Film: Ultra Fast Ilford Delta 3200 & Kodak T-Max P3200

Both Kodak and Ilford are manufacturing their ultra fast black and white films again. While 400 ISO is a great speed for general street photography, extra speed is always welcome but it usually comes with compromises to image quality. I wanted to compare Kodak T-Max P3200 and Ilford Delta 3200 rated at 1600 ISO, using Ilford HP5 Plus 400 pushed to 1600 as a benchmark.

Neither the Kodak T-Max P3200 nor Ilford Delta 3200 are actually 3200 films, their ISO-rated speed is 800 to 1000. However they are designed to produce good results with extended development at higher effective speed ratings. If you want the highest possible quality at ultra-high ISO, these are the films to be using.

How The Test Was Done

Step 1: Start with three identical film cameras – two Canon EOS 630 and an EOS 600 (which is the name the EOS 630 sold with in Europe) – and load a different film into each: Kodak T-Max P3200, Ilford Delta 3200, and Ilford HP5 Plus. Rate them all at 1600 ISO.

Step 2: Go somewhere and take the same photograph three times with each camera using the same shutter and aperture settings, and the same lens. (This resulted in changing lenses over 100 times, and it became rather tedious.)

Step 3: Process each film using the manufacturer-recommended developer, time, temperature and agitation method (Kodak and Ilford use different agitation).

Step 4: Scan the negatives, then compare and contrast.

Step 1: Three Films for Three Cameras

To ensure the camera bodies were working correctly and consistently I ran a roll of Ilford HP5 Plus 400 rated at 400 ISO through all three: exposing nine frames on the first body, rewinding the film, exposing the next nine games on the second body, rewinding, and exposing the last frames on the third body. The film was developed and the three strips compared to identify possible exposure differences: none of any significance were found. I think this is particularly pleasing for cameras that are over 30 years old.

Proof sheet of the camera test roll: note the consistency of exposure. Pretty good for 30 year old electronic cameras.

To record exposure details, two of the three cameras were fitted with a Canon Technical Back E which records shutter speed, aperture, focal length, and metering pattern. These cameras had Ilford Delta 3200 and Kodak T-Max P3200 film. The Ilford HP5 Plus 400 camera did not have a Technical Back E so the actual exposure details were not recorded.

Step 2: Making the Photographs

The locations for the film tests range from outdoors in bright sunlight to underground in low-level artificial light. My plan was to expose the same scene with all three cameras at the same shutter and aperture setting, but unfortunately I was not consistent with metering and some exposures differ up to a stop between cameras. Thankfully four sets of images have exactly the same settings and can be used for the comparison.

When doing this test again I’d manually set the shutter and aperture on each camera to ensure the exposures were identical, and include Kodak Tri-X at 1600 so it can be compared to Ilford HP5 Plus at 1600.

Step 3: Processing

Each film was processed in the manufacturer-recommended developer for 1600 ISO. Subsequent processing (stop and fix) were performed as required (they were fixed for twice the clearing time, which can differ between film types).

Film	Developer	Time & Temperature
Kodak T-Max P3200 at 1600 ISO	Kodak T-Max 1+4	10.5 minutes, 20C
Ilford Delta 3200 at 1600 ISO	Ilford Ilfotec DD-X 1+4	8 minutes, 20C
Ilford HP5 Plus 400 at 1600 ISO	Ilford Ilfotec DD-X 1+4	13 minutes, 20C

Developing details for the three films.

For those interested, each film was developed separately in a single-reel stainless tank using 250 mL of chemicals. Each film was washed using the Ilford Wash Method which provides archival permanence with only three tanks of water. The final wash was followed by a rinse with 1+200 Ilford Ilfotol wetting agent in water.

Step 4: Scanning

Digitising the negatives was the most time consuming part of the test. In the end I decided to be ~~lazy~~ simple and consistent rather than optimise results for each image separately.

The film was scanned with a Plustek OpticFilm 8100 using SilverFast SE Plus 8.8.0r22 using the built-in film profiles and saving to raw DNG file format. The DNG files were opened in Lightroom and reversed using Negative Lab Pro. No further adjustments were made to exposure, contrast, levels or sharpening. No retouching or spotting was performed either (which explains all the dust and junk on the negs).

Conclusion

The first surprise is that all three films, even the pushed HP5 Plus, produce extremely similar results and need to be viewed closely to see any significant differences. Grain and sharpness are extremely similar; tonality is also close. I believe this is due to the choice of developers, Kodak T-Max and Ilford DD-X, which are latest-generation and optimised for these films. (It would be interesting to compare results with older developers like Ilford ID-11 or Microphen. No, not Rodinal.)

As could be expected, the push-processed Ilford HP5 Plus has the highest contrast of there three films. For digital editing this isn’t an issue, but if enlarging the negatives in a darkroom it may cause problems and make the images hard to print.

Additional Images

Additional images were made during the film tests which were not included in the comparison, probably because the sets had slightly different exposure settings between images.