differences between Ilford Delta Pro and Ilford HP5?

Ilford HP5 was the first b&w film I've ever used and immediatly fell in love with it. I use it

at 400, 800 and 1600 (i've also tried several other b&w films; tri-x, agfa, fuji). The tonal

rage is great .

 

In the past month or so, I've been experimenting with Ilford Delta pro 100 and 400. The

Ilford Delta Pro 100 has a high contrast compared to the Ilford FP4 that I've used in the

past. I've pushed delta 400 to 800 and 1600 on a few ocassions. The results seem very

different than HP5 pushed to 1600. I can't really articulate what is happening, but I know

it looks different. The shadows seem very dense yet maintaining some detail but there

doesn't seem to be any middle grey areas or there's not much of a seperation between the

tonal range.

 

The images seem to be "b&w" only with not much middle gray area. It's very interesting to

look at and I'm not sure if I like it or not.

 

Is it ok to have a b&w image with no or not much middle gray? ... what is ilford delta

known for? ... in your experience, what is the differences that you notice between hp5 and

delta?

 

I'm a little confused and know there is a difference, I just dont know what it is.

 

oh, I develop all my ilford films with Ilford DD-X developer.

another thing that i've noticed, the grain is much finer with the delta pushed to 1600 than

hp5 at 1600.

The main difference between DELTA FILMS AND HP5 is that the DELTA films are "core shell", designer grain, silver and the HP 5 film is random grain silver.

Forgive my ignorance Lowell,

 

Can you elaborate on what "core shell" means and/or designer grain? ... if you can point

me to some literature online and/or a good book about differences in this sort of thing,

that would be great :)

"Core shell" grain technology is similar to, but not quite the same as, Kodak's T-grain technology. Basically, the crystals of silver halide in the emulsion are have relatively high surface area but are relatively shallow (i.e. high aspect ratio). This is intended to convey several advantages:

 

a) Finer grain

b) Higher accutance

c) Improved reciprocity

d) Reduced silver content

 

The potential downsides:

 

a) Trickier to control contrast (i.e. blown highlights) and exposure latitude is not as great.

b) Tonality is different; and many don't prefer the T-grain/Core shell tonality

c) Aren't considered to push quite as well as traditional films.

 

I'd say that, on the whole, when considering the Delta films vs the T--max films the advantages and disadvantages of the Delta films are milder than their T-Max equivalents. Accutance may be the exception, and lots of folks think the Delta films are sharper than the T-Max films. I don't necessarily agree as I don't have lots of first-hand experience with either.

 

The good news is that, as a DD-X user, you are already using Ilford's "preferred" developer for Delta films.

 

So, to wrap it up, I'd expect that Delta 400 is somewhat sharper and

finer-grained than HP5+. I would not expect Delta 400 to push nearly as well as HP5+ and exposure will likely be trickier. Tonality is tonality - you have to judge the results for yourself.

 

If it were up to me, though, I'd stick with my current film unless there is a deficiency with HP5+ that you are trying to fix by using Delta and there is a reason to expect that Delta can improve your results.

 

Good luck!

Sabrina, there seems to be a consensus that core shell or "T grain" films are better at rendering landscapes than portraits, because they don't have as wide a range of middle tones as "old fashioned" conventional grain films. My own experience bears that out.

 

Ultimately, the image you like is the one that's best for you. For example: if I was photographing a female senior citizen, I'd opt for HP5+ or Neopan 400 (both shot at 250), because it smooths out the skin. On the other hand, if I wanted to show every line and wrinkle in a face, for effect, I would probably use Delta 100.

 

Good shooting.

 

/s/ David Beal * Memories Preserved Photography, LLC

thanks for clearing that up for me. I'm still scanning this roll and it looks quite

interesting. I think I'm learning to like it but I'm not sure if i'll push it to 1600 again.

one more question :D

 

do you find delta looks similar to agfa apx?

The way I understand it is T-grained films are like a sidewalk made with slate tile and the other films are like a sidwalk made from pebbles.

 

Kinda simple but but that's me in a nutshell, simple.

 

Hope this helps you!

Back to one of your original questions, Sabrina...<p>

 

<i>Is it ok to have a b&w image with no or not much middle gray?</i><p>

 

It's perfectly okay -- if <b>you</b> like it that way. There are some subjects and compositions that are stronger with high contrast, with few or no middle tones -- in the extreme, artists sometimes draw with black ink on white paper, large areas of solid ink and large areas of white space, without even the small details that are inevitably emphasized (at least in areas with a demarcation between light and dark) in a B&W negative. That would be the equivalent of using a lith film or document film in a high contrast developer to make a photograph, an extreme case of what you've observed in your pushed Delta 400.<p>

 

For most subjects, most of the time, the conventional wisdom is that you want a full range of grays, smooth, subtle gradation, etc. But there are times when, to create the image you want, you must go against the conventional wisdom, and make an image with strong contrast, "chalk and soot", or big, jagged grain, or mostly black with only a few small areas of lighter tones (or vice versa), or with the center of interest off in a corner of the frame, dwarfed by its environment or by the simple empty space of the image. All of these are valid and "okay" if they make the image what <b>you</b> want -- and though they may, at times, mean others don't like the image, they may also (if you've done everything else well) become images that will define a new standard for a particular subject or method. It has happened before...

I expose Delta 400 at EI 400, and develop it at the times for EI 400 in DD-X. Since DD-X is a speed enhancing developer, this is a slight pull, that reduces the contrast. This makes for lower contrast, which particularly makes the film scan better.

 

I recently shot some Delta 100 at EI 100 and used the EI 100 times for DD-X, and it was clearly rather contrasty. I will cut the EI and development the next time I use it.

 

I use a stop bath. If you don't, you should consider knocking 30 to 60 seconds off the development times, to make up for the longer development time that results from using no stop bath. The times on the Ilford on Kodak data sheets assume you use a stop bath.

 

The T-MAX films are noted for being exceptionally sensitive to changes in development time, temperature, or technique. The Ilford Delta films are not quite as sensitive this way, but all these "new fangled" films are more sensitive to development procedure than the classic emulsions like Tri-X and HP5+.

 

Since you are scanning and digitally editing, you can use curves to change the amount of middle grey. Not perfectly, but decently.

 

I think that my Delta 400 negatives are rather truthful in their grey scale.

Try Ilford Delta 100 rated at 50 ASA and devved in Rodinal, 1:50, 20 C, 8 minutes. Four inversion s in the first 30 seconds then one inversion every 30 seconds after that. That's for a diffuser head.

thanks for the info.

 

I use stop bath and fixer for all my negs (ilford line).

Delta films seem to do better in the highlights than TMax, and 400 is generally a bit better than 100 in tonality range (but still not comparable to the extended tonal scale obtainable with APX, FP-4, HP-5 and Tri-X). Overexposure is as much an issue as anything with these tabular films since it increases the apparent grain and quickly saturates the capacity of the film to record tonal range, and indeed the worst thing you can do is both overexpose and overdevlop (even at normal EIs).

 

Photographer's Formulary claims that their TFX-2 works well with the tabular grained films if you lean towards a thin negative with just enough exposure in the shadows so save necessary detail (and hopefully not too much overexposure in the highlights), and intuitively this also means you need to design your exposure and development regimen so that the highlights are not washed out. It sounds like good advice for any developer since you are typically using these films because of their superior grain characteristics rather than a broad and flexible tonality. I've heard similar things from other photographers but have yet to actually test all of these permutations.

 

I suspect that TFX-2, or Rodinal at 1:50 and even 1:100 as others have suggested, perhaps with a bit of "stand" developing techniques added for both as suggested for TFX-2 when contrast range is an issue, may provide technically excellent negatives (I'm starting to test this theory for myself over the next year or so). PC-TEA and perhaps even Pyrocat-HD are certainly other interesting options to test if they are already in your repetoire of film developers. Obviously DD-X is designed for these films and ought to provide good negatives as well, but both technique and chemistry can and probably should be thoroughly explored to find the happiest and most satisfying final results, again with an eye to replicating the original scene as you wished, not as you get by accident.

 

Understanding the lighting qualities of the scene plus careful exposure AND development is essential to creating consistently good negatives, and I wouldn't consider tabular films to be good starting material for beginners. However, they will probably force you to quickly improve your techniques for that same reason. They also make a decent choice as a second "back-up" negative since the "duplicate" image will have unique characteristics compared to standard dense silver films.

Hi Sabrina,

I would say that HP5 is closer to Agfa APX than Delta is.