12 August 2022

One of my frustrations with 35mm film photography is the effort involved in compensation for the lack of metadata. This week, I spent a lot of time learning to read 35mm film strip edge DX bar codes. The photographs are all from around Palmer Square.

One of my frustrations with 35mm film photography is the effort involved in compensation for the lack of metadata. I tried using apps to track the information about each frame, but the process has inherent limitations. When I load the 35mm film cartridge into the camera body, I can record the film stock, type, ISO, camera make and model, and lens make and model in the app. With some effort, and assuming I expose each frame without the use of aperture priority or shutter priority, I can record the aperture and shutter speed. The action of manually documenting this information for each frame gets in the way of concentrating on the making of the photograph. I have given up on tracking the minutiae of each frame. I do the bare minimum by recording the camera, lens, film stock information, and the date the film was loaded into the camera.

When I send my film off for development, I usually use Boutique Film Lab, which lets me put a note with each order. I put information about the camera, lens, film stock, and the date the film was loaded into the camera. Just in case I forget to make an entry, I rely on the information on the film strip to identify the film stock. The process has worked well enough.

10 June, 2022 | Minolta XD-11 | Minolta MD W.ROKKOR-X 28mm F2

However, the entire process is easily subject to failure. I had one such recent loss. I exposed the film and wrote down the information on paper. I wanted a faster development turnaround time, so I sent the 35m film cartridge to Bleeker Digital Solutions, a lab in New York City. Bleeker’s interface does not have an area to input notes. I expected that I would rely on the information on the paper. But before the negatives were returned, I lost the paper with my notes. I then hoped that I could rely on the information on the negatives. When the negatives were returned, I stuck them in a drawer and waited for when I had time to scan them in.

10 June, 2022 | Minolta XD-11 | Minolta MD W.ROKKOR-X 28mm F2

Yesterday when I looked at the film strip, I realised I had made an error. There was nothing human-readable to help me identify the film stock. So now what? I had read that on some film stock, the information is DX encoded on the film strip. I spent hours last night searching the internet, learning to decode the binary code on the film strip. I combined the information I found on the post, Decoding 35mm DX Film Edge Barcodes, the Wikipedia entry for DX encoding, then converted the bar code to binary, then used a binary to decimal converter, and a DX codes lookup table. All that effort to find out that I had exposed a 36 exposure roll of Kodak Ektar 100 Color Negative Film. Whew!

I scanned the negatives with my standard scanning workflow for 35mm film negatives.

10 June, 2022 | Minolta XD-11 | Minolta MD W.ROKKOR-X 28mm F2

I had a lot of challenges with scanning. I used VueScan Preview to line up the border around each frame. However, after scanning, the images were scanned off-axis. I watched the negative twice, but the results were the same. I cropped the imported images. I also had a challenge getting the white balance. I used the same technique I always use. I used the white balance dropper in Adobe Lightroom.

All in all, my experience with Kodak Ektar 100 was dismal. After I expose that roll, I will be done with Kodak Ektar.

Most of the frames were exposed in downtown Princeton around Palmer Square and Witherspoon Street.

10 June, 2022 | Minolta XD-11 | Minolta MD W.ROKKOR-X 28mm F2
10 June, 2022 | Minolta XD-11 | Minolta MD W.ROKKOR-X 28mm F2
10 June, 2022 | Minolta XD-11 | Minolta MD W.ROKKOR-X 28mm F2
10 June, 2022 | Minolta XD-11 | Minolta MD W.ROKKOR-X 28mm F2
10 June, 2022 | Minolta XD-11 | Minolta MD W.ROKKOR-X 28mm F2