📸 Fujifilm Recipe EP9: Ilford HP5 Plus with the magic maker XF35mm F1.4 (mostly)

Photos in this post were shot using Fujixweekly’s Ilford HP5 Plus recipe (with some modifications).

This photo is available on my print shop here

Well… shit,

I think that photo above might be one of the best I have even taken, ever.

Through the shades of a bunch of trees, there was a patch of sunlight going through. This one sheep just happened to be wandering towards the spotlight. And I knew what I have to do, right there.

And while I liked this shot a lot, I really found a new appreciation for it when I printed this photo out and put it on my wall (I have a small Canon Selphy printer to print out my stuff and pin it on a board, but that’s a story for another day).

The contrast and the separation is just chef’s kiss👌👌👌, perfection. And well, it’s probably only going downhill from here.

Anyways, I can already see myself getting sidetracked. Back to the main storyline.

My new favorite black and white recipe: this version of Fujixweekly’s Ilford HP5 Plus (with some asterisks)

This is the 2nd black and white recipe I’ve used on Fujifilm. First one was Fujixweekly’s Tri-X 400, which I wrote about here.

I liked that recipe a lot as well, but I was binging on Medium format content, and so I wanted to shoot with a new B&W recipe with a cleaner aesthetic and less grit/contrast

(… Which is usually what I like in my B&W work: just a shit ton of contrast and grain/grit, but we’ll get to that some day with my “digicams” B&W photos)

Accompanying this recipe is so far mostly the beautiful Fuji XF 35mm F1.4. I’m sure you might have heard before that this lens is magical, and I’m adding my 2 cent into this conversation: YES, it really do be casting spells on me here! I think I’ll write a full review someday, when I’ve captured more magic with it, but that’s a story for another day too.

Anyways, B&W recipes are quite a bit simpler to create than color ones, as there are a lot less variables in play here.

I wanted to start with a recipe that uses Monochrome instead of Acros for the “clean, soft look” I had in mind, and this recipe fits the bill. I modify a bunch of stuff as well, so I’m not even sure I should be calling this Fujixweekly’s Ilford HP5 Plus, but it was the original inspiration, so I guess there’s that.

My changes are:

• Grain effect to off. Blasphemy, I know, with how much I yap about Strong Large grain! But I was looking for something different. Something cleaner, not unlike photos shot on medium format cameras, or Leica Monochrom cameras. Iirc, Alan Schaller shot on Leica Monochrom cameras, and it’s definitely an inspiration for this recipe.

• Monochrome+R instead of Monochrome. The consensus is +G modes work better for portraits and +R modes darken the sky a bit and makes landscapes a bit more dramatic. I don’t really shoot portrait and I love drama, so here we are.

• Aaaand I sometimes bumps the white slider up a bit in post just for a bit more contrast in the highlights when necessary (I usually underexpose my photos a bit because I like low key looks).

The results

Well, I wanted a B&W recipe with some contrast, but not too much. I wanted to see 50 Shades of Grey with this one, and not just pure white on pure black, and I’ve got what I wanted.

I love the soft and pleasing tonalities here. This photo of a “boat sofa” or whatever it is here is exactly what I have in mind: The gradients are just so nice, and the “pop” from the magic lens is just so f*cking sweet!

These are photos of (mostly sheeps) I shot with this recipe + the XF35mm F1.4 combination. And I love pretty much all of them. They were shot on my trip to Nha Trang, most of which I shot on “Kodacolor 200” recipe and wrote about here. When I look at this sheep farm and the weather conditions, they call to me “shoot black and white now!”, and I’m not going to disoblige.

There’s also a few that were shot on the TTArtisans 25mm f2, which I also wrote a review about here.

… And that’s it!

Well, this recipe is a keeper for sure. I always keep at least one B&W recipe on my camera for one of “those days” when color just doesn’t work. It will probably be a toss up between this and the Tri-X recipe, but who knows. I’m unpredictable like that 🤷. Everytime I finished talking about a recipe, I have this urge to move on to another one anyways 😸.

As always, subscribe to the newsletter to see more mediocre photos I took with different recipes. Check out my Instagram/Threads if you’re into that shit.

Next episode: Probably film.recipes’ Hipsta Ray Mark II recipe, but who knows. It’s not like I’ve been consistently doing what I said I would anyways 🥲.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in the post are affiliate links. You know the drill. Oh and please click them links. Costs you nothing and I’ll make a few cents here and there when you buy anything from Amazon 🥲 .