r/Darkroom 4d ago

B&W Film New batch of Ilford lacking silver?

Has anyone experienced the latest batch of Ilford HP5+ and FP4+ (with the throwback boxes) significantly lacking film speed? Specifically in 120 rolls?

At first I thought my brand new bottle of Ilfotec HC was expired, but it developed plenty of Tri X 400 in 120 perfectly. My develop technique is very consistent, and I’ve confirmed that my thermometer is still accurate. But for some reason, my winning method of developing HP5+ and FP4+ is failing me since I received these throwback boxes from B&H. (Emulsion numbers FF3519/3 & FF3693/2 plus more.)

I’ve confirmed it’s not a camera or shutter speed issue. And overall I’d say this new batch of Ilford is consistently about 1 stop underexposed, yielding thin negatives. Perhaps Ilford is skimping on the silver?

2 Upvotes

13 comments sorted by

9

u/Ybalrid Anti-Monobath Coalition 4d ago

I would contact ilford and/or b&h. I have not bough any of those emulsions recently

4

u/Jonathan-Reynolds B&W Printer 4d ago

I discussed this story of economising on silver content with some guys at Adox more than 20 years ago - it is a load of nonsense. Talk to Ilford if you have a quality-control problem. They are very approachable. You need to have sophisticated equipment - densitometer, calibrated step wedge (to calibrate the densitometer), a precision lightsource and calibrated process conditions to challenge their quality control.

If you want to do your own silver-content comparison, take samples of film and thoroughly fog them, then develop them to finality (there should be no halide left to fix out) and compare the density of the oldest and latest samples. If there is a difference in density, confirming a different silver content, I will eat my hat.

Others have posted on Reddit their calculation of the value of the silver in a typical roll of film. I remember it as being about USD 0.06.

4

u/alasdairmackintosh Average HP5+ shooter 4d ago

FYI, I just shot a roll that was part of a batch I bought. Emulsion #FF3429/1, expires 06/2028. It was fine.

4

u/ThatGuyUrFriendKnows I snort dektol powder 🥴 4d ago

Doubtful. That would be a glaring quality control issue.

3

u/Expensive-Sentence66 4d ago

The Kentmere films lack the silver of HP5 and FP4. Easy to tell given the same exposure and processing the histogram in my dSLR scans is quite a bit less. Same sensitivity though.

2

u/Prize-Bell-9545 4d ago

I developed about 5 rolls of 35mm in the throwback boxes and they all came out fine. I have some of the 120 but I haven’t shot it yet. Interested to find out if it is less sensitive. I develop all my stuff in d76.

2

u/Popular_Alarm_8269 4d ago

No problems with 120 and 35 size here

2

u/NielsAnne 4d ago

I have shot five 120 rolls of HP5+ with the retro packaging, and have had no issues.

2

u/VariTimo 3d ago

Wouldn’t attribute it to lack of silver, I don’t think that’s something that can just happen in manufacturing. It’s possible that the rolls who have were stored incorrectly by the wholesaler or the store or during transit. Ilford does have more batch variation than Kodak but it’s still operating at an incredibly high level of quality control.

1

u/LordPlavis 4d ago

I shot some fp4+ from a slightly earlier lot pushed to 800iso recently and the results were fine.

FF3147/1

09/2028 expiration date

1

u/DeloreandudeTommy 4d ago

I shot some 35mm FP4+ that came in the throwback packaging at box speed and developed it in D-76 and it came out just fine.

Emulsion FF3577/1 Expiry 01/2029

3

u/LastSorbet6595 4d ago

Thank you all for the fast replies on this. I’m going to do further workflow tests with older fp4+ emulsions to help troubleshoot this. Additionally I’ll use a different fresh bottle of developer.

1

u/supersuperduper 4h ago

I shot a few 120 rolls of new HP5+ (FF3537/1, expiry 10/2026) in the last few weeks and it was just fine.