A Classic Car meet with XP2 Super and a bit of help from a Leica 111a

I had without realising it been spoiled by a lab that used Fuji Negastar B/W developer. This developer made all the films I sent, especially 400asa films, look great. Fine grain, great contrast and definition, hard to fault. Kentmere 400 was my favourite film in this developer, even pushed 3 stops to 3200asa. Unfortunately I guess due to unavailability of the developer this lab changed to Ilfotec DD. Ilfotec DD is designed for lab use and is now very common.

Sadly, in my humble and personal opinion, this developer really doesn’t work well with 400asa films. Grain becomes large and with Kodak T-Max 400 contrast becomes a real problem when scanning. Kentmere 400, Delta 400, HP5+, Tri-X and Fomapan 400 if processed in Ilfotec DD are just way too grainy for me.

So I’ve decided to use Ilford XP2 Super which is a chromogenic B/W film processed in C41 colour chemistry, there is no variation in processing whichever lab you use. It has very fine grain and high definition. During processing Chromogenic films replace the exposed silver with dyes, in colour films it’s usually 3 dyes, magenta, yellow and cyan. In XP2 it’s a single magenta dye.

Occasionally I really enjoy blasting through a film in a short period of time and the Classic car meet seemed a suitable occasion to get familiar with XP2. When doing this I get very into the camera and come out the other side with a greater intuitive feel for using it quickly and accurately. So was it a successful session? You can decide that, but I was happy with the resulting images. I’ve not had the camera long but I seem to have got the hang of it and feel comfortable in it’s operation.

Here are some of the photos taken in less than an hour, just for fun. For the nerds I used a 1938 Leica IIIa, a 1949 Leica Summitar 50mm f2 coated lens and Sekonic Twinmate L208 meter set to 300asa. You can find articles on Leica III cameras here and here.

One thing that I realised from this roll of film how extraordinarily good was the 1949 Summitar 50mm f2 lens, fabulous definition.

The XP2 was processed at ‘Come Through Lab‘ in Manchester, a lab I can hand in my film personally. Convenient and safer than posting.

Thank you for reading this bit of fun.

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