Ilford 3200

I’ve already posted the fact that by choice I lean towards slower fine grain films. Despite that, as a fan of Ilford Delta 100 and 400, it was only going to be a matter of time before I tried their 3200 offering. I made a recent visit to Dorchester Museum, now re-branded as the Dorset Museum, after being closed for 2 years for a remodel and re-display. I have to say that the improvement is massive! But this is not a post about the museum but the film.

The extract from the data sheet above explains that in reality it is a 1000asa film, I decided that I would expose it as this, but upon reading further Ilford especially recommend exposing it between 1600 and 6400asa, and give no recommended processing times for 1000. So I opted to go for 1600 and follow their times. As a side note, Kodak’s offering is called 3200P, the P standing for “push” processing. I wonder how many commercial labs allow for the fact that it needs to be “pushed” two stops as standard??

I developed the film in Ilford Ilfosol 1+9 at 20 degrees for 10 mins as per the Ilford suggestion. I reckon the negs are generally about 2 stops under! The images posted here have been “shopped” to make them presentable, by which I mean, noise reduction, levels, and the odd bit of spotting.

To be fair, I suppose it does allow for film photography under such lighting at all, but I’m tempted to say my next visit will be with digital! That said I am curious how HP5 might perform at 1600, pushed two stops? As a local I went for the “year long” pass, so I can pop back at any time, I’m glad I did. Watch this space!

The scans are full of grain, in my eyes, too much, and my eye goes to that, before the content. I know some people love this stuff and use it as their “go to” film. Good luck to them. I can’t say I’ll be in a hurry to use it again, but as usual with such trials it’s useful experience, if I do, I will expose it at 1000asa but develop it as if it were 3200.