Ilford FP4 Plus Pushed to EI 200

I don’t have the impression that Ilford FP4 Plus is a type of film that gets pushed often. But with the appearance of Kentmere Pan 200 and several brands of 200-speed color film, I thought it might be interesting to see how a staple of my black and white film photography practice would handle being pushed by two-thirds of a stop.

Here are a few samples from my test roll:

As recommended by the Massive Dev Chart, I developed my film for 7:30 in a 1+9 dilution of Ilford Ilfosol 3 at 68°/20°C.

Without much surprise, I found that pushing Ilford FP4 Plus to EI 200 resulted in negatives with higher contrast. When shot at box speed, FP4 Plus is capable of wonderful grey tones. Pushing it to EI 200 resulted in a reduction of that richness. Still, the grey tones I saw in my photographs weren’t bad. In fact, the overall look reminded me of the deep shadows and gritty tones that I often get when I shoot Kodak Tri-X 400 in softer light but without quite as much film grain.

Having a bit more speed might come in handy in certain situations. But a partial loss of rich grey tones might outweight that benefit. At bottom, I don’t expect to be pushing Ilford FP4 Plus a ton in the future.