Ilford FP4 Plus 125 at the historic Canal Lock at Kingston

I exposed a cartridge of Ilford FP4 Plus 125 at the historic Kingston Lock on the Delaware and Raritan Canal.

This is my first time using Ilford FP4 Plus 125, and I wish I had only bought more than one cartridge. I loaded the cartridge into my default film photography kit, my Minolta XD-11 with MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 lens. I also brought my Manfrotto tripod.

I drove again to Kingston Village Historical Village, where I had exposed a roll of expired Fujicolor Super HQ 200 the day before. I focused (no pun intended) on the Kingston Lock, the Locktender's House, and the Lock tollhouse. The early morning sun shining through the trees cast distinct shadows on the north-facing side of the Kingston Lock Tender's House. This would be a great way to test how well the film stock handles light and shadow.

The Lock Tender's House at the Delaware and Raritan Canal Lock in Kingston is a historic building that dates back to the 19th century. The Delaware and Raritan Canal was an important transportation route that ran through central New Jersey, connecting the Delaware River to the Raritan River. The lock tender's job was to operate the lock, allowing boats to navigate the canal by raising or lowering the water level.

The Lock Tender's House was built in the 1830s and served as the residence for the lock tender and his family. The house is a small, one-story, clapboard-sided structure with a gabled roof and a chimney. The building is now the Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park headquarters, which manages the parkland surrounding the canal.

Today, visitors to the Lock Tender's House can learn about the history of the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the role of the lock tender in maintaining the canal's operation. The house is open to the public during park hours and features exhibits and interpretive displays about the canal's history and ecology.

The Tollhouse was the collection point for tolls charged to boats passing through the lock. The Delaware and Raritan Canal Company charged tolls based on the cargo's weight. The Tollhouse was strategically located near the lock, so boats passing through it would have to stop and pay the toll before continuing their journey.

Ilford FP4 Plus 125 is a high-quality black and white film designed for 35mm cameras. It is a medium-speed film that offers a classic, versatile look with excellent sharpness, fine grain, and wide exposure latitude. This makes it ideal for various photographic applications, from fine art and portrait photography to landscape and architectural photography.

According to Ilford, the film is coated on a polyester base and features a silver emulsion optimized for use with traditional black-and-white development processes. Its ISO rating of 125 means it performs well in high-light situations and provides good detail and contrast in both highlights and shadows. I sent the exposed film to Boutique Film Lab for development. I scanned the negatives using VueScan 9 and my Epson Perfection V600 and used Negative Lab Pro to convert the scans. I did some perspective corrections and moved the exposure slide -1/3 inpleasedhtroom. The film also has a wide exposure latitude, which means it can be over or underexposed by a few stops without significantly affecting the final image quality. I am very happy with the results.

Ilford FP4 Plus 125 produced rich blacks, bright whites, and a full range of greys. The fine-grain structure helped to create sharp, detailed images with good edge definitions. I've had some issues with getting sharp images from the film, which I chalked up to the challenges of manually focusing the lens because of my eye surgeries. But the pictures from the scans of Ilford FP4 Plus 125 were sharp, which makes me wonder if my previous experience is due to the film stocks I have used.

Name Ilford FP4 Plus
Format 35mm
Features chromogenic black and white negative
Native ISO 125
Lab Boutique Film Lab
Process B+W
Scanner Epson Perfection V600
Software VueScan 9, Negative Lab Pro, Adobe Lightroom
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125
Monday 6 March 2023 · Minolta XD-11 · MD Rokkor-X 45mm F2 · ISO 125

Red, White and Blue

I awoke earlier than usual this morning. The grass outside was still wet with either rain or dew and the sky was all grey with subdued light.

I awoke earlier than usual this morning. The grass outside was still wet with either rain or dew, and the sky was all grey with subdued light. Last night before bed, I realised that it had been quite a long time since I had not ventured into the nearby historic village of Kingston. Kingston was a thriving rest stop on the way between New York and Philadelphia. Travellers passed through town along Main Street which is now part of State Route 27. In the 1800s the Delaware and Raritan Canal and the Camden and Amboy Railroad fueled Kingston's growth. I set my mind to a short adventure around the D&R Canal State Park portion of the Kingston Mill Historic District.

From my home, the Kingston Lock is a short six-minute drive along River Road. A few other cars were already parked near D&R Canal Park trailhead. I set up my X-T2 and XF27mmF2.8 on the Really Right Stuff L-bracket and mounted to the Manfrotto tripod. The X-T2 was configured with Luís Costa's colour film simulation recipe.

The Kingston Mill Historic District, which is on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Mercer County, New Jersey, was one of the earliest settlements in Princeton, New Jersey. The Kingston Mill Historic District consists of the Greenland–Brinson–Gulick farm, four nearby houses, the Kingston gristmill powered by the Millstone River, and the Kingston Bridge, an 18th-century stone arch bridge over the river. I have not seen the Greenland–Brinson–Gulick farm or the four houses that are part of the historic district, but multiple times in the past I have walked along what used to be a part of the Old Lincoln Highway and across the stone arch bridge to the Kingston Mill.

In 1748 Jacob Skillman built a grist and flour mill across the bridge on the Princeton side of Kingston. In 1798, the bridge that now connects Kingston and Princeton was built. In this same year, the Gulick family purchased the Jacob Skillman mill and kept it going for about a century.

kingston mill house with millstone tributary
Kingston Mill House | Friday 4 September, 2020 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | f/16 | ISO 200 | 110 sec

In 1886 the Princeton rowing teams disbanded when the traffic on the canal and Millstone River became crowded and made practice too dangerous. While visiting Princeton University in 1902, philanthropist Andrew Carnegie upon learning of the situation, decided to support damming the Millstone River to create Lake Carnegie. You can see Carnegie Lake in the background.

In January of 1777, following the Battle of Princeton, General George Washington during a stopover in the Kingston pondered whether he should push northeast into New Brunswick to capture the British storage houses or head north to his winter quarters in Morristown. Realising that his troops were in rough shape, the general decided to continue onto Morristown and ordered the bridge that linked Kingston to Princeton to be destroyed.

Kingston Lock Telegraph Office
Kingston Lock Telegraph Office | Friday 4 September, 2020 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | f/16 | ISO 200

From the Kingston Mill, I backtracked to the Kingston Lock, Lock #8 on the D&R Canal Towpath. Construction of the D&R Canal began at Kingston in 1830, and Kingston Lock-tender’s House was built in 1834 when the Delaware & Raritan Canal was completed. The Delaware & Raritan Canal was operated as a barge canal until 1932. The state of New Jersey acquired the canal from the Pennsylvania Railroad Co in 1934. The Lock-tender's House now serves as the home of the Kingston Historical Society. You can see the water flowing exuberantly through the lock's overflow. The drop gates were installed on the canal lock in 1849. Circa 1830, after the last lock tender saw a few military submarines pass, the canal closed.

The D&R Canal consisted of fourteen locks, which allowed ships to travel between the different elevations across New Jersey. Adjacent to the Lock-tender's House, near the Kingston Lock, is a small white building. This building is the only surviving tollhouse and canal telegraph office on the D&R Canal.

Kingston Lock, Lock Number 8
Kingston Lock, Lock Number 8 | Friday 4 September, 2020 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | f/16 | ISO 200

The area near the lock is under constant repair from damage caused by the flooding of the D&R Canal and the Millstone River tributary during rainstorms. In 2020, the New Jersey Water Supply Authority completed a two-year dredging project along a 10.5-mile stretch of the canal from Kingston to Amwell Road in the East Millstone section of Franklin. The project emoved an estimated 248,000 cubic yards of sediment to increase the flow of water in the canal to reduce the effects of weed growth. After photographing the red of the Kington Mill and the white of the telegraph station, it seemed fitting to end with something blue.

Friday 4 September, 2020 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | f/9.0 | ISO 200
Friday 4 September, 2020 | FujiFilm X-T2 | XF27mmF2.8 | f/9.0 | ISO 200

(Source: Steve Bates, "Celebrating 325 years of village history: A piece of the puzzle of New Jersey and U.S. history", Aug. 6, 1999, Packet Online: Princeton, New Jersey; http://www.pacpubserver.com/new/news/kingston/325years.html)

(Linda J. Barth, 2002. Images of America: The Delaware and Raritan Canal. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Press.)

Submitted for the 100DaysToOffload project.

Submitted for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #112.

Kingston Lock @ D & R Canal

The Kingston Lock—FujiFilm X-T2 + XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 55 mm, f/22
The Kingston Lock—FujiFilm X-T2 + XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR @ 21.3 mm, f/22

D & R Canal @ Kingston.