Ilford Pre Paid postal process- test results

Ilford Pre- HP5 paid Test

This was a very Ilford affair, The 1953 Ilford Advocate was loaded with a roll HP5 and then processed using the Ilford pre-paid envelope service. The envelope went in first post on a Wednesday morning and arrived back Thursday the next week. All prints were clean of dust and the negatives scratch free, protected in clear sheaths. The Prints are delivered in a cardboard box with Ilford corporate markings. They had managed to extract a printable result from all frames despite being exposed under very different conditions on a single film using my time honoured look and guess technique. The Advocate's shutter is a tad basic too and prone to being sluggish. Anyway here is a selection.

Click the image at right to take a look at the Ilford website and information where to buy the film.

	Kemble airfield seems to have designs on being the UKs equivalent to the Mojave Dessert, currently being used to store ten BAe 146 airliners. Always a big fan of the original "Whisper Jet", these days the fleet are getting a little elderly and these four laid up examples probably face an uncertain future. Shame, I always thought they were rather handsome.
	Not much uncertainty about the future of this dillapidated DH104 Dove. It's certainly very unlikely to ever see air between it and the ground, except maybe slung beneath a crane. Another inmate at Kemble. Ilford managed to get a print off of every negative, despite my best efforts !
	Capitol Hill, Washington DC, bright sun and rather chilly into the bargain. Not a spot of dust to be seen on the prints.
	A lobster kicking up sediment in his tank at the Washington DC Aquarium. The lighting was weak tungsten and decidedly orange in colour. This was exposed, hand held, for about 1/5sec. The thick glass made guessing the distance near impossible. All told it was amazing it was useable at all. This was pretty well exposed so Ilford didnt have to work too hard at this one.
	A section of the old dissused canal, the Itchen Navigation. There are few signs that this was once a canal, save for the remains of some crumbling lock walls.
	Shoppers scurrying around late on Xmas Eve 2006 in Winchester, UK.
	A station on the Wshington DC Metro. Very utilitarian. Not a patch on the Moscow Metro! Hand held for two seconds, I was travelling light - without a tripod. All told the Ilford service worked out well, certainly good enough to give your old cameras a Black and White workout, so no excuses now.

Back