and dull. As I once read somewhere "HP5 makes every place look like England". That's been my experience. But then I've never liked any of Illfords stuff and I was much less experienced at developing when I was experimenting with films. Tri-X just worked.

Now, I use Tri-X and Neopan 400 interchangeably but prefer Neopan for a little snappier, more modern look. I made this choice after picking some negs to enlarge and the ones I really loved all happened to be shot on Neopan, although I considered myself a Tri-X person at the time and percentage wise, there were alot more shot on Tri-X. I develop in Rodinal because I like grain but if I want a little less grain and better tonality, I use HC-110.

Whatever you do, just buy a lot of it and stick with it for awhile.
 
HP5+ in DDX has become my favourite combination for 400 through 1600.

I know what you mean about greys, nightfly, I find I use a higher grade filter for printing ilford films than Tri-X. But all my Tri-X is now gone (save half a roll) and I'm perfectly happy with HP5+.
 
I don't know how indistinguishable Tri-X from HP5+ can be in general, I only know that my Tri-X and HP5+ negs don't look strikingly similar.
 
I've started using the Ilford Delta films... they are a modern grain film and seem quite nice.
I used t-max 400 for years but feel that Kodak has abondoned us while Ilford has embraced us as far as film/papers/chemicals go.... so I've switched to Ilford products across the board.
Rob Skeoch
www.bigcameraworkshops.com
 
TriX is definitely more flexible than HP5 in my book, i.e. it takes pulling and pushing with most developers I 've used whereas HP5 is a more 'difficult' film (in my experience, it pushes with nice results only in DDX - marginally so in Rodinal).

Also, depending on exposure, developer and process, the same film can exhibit different visible properties, so that one can almost trade the consensual trademark characteristics of one film for another (small wonder then that even people who photograph for ages with the two films can be fooled when comparing the two, and understandably admit defeat in discerning one or the other).

Despite the flexibility of TriX in use at various ISOs there's one very practical reason why one should at least try HP5 - and that's the chronicle of a death foretold for all Kodak film emulsions. Kodak of course has never declared they will abandon the market but if (and, worse, when) as many of us fear, they do abandon this cruel B&W world, it will be nice to have tried out and arrived at an alternative, good conventional emulsion/developer(s) combo. HP5 and DDX seems to be it (for me) for the time being.

BTW Neopan 400 also looks very nice but I have not explored its push properties at any length and from what I hear in the forum this is also a 'difficult' film. We 'll see.

One last thing: As I said I am using almost equally TriX and HP5 and it's nice to have both and not being forced to choose. But if I had to choose a B&W film for an important event tomorrow, that would be TriX.
 
i've never had any trouble developing hp5 or trix pushed to 800 or even 1600 in xtol. 1600 is not as nice as at 400 or 320, but if thats what you need it looks great, a large print would look fine.

neopan 1600 at 3200 is great. i love it for when i need that extra stop. it seems like you'd have trouble with this statement magus, but you almost couldn't tell if it was shot at 1600 or 3200 ;). try it and let me know how it goes. i'd almost want to push trix to 3200, as i've seen pretty cool stuff with it, but I get tired of agitating so long :D .
 
Tri-X at 3200 and 6400 is a snap, and you can even use stand development to make it less annoying for agitation :)

I like having just 1 film for so many applications. And grain is very, very tight, still.

When I run out of various films I'll consider NP1600. But TXT is darn flexible.

allan
 
I like both. Tri-x in Rodinal. HP5 in DD-X.
If I want to push a stop or so, I'll switch to Tmax400 developed in DD-X.
 
Well I guess people can say or think what they like. Through direct comparison I've found the two films to be utterly interchangeable, as did (to his surprise) my B+W instructor.
Later, I tinkered with Merciful's heap big push idea, i.e developing for an hour in Rodinal, and found results interchangeable there too. I did the comparison the same way, i.e. same camera, lens, lighting, scene, exposure, etc.
Has anyone else here done this and come up with a noticeable difference? I mean a controlled test? Or has it all been done by comparing what seem like similar conditions, just seat of the pants/ guesswork? Magus?
 
There is no way you can say HP5 and Tri-X are indistinguishable, I'm just in the process of trying to switch from Tri-x to HP5 as my main film, mainly because HP5 is over 30% cheaper than Tri-x in the UK. If they were the same why have I just had to totally revise the way I scan? It's true you can work toward similar looking prints but the work flow would be very different. I think different (but comparable) films show more difference than different (but comparable) lenses.
 
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Might be less traditional, but it is the most traditional film on the market (well from what I have shot) am I wrong?
 
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