XP2 Electro
In June 2023 I bought my first 35mm film camera from eBay the Yashica Electro 35 GTN… and it is a beauty! To test this camera was working, I bought some cheap Ilford B&W film - XP2 Super 400 - loaded it in and shot a roll whilst enjoying an overnight stay with Ruth on Slieve Croob. Check out the full story in the video below…
Honestly I was so blown away by the results from this incredible film stock. The scans I received back from this roll were so sharp, they had a lovely fine grain, they retained so much detail in the highlights and good punchy shadows and ultimately were some of the nicest black and white photographs I have ever taken.
I enjoyed the results from this film stock so much that I just had to create my own ‘Ilford XP2 Super 400’ Fujifilm recipe with some RAW files I managed to shoot from this trip. So, I pulled in the .raf files into Fujifilm X RAW Studio and got to work.
With ACROS+R as my base film simulation the first thing I tackled was the sharpness, setting it to +2 to match the sharpness from the scanned film photographs. The next thing I tried to perfect was the grain. I would describe Iford XP2 Super 400’s grain as small and strong but when I chose those settings in Fujifilm X RAW Studio the grain was too strong. I settled on a Weak, Small setting for this recipe as the sharpness setting increases the appearance of the grain.
One of the hardest elements of this recipe was getting the White Balance setting nailed to match the film stock. I’m not sure it’s absolutely bang on but it’s pretty damn close and I like the results so I stuck with Daylight with a shift of R+9.
Anyway here’s the final recipe with some results below…
If you end up using this recipe I’d love to hear from you. Give me a tag or drop a message or whatever :)
XP2 Electro
ACROS+R Filter
Dynamic Range: 200
Highlight: -1
Shadow: +3
Monochromatic Color: WC:0 MG:0
Noise Reduction: -4
Sharpening: +2
Clarity: 0
Grain Effect: Weak, Small
Color Chrome Effect: OFF
Color Chrome Effect Blue: OFF
White Balance: Daylight (R9 B0)
