Ilford Delta 400 sheet film discontinued

[tim atherton]

Heard on another list that Delta 400 sheet fim is discontinued.

Checked with Ilford and it is so...

E Mail them as below and complain if you wish.

Tim A

> From: US-techsupport [mailto:US-techsupport@ilford.com] > Sent: Tuesday, March 27, 2001 9:57 AM > To: Tim Atherton > Subject: Re: Ilford Delta 400 sheet film discontinued? > > > Delta 400 sheet film has been discontinued due to lack of demand for the > product. >

or the UK email at: uk-sales@ilford.com

[Michael S. Briggs]

I rather doubt that protests will cause Ilford to change their mind about producing Delta 400 in sheet form. The real vote that matters has already occured: the sales when the film was available. Apparently not enough Delta 400 in sheet form was sold to make it worth Ilford's effort to produce it. Unless we can convince Ilford that sales will increase, it doesn't seem likely that we can persuade Ilford to offer the film again.

I wonder how many photographer's buy ASA 100 B&W sheet film vs ASA 400 B&W. Are sales weighted towards ASA 100? I suspect that many of us are conditioned towards lower-speed films because before we became LF photographers we used the slower films in an attempt to get the resolution that we wanted. This may be a mistake: unless one is making super-size prints, the difference between prints from 4x5 Delta 400 and Delta 100 is very small, and the speed difference may be more valuable, e.g., in avoiding wind-induced blurring of leaves (assuming that one doesn't want wind-induced blurring).

[Wayne]

Makes me mad even though I've never used it. Another one bites the dust

[John Hicks]

I suspect Ilford users have had a tendency to stick with "tried and true" HP5+ a nd FP4+ sheetfilm rather than the Deltas. I certainly have, not that there's bee n anything wrong with the Delta films but because there hasn't been any compelli ng reason to move to them.

While they're better in some ways than the traditional films, such differences are pretty minimal in large format.

[Pete Andrews]

I agree with John. Above medium format sizes, the advantage of T grain or Delta film over conventional emulsions is practically non-existent. Beside which, high-speed films are generally unnecessary with LF. 1/60th or 1/15th of a second exposure; who cares? That rock, tree, building, piece of fruit, or box of soap-powder ain't going nowhere.

Ilford have been pretty good in the past about supplying to niche markets, and if enough people used the stuff, it wouldn't be being discontinued.

[rich silha]

i was told that they were just changing the formula to be less contrasty. i believe they will still offer it at a later date.

[Alec Jones]

Pete: It makes a hell of a difference if you're trying to record a scene where the leaves are blowing and you want everything sharp [isn't that what LF is all about?]. We aren't working with f/1 here, you know!

[tim atherton]

Well, higher speed film helps if you're shooting hand held etc., which is what I do part of the time. And/or if you're shooting moving objects (you know some of us shoot animated objects as well, as opposed to the usual lakes, rivers, trees rocks and buildings! - some of which I also shoot. Or if you are trying to shoot in the sub- arctic in winter when we have virtualy no daylight - 400 film is a minimum for even 35mm half the time then). Oh, and unless I'm using my little Ektar, an apeture of 5,6 for all this of doesn't help.

So - 400 is pretty useful.

Tim A