Island in the Net by Khürt Williams
Technology and Photography Musings. Established circa 2000.
"Marcel the Shell with Shoes On" was showing at 4:30 PM at the Princeton Garden Theatre.
The Princeton Garden Theatre is Princeton Township’s only movie theatre. It shows first-run movies such as "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once". It’s a non-profit theatre. I’ve never seen a movie here during the 25 years I have lived in the area. It looks small.
Kodak Ektar 100. Lab developed. Home scanned VueScan and converted with Negative Lab Pro.
Released in 2021 by the New Classic Film project, EZ400 is a panchromatic black and white negative 35mm film that delivers what some describe as "retro yet sharp images".
Released in 2021 by the New Classic Film project, EZ400 is a panchromatic black and white negative 35mm film that delivers what some describe as "retro yet sharp images".
When you rate it at box speed, EZ400 will give you contrast images with plenty of detail in the highlights and lightly subdued shadows. Suitable for all light conditions, EZ400 is versatile and capable.
There was a certain amount of buzz when the EZ 400 film stock was released. I fell for the hype, managing to order a few rolls at Meseroll, a bicycle shop. That seems weird to me. Meseroll was selling EZ400 in a pack of five 36 exposure rolls. I have exposed just this one roll so far.
Each 35mm film cassette is packaged in a durable recycled kraft paper container. I don’t know why kraft is spelt with a "k", but I think it's cool. The EZ400 containers are recyclable. The film cassettes have no DX coding, and this is a non-issue on cameras such as my Minolta XD-11 and X-700, where I can set the ISO manually, but it will be an issue for cameras that depend on DX coding.
I exposed the first roll at box speed at Palmer Square and around my neighbourhood. I sent the cassette off for Boutique Film Lab to develop. Here are some frames scanned with an Epson V600 with my scanning workflow. All film frames were exposed at box speed. The results are okay, nothing spectacular. But EZ 400 is low-price and an excellent alternative black and white film to put in my Minolta. I have four more rolls of EZ400. Maybe it will grow on me.
| Name | New Classic Film EZ400 400 |
|---|---|
| Type | Black and White (negative) |
| Native ISO | 400 |
| Format | 35mm |
| Process | Black and White |
| Lab | Boutique Film Labs |
| Scanner | Epson Perfection V600 |
| Software | SilverFast 9 SE and Negative Lab Pro |
One of my roles in my current journey with 35mm film is that of "film detective". A few weeks or months can elapse between the time I put a roll of 35mm film into my Minolta and when the film roll is developed and returned from the lab. In that time, I may easily forget the “when" and the “how” I exposed each film frame. The where is usually apparent from the film frame itself, but the dates, times, and camera settings are forgotten.
With digital photography, the when, how and where are automatically recorded into the EXIF metadata of the digital image file. But with 35mm film, except for the information about the film stock, I have no recorded information about aperture, shutter speed or exposure compensation. A few years ago, I tried a few apps to record each frame's aperture or shutter speed, but I quickly grew tired of doing it. Most of the time, I forgot to record the settings.
To compensate, I go on a digital adventure, scrolling through my Adobe Lightroom Catalogue, searching for photographs that I might have made around the same time using my Fuji X-T3 or iPhone 11 Pro.
I’m not sure when these four New Classic EZ 400 film frames were exposed. I think I put the roll of 35mm film into the camera sometime around the beginning of January. I searched Google for a list of snow dates in 2022 and found references to 1 January, 2 January, 3 January, 6 January, 7 January, 16 January, 17 January, 28 January, and 29 January. In the photographs, the roads and sidewalk are ploughed, so these film frames were probably exposed a day or two after one or more of those dates.
