Ilford XP2 - 35mm
Ilford XP2 is a chromogenic, black and white film produced by Ilford. Its most distinguishing feature is that, unlike other B&W films, instead of developing XP2 in the traditional darkroom it can be processed in the same chemistry and machines as your typical color film. XP2 was designed to be developed with C-41 chemistry, allowing photographers the capability of shooting a true B&W film but the convenience and flexibility of having it processed at virtually any film lab - even those without the ability to develop B&W films. In a certain sense, you can think of XP2 as a colorless color film, if that helps wrap your mind around it at all. As such, XP2 shares many of the beneficial features of color films. For example, XP2 is wonderfully forgiving in its exposure latitude. It also has very smooth, fine grain. And last but not least, when XP2 is scanned film scanners can use the same dust removal technology to produce super clean scans as they do with color films (but is typically not available for B&W film scanning).
XP2 is often easily overlooked. Photographers with purist tendencies may shy away from it because it has a different look and feel to it than traditional and historically famous B&W films like HP5 or Tri-X. At the same time, newer photographers may overlook it because they either don't quite understand what is so different about XP2 or their friends/teachers/camera store clerks steer them toward the more common and popular choices for B&W, such as the two aforementioned films. But for those who have made a point to shoot and familiarize themselves with XP2 they have discovered a surprisingly beautiful film that makes wonderful scans and still prints pretty well.
XP2 is a sneaky good film. It is available in both 35mm and 120.
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