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Old 11th December 2021, 03:58 PM
John King John King is offline
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Default XP2 printing Grades

I developed a cassette of XP2 yesterday and went to have a session in the darkroom printing a few- which turned out to be a complete failure. Has anyone ever had problems when printing XP2 onto Multigrade 1V? The negatives are not particularly contrasty, but the increased in printing filtration contrast was stratospheric! I have never printed XP2 using MG5 before and this was unexpected.

I started printing as normal using the twin filtration method as shown in the leaflet included with MG5 paper I started out with G2 (41Y+32M) that gave me a print as hard as nails. I reduced it down to Grade 1 using (68Y+10M). That was still too hard but possibly recoverable using burning and dodging.

I tried again with Grade 0 and used a single grade (70Y) which was almost there. I wonder if the colour cast from the background colour of the film could be the reason. The exposure times for the twin filtration was all over the place and they are supposed to be the same between Grade 0 and Grade 4.

Temp was 20c and development time 1.5 mins. Absolutely bog standard for me.

I think I will sent Ilford an E mail to get their take on the filtration.

Last edited by John King; 11th December 2021 at 04:19 PM. Reason: Inaccurate text
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Old 11th December 2021, 04:51 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Hi John, I've only printed two (I think, so could be three) XP2 films, that I got processed at my local Snappy Snaps. The prints they provided were ok-ish.

From memory, my negs printed absolutely easily with under the lens filters, using between grade 2 and 3. I printed up to 12" x 16" prints, to give to someone and they looked really great, which really surprised me, as the negatives looked so very thin. What are yours like? Have you maybe overdeveloped them slightly?

The only real downside for me was the lack of grain!! I found it so hard to focus the negatives - a problem I've never had before, LOL.

Oh and the price, mostly of having it d+p'ed. If I developed C41 myself, I might have shot a few more rolls since, as I thought that it was a great film to use.

Just thinking, I know that you use built in filters, but have you got / tried under the lens ones? The two different sets of filters should work the same, but I just wondered.

Terry S
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Old 11th December 2021, 05:11 PM
Richard Gould Richard Gould is offline
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\hi \john,
I5ts been awhile since I have pronted xp2, but I found when printing on standard MG it always needed at least a grade more than standard negatives
Richard
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Old 11th December 2021, 06:09 PM
John King John King is offline
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It is strange though. The negatives being essentially C41 film were developed in normal C41 developer for the usual 3 mins 15 seconds and didn't appear to be any different from a normal colour negative. I actually managed to print one that had reasonable contrast but even then it needed grade 1.5 to stop the highlights burning out.

I went on to print 2 more from normal FP4 and they were normal contrast even one that was essentially quite contrasty was printed on Gd2.

I wonder if it is me because I normally print more colour than B&W, I am expecting too much because you only rarely have to burn or dodge because any change from the chosen filtration also has an effect on the colour tone.

Because of the extreme shortage of colour film and colour printing paper, especially Kodak Endura, I have more or less been forced to give up RA4 printing for the time being so I'm getting back to grips with straight mono.
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Old 11th December 2021, 06:42 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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John,I do wonder if the changes to MGV compared to MGIV warrants Ilford to have another look at both their single and dual filtration figures but your experience almost suggests that something else is at play here.

My impression from seeing videos on XP2 is that it errs on the low contrast side so Richard's experience of needing a harder grade is what I might expect rather than the reverse which seems to have happened here

Mike
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Old 12th December 2021, 03:00 PM
Terry S Terry S is offline
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Hi again John.

Just before writing this, I have been reading some posts (I only read the first and fifth pages comments) on Photrio about XP2 and its development. (I don't visit Photrio as much as FADU, as there are just too many users and posts to keep up with and I like the smaller-ness in comparison, of FADU and i.e. its more friendly atmosphere. ) The Photrio posts can be found here:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/thread...er-400.187297/

Anyway, a few members wrote about your problem = in that how XP2 can easily can become too contrasty when developed in C41. I can only presume that my experience in getting it d+p'ed well locally, is that their machines were spot on with the temperature and times.

The posts also reminded me, that a lot of people have had good results when developing XP2 in B/W chemicals. So if I find a good price for the film, when I next make an order somewhere, I'll try to remember to order a couple of rolls to try again.

As far as I know, I have only printed and sent out one print made from a XP2 negative, in a FADU Print Exchange. The exposure was taken under overhead florescent lights only, so the scene was quite contrasty, but as said, I found it very easy to print:

http://www.film-and-darkroom-user.or...php/photo/1478

Terry S
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Old 12th December 2021, 06:48 PM
John King John King is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike O'Pray View Post
John,I do wonder if the changes to MGV compared to MGIV warrants Ilford to have another look at both their single and dual filtration figures but your experience almost suggests that something else is at play here.

My impression from seeing videos on XP2 is that it errs on the low contrast side so Richard's experience of needing a harder grade is what I might expect rather than the reverse which seems to have happened here

Mike
I have noticed a few oddities in the guide sheet which I will check and highlight on here.
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