Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/08/25
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Before I gave up black & white--sheer laziness: too lazy to put up a safelight in my darkroom and mix up B&W paper chemistry--I started using XP2 exclusively. Because I had already started working with C41, it was convenient to be able to develop color and B&W with the same protocol. I never compared XP2 (XP1 at first) to the most fine grained films, but I must say that it was so much finer grained than Plus-X that the two were really in different ball parks. What I did learn from reading and confirmed by experiment was that the appearance of grain, very ugly grain, in XP-type films was failure of the dye globs to overlap. This would occur in the thinner parts of the negative. If there were sufficient exposure such than the thin parts corresponded to black on the print, this "grain" would not be visible. If the exposure were less, say medium gray for the thin portions of the neg, the "grain" would be horrible. The allegation of the film manufacturers that the film can be rated from 100 to 1600 is gross dishonesty. In practical terms, I found that to get good results, I had to rate the film at ISO 200. Possibly ISO 100 would be better, but the negatives would be so dense that enlarging times could be excessive. I was definitely unhappy with the results at ISO 400 and ISO 800 was utterly out of the question. Herb - -- Herbert Kanner kanner@acm.org 650-326-8204 Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will pee on your computer! - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html