HP5 Plus

HP5 Plus is the forgiving 400 speed stock. The tone curve runs long and straight, so it holds detail two stops over and one stop under the metered exposure. That latitude is why it is the film handed to every darkroom class.

It is also the flattest fast film on this list. A negative from it looks dull on the light box and prints beautifully, because the contrast is added later at the enlarger. Ask for the flat negative and you get a picture that a grade can still move.

Ask for medium grain with soft round clumps. The grain is a little smaller and much rounder than Tri-X grain, so it reads as texture rather than as grit. Say the grain is even across the frame.

Skin comes back as an even mid grey with a soft run into the shadow. Foreheads and cheekbones do not blow out, and the shadow side of a face keeps its shape instead of falling to black. That is what makes it a portrait and wedding stock as well as a reportage one.

The colour to grey rule applies as it does to every film here: a blue sky records pale and close to white, and red records dark. Ask for a yellow filter for a mid grey sky, or an orange filter for a darker one. For speed, HP5 Plus pushes to 1600 cleanly and Ilford rates it as far as 3200 in Microphen.

Use it when the subject moves and the light is poor, and when the picture must hold detail at both ends: a dark room with a bright window, a wedding indoors, a street in rain.

Leave it alone when you want the picture to shout. HP5 Plus has no crunch of its own, and asking for it and for hard contrast in the same prompt gives you neither.

Tri-X 400 is the same speed with harder contrast, coarser grain and less room for a mistake. The two are the standing rivalry of black and white film, and the honest summary is that Tri-X is louder and HP5 Plus is kinder.

Cinema publishes Low Key and High Contrast as separate entries at /techniques/cinema/. HP5 Plus is neither of those, and it is not their opposite either. It is a flat negative, and a grade or a print decides afterwards where the contrast goes. FP4 Plus is the same family at 125 speed with finer grain.

The Ilford HP line dates from the 1930s, HP5 arrived in 1976 and HP5 Plus replaced it in 1989 with a finer grain and a longer curve. Ilford still sells it in 35mm, 120 and sheet film, and its own datasheet lists development times from EI 200 up to EI 3200 in Microphen. It is the stock most people learn on, so most darkroom instruction assumes it.

The result comes back contrasty, because a model reads black and white film as high contrast. Say flat contrast, a long mid grey range and open shadows that keep their detail.

The second failure is a clean picture with no grain at all. Say medium grain with soft round clumps, and say the grain is even across the frame.