Ilford FP4 Plus 125 is a film that took me longer to get around to shooting than it should have. It’s one of the most popular and historic stocks sold by the UK manufacturer, but I’ve somehow managed to review 30 (thirty) other films before this.
So it’s good to have finally remedied that – not least because I’ve found this to be an impressive film, all things told. We’ll get into everything about it in this comprehensive rundown of course, but I can tell you right now the most important thing – the image quality and qualities – are very nice indeed.
With Ilford producing so many great films in their range, it’s good to know what differentiates them. Why would you shoot FP4 Plus over their classic HP5 Plus or their brilliant Delta 100, for example? These are questions we’ll answer here too.
But first, let’s get straight into some real-world example shots and see what you could expect when you shoot some FP4 Plus 125 for yourself.
Contents
- 1 What to expect from Ilford FP4 Plus 125
- 2 What is Ilford FP4 Plus 125?
- 3 Street photography with Ilford FP4 Plus 125
- 4 Landscape photography with Ilford FP4 Plus 125
- 5 The erstwhile annual Ilford FP4 Plus 125 Twitter party
- 6 Ilford FP4 Plus 125 specs and development
- 7 Where to buy Ilford FP4 Plus 125
- 8 Final thoughts on Ilford FP4 Plus 125
What to expect from Ilford FP4 Plus 125
At the time of writing this review, I’ve shot a few rolls of Ilford FP4 Plus on different days, in different light, and with a few different cameras too. These urban scenes we’re starting with were taken with the Lomo LC-A.
One point of order, before we continue. The Lomo LC-A doesn’t have an ISO 125 setting. These were all shot at ISO 100.
With the exposure latitude that FP4 has – indeed that pretty much all negative films have, I would say – this isn’t going to make a difference. Don’t think you can’t shoot this film if you can’t set your camera to ISO 125. You can. Shoot it at ISO 100. You’ll be fine.
Once shot, these rolls were then developed by a lab who used whatever process they used, with the final images edited slightly in Lightroom by me afterwards.
All that is to say, your results might not look exactly like this. That is the major caveat with any film review I write on here, or that you may read elsewhere too.
However, different films exist for a reason, and they should bring something close to what they promise. In FP4 125’s case, according to Ilford themselves, that is fine grain, medium contrast and outstanding sharpness.
I mostly agree with Ilford here. There is fine grain and very good sharpness – even when shot with the Lomo LC-A, which is not really a camera that’s noted for the technical quality of its lens.
You would expect to see that from most low ISO films however, especially an Ilford one, and 125 is what I’d consider quite low.
Is that medium contrast, though?
Maybe compared to something more extreme like a Ferrania P30 it is. And yes, this is all subjective. But it’s definitely more of a medium well than a medium rare, if you know what I mean.
It’s worth noting that these images were all shot in good light, on a bright day and with the sun not at its highest point in the sky. That of course helps with the contrast in your shots – not least because you get the shadows as well as the bright areas in them.
Again, in different light, you could expect different results. On a more overcast day or even at midday on a sunny one, they might well be flatter. If that’s what you want, then go for that.
I prefer to shoot in these conditions, and I’m happy with what this FP4 Plus gave me from doing so.
Aside from that fine grain, medium contrast and outstanding sharpness, Ilford FP4 125 Plus also does well across its whole dynamic range.
By this I mean it can render shadows as deep blacks but preserve some detail in less intense ones, it transitions well across the mid-tones, and I didn’t find it blowing out the bright areas like some other monochrome films I’ve used before did.
I’ve struggled with this with skies especially on bright days, but this FP4 handled them pretty well – with no lens filter needed.
You can see some examples of this in the Street photography with… and Landscape photography with… sections later in this review.
We’ll end this section though with some more example shots – these ones taken with the Pentax MX, so with some higher quality SMC Pentax-M glass.
I think they further back up everything we’ve said you can expect from some Ilford FP4 Plus 125. That fine grain, medium contrast and outstanding sharpness, as well as the details retained across the whole tonal range of your shots.
What is Ilford FP4 Plus 125?
What you’ve read so far has mainly been my opinion based on what I’ve got from this film, but now it’s time for some cold hard facts. Some history. Some technical terminology. Some information that some people enjoy and others could not care less about.
Let’s get to it.
The first Ilford FP film was released in 1935, in the guise of the Fine Grain Panchromatic roll film. The FP comes from the initials of the first and third words there.
Interestingly, for some maybe, Ilford introduced a Hypersensitive Panchromatic roll film at this time too. With that aforementioned naming convention in mind, you can probably guess what this was the beginning of the lineage of.
FP has been through a number of iterations since then – that number being somewhere around four – and you can find out when they all happened from this great resource.
In a nutshell though, FP1 and FP2 plates were introduced in 1937, with FP3 plates coming in 1942. FP3 film then came in 1946.
The first FP4 product was again plates, which came in 1955, with FP4 film finally replacing FP3 in 1968.
It wasn’t until 1990 though that we got the current version – FP4 Plus.
One thing that hasn’t been updated as the newer versions of Ilford FP came out was the type of grain structure it has. This means FP4 Plus still has cubic grain, rather than the tabular grain found on some more modern films, like Ilford’s professional Delta 100 and Delta 400 stocks.
If you’re familiar with Kodak’s offerings too, the Tri-X 400 that people love for some gritty, grainy street photography is also the classic cubic grain, whereas the T-Max 100 and 400 that are used when a cleaner look is desired are tabular grain.
This gives a bit of a clue as to what FP4 Plus is intended for, and again to what kind of results you can expect from it.
Despite Ilford saying you’ll get that fine grain and outstanding sharpness, it is still a more classic look than the ultra-clean one promised by the tabular grain films.
This is also a flexible film when it comes to pushing and pulling and has very wide exposure latitude as well. The following quote was taken from Ilford’s own datasheet:
‘FP4 Plus is robust and will give usable results even if it is overexposed by as much as six stops, or underexposed by two stops.’
That ability comes from its double-layer emulsion, which incorporates a low sensitive fine grain layer with a highly sensitive layer with larger grains, which Ilford have achieved whilst keeping the film at a comparable thickness to traditional single-layer emulsions.
- Ideal for Copy and Internegative Work
- Very Wide Exposure Latitude
- 36-exposure roll of 35mm film in a DX-coded cassette.
- Very Wide Exposure Latitude
Street photography with Ilford FP4 Plus 125
We briefly mentioned Kodak Tri-X 400 in the last section as a film with a similar classic cubic grain structure as Ilford FP4 Plus. Tri-X is regarded as a timeless film for doing some street photography with, but it actually came out around 8 years after the old FP3 stock.
This makes me think that, if the light is good enough to shoot an ISO 125 film out there, then FP4 Plus should be a terrific choice for some street photography too.
And having tried it for myself, I can tell you that it is.
Something I like about films around the ISO 100 range, and even the ISO 50 Ilford Pan F, is that they force me to only shoot them when the light is good. I also like to go out in the morning or late afternoon, when the sun is not at its highest.
Both of those things mean you’re going to get nicely lit shots, with dramatic contrast between the light and shadows.
With its forgiving exposure latitude and resistance to blowing out highlights – the last picture below is the worst I’ve seen it do that – I like FP4 Plus for street photography.
These shots were again taken with the Lomo LC-A.
Landscape photography with Ilford FP4 Plus 125
I don’t do that much landscape photography myself, but if I did and wanted a good monochrome film to do it with, I think Ilford FP4 Plus would be a good one for me. Perhaps not the very best, but a good one nonetheless.
I say this because most of its inherent qualities match up nicely with what I like in a photograph, and work well with this genre too. An easy way to kill any black and white landscape shot for me, and this is certainly something that I’ve done before, is to blow out the skies.
The dynamic range that we mentioned earlier is on show here though. The images below were shot with the Pentax MX with no filter on the lens. As you’ll see, the detail in the skies remains.
The 125 ISO rating shouldn’t be an issue here either, as neither your camera nor much of anything in your shot should be moving, so you can go with as low a shutter speed as you need for the aperture you set and the light you have, while FP4’s contrast, sharpness and grain all work well for landscape shots too, I think.
That said, however, I’m not sure this would be my first choice film if I was going for the absolute optimal image quality in some landscape work.
For that, maybe Ilford Delta 100 would be the one. With its tabular-grain structure versus the conventional grain of FP4, you should, all things being equal, get lower grain and so cleaner-looking shots.
Of course whether this is better is subjective, and whether you’d even notice the difference unless you blow your results up to poster-size could be debated too. But remember I did say this was for absolute optimal image quality.
In the majority of cases, Ilford FP4 Plus is still going to be a very good choice for your landscape work.
The erstwhile annual Ilford FP4 Plus 125 Twitter party
When I was first getting into film photography, the Emulsive website was a source of great inspiration for me. I’d been shooting with vintage lenses on digital for a while beforehand, but I’d never found there to be such an enthusiastic community around that as there was – and is – with film.
Seeing such numbers of people contributing their work to Emulsive (and 35mmc) helped make me want to try it for myself. The very active and friendly film photography Twitter community, which is now sadly not what it used to be, was another factor in this.
The reason I bring all this up is because Emulsive used to run the #FP4Party on what is now X – a celebration of this film where people would all shoot some in the same week, get it developed, and then share all their results a couple of weeks later.
They don’t do this anymore. It had a good five-year run but it seems the lights went out on it in June 2021.
None of the above is really relevant to anything going forward, unless it’s one day resurrected, but I thought it was worth mentioning here.
One, because you have a motherlode of good shots taken on FP4 Plus to look at if you check out their archives, and two, because it’s another vote for this film’s quality that they decided to host the party around this one rather than any other.
Ilford FP4 Plus 125 specs and development
Ilford FP4 Plus 125 is a medium speed, fine grain black and white film that is available in a multitude of different formats.
The 35mm version that we’re reviewing here comes in both 24 and 36-exposure rolls, DX-coded and with the barcode number 017564. On top of these, you also have medium format 120, and large format sheets. All the way up to 20 x 24″, if you really want to go big.
According to Ilford’s own datasheet, which you can see here, FP4 is ‘ideal for high quality indoor and outdoor photography, particularly when giant enlargements are to be made’.
It’s also ‘suited to copying and internegative work, and has many applications in scientific, technical and industrial photography’.
They also mention the terrific exposure latitude of FP4 Plus, saying it will give usable results even if overexposed by as much as six stops, or underexposed by two stops.
As mentioned earlier, if your camera only has full ISO settings – i.e. it goes from 100 to 200 – don’t worry. Just shoot this at ISO 100 and get it developed as that too. With that latitude, you’re going to be okay doing that.
FP4 is compatible with all major developing methods, and there is plenty of information on different chemicals, including the relevant temperatures and times needed, on the datasheet.
There’s also the Massive Dev Chart should you need anything more.
And finally, this page on Ilford’s website has recommendations for developers based on what you’re trying to achieve. For example, Ilfotec DD-X and ID-11 for best image quality, Ilfotec DD-X and Perceptol for getting the finest grain, or Ilfosol 3 and ID-11 for maximum sharpness.
- Ideal for Copy and Internegative Work
- Very Wide Exposure Latitude
- 36-exposure roll of 35mm film in a DX-coded cassette.
- Very Wide Exposure Latitude
Where to buy Ilford FP4 Plus 125
Ilford FP4 Plus 125 is not going to be hard to find. If you have somewhere that you already buy film from, they’ll likely have some. And if they don’t, the next shop you check probably will.
I live in the UK and I can walk into the Boots pharmacy in my little town and pick up some rolls of this stuff, along with some Ilford HP5 400 and my toothpaste and deodorant.
If a brick and mortar option isn’t available to you though or you just prefer the convenience of ordering things online, as I said, almost any film shop worth their salt will have this.
You can check current prices and availability(!) through the links below.
- buy Ilford FP4 Plus 125 from Analogue Wonderland
- buy Ilford FP4 Plus 125 from B&H Photo
- buy Ilford FP4 Plus 125 from Amazon
Final thoughts on Ilford FP4 Plus 125
In my mind, FP4 Plus 125 stands alongside HP5 Plus 400 as Ilford’s classic pair of films. They’re the oldest lines still in production – with Pan F not far behind, to be fair – probably the most iconic names in the range, and likely the most commonly shot too.
The Delta range, and other films like XP2 Super 400, SFX 200, and Ortho Plus 80 all came much later and, while still all excellent, just don’t have the vintage of the three mentioned above.
It’s no surprise then that FP4 125 and HP5 400 were chosen for some commemorative retro packaging in 2024. And I think that points nicely to where I want to go with my final thoughts on this review.
I feel like some of the image qualities we talked about earlier, namely the fine yet distinguishable grain and the way FP4 transitions well across the mid-tones of your shot, help to give a timeless quality to your shots.
They’re not harshly jumping from highlights to lowlights like some phone app filter that people might use to make average photographs look more dramatic, and they don’t look as clean as what you’d want from some Ilford Delta 100 either.
This is one reason why you’d shoot FP4 125 instead of Delta 100, by the way. The latter is fantastic for very low grain, highly sharp and clean images. But if you want something less clinical (not a bad thing) and with a more timeless feel, FP4 is the one.
In terms of versus its long-time cousin HP5 Plus 400, that film is kind of going in the other direction. Still a classic look, but a more grainy and grittier one. Again, not a bad thing if that’s what you’re going for and/or if you need that higher ISO too.
In this case, it’s the FP4 125 that’s giving you the cleaner results.
But let’s not digress too far into comparisons here. This review has already gone on long enough. So I’ll wrap it up with this:
If you’ve tried out a few different films already but are yet to shoot some of this one, don’t leave it as long as I did. Now I’ve gotten around to it, I really like it.
It gives great results. It’s got bags of character. It’s versatile. It’s fast enough for street photography in good light. Its lineage is coming up to being 100 years old. It’s made by Ilford, who I really like as a company. It’s (relatively) inexpensive and readily available.
What’s not to like? Just get some, shoot it, and enjoy the great results I’m sure it’ll give you.
There’ll be plenty waiting for you at Analogue Wonderland, at B&H Photo, on Amazon, or wherever else you buy your film. 🙂
- Ideal for Copy and Internegative Work
- Very Wide Exposure Latitude
- 36-exposure roll of 35mm film in a DX-coded cassette.
- Very Wide Exposure Latitude
If you found this Ilford FP4 Plus 125 review useful, why not take a look at these other fantastic films too:
And if you think others will enjoy or benefit from this film review too, help them find it by giving it a share. 😀
