If you read my last blog entry, you’ll know that I signed up to participate in the Frugal Film Project for 2024 - 1 cheap camera, 12 rolls of cheap film, shooting 1 roll per month.

My film of choice for the challenge is the “EZ-400” black and white film from New Classic Films. New Classic was a film company started by youtuber and photographer Ribsy about 2 years ago. I say “was” because it appears that the company has ceased operations, with all of its film stock going on sale recently for some great prices. I picked up several rolls during the sale for less than $5.00 per roll, thinking that I’d use it in a project.

Some research on the interwebs shows that EZ-400 is re-labelled Fomapan 400. I’ve never shot Fomapan 400 before so before I headed out to shoot it I wanted to get to know it a little better. General consensus appears to be that its closer to being an ISO 250 film, with fairly high contrast, somewhat gritty grain structure, and halations around light sources. This should be interesting!

After putting the first work week of 2024 behind me, I decided to get out on an early Saturday morning to shoot some moody, before dawn images in downtown Dayton, Ohio. This is nothing new to me, as I enjoy being out and about in the city at 4am. Most of the night owls have went to bed, and the early risers aren’t yet awake. That leaves the downtown area mostly empty and quiet, with a few exceptions.

It took me nearly 4 hours to shoot 36 shots, taking my time by using a tripod and composing purposefully. I had a few run-ins, as usual, with some of the homeless people. The majority of the time they are harmless, and the first two were really more curious about what I was doing more than anything. I took the time to chat with them and explain what I was doing. The third one was very confrontational - accusing me of timing him with a stopwatch to see how long it took for him to come over and beg money from me. He was very aggressive. After talking him down, and explaining that I was shooting film and I needed a stopwatch to time my shots, I packed up the tripod and moved to a different location. His interactions with me were menacing, and did not make me feel like he had good intentions.

The reason I needed to use a stopwatch was that the reciprocity failure for Fomapan basically falls off of a cliff after a few seconds, and every shot took a long time to complete even with rating the film at ISO 250. For example, a metered 8 second exposure took nearly 45 seconds with the calculated reciprocity failure.

I finished up by around 8am and headed home for a warm breakfast and then a hike with Renee. After our hike I developed the roll in Rodinal developer using a 1:100 mix ratio with water, and a temp of 68F degrees. I like to use the “Semi-stand” method of letting the tank sit for an hour with inversions at the 15 minute, 30 minute, and 45 minute time marks. After the developer I did a water stop rinse, fixed with Ilford Rapid Fixer, and then finished with FPP Archival Wash. After drying, I scanned the film with a Nikon CoolScan V 35mm scanner.

Below are a few of my favorites from the roll. I’m digging the gritty, contrasty look and feel of the film. Click on the first image to view the series in full size.

This should be a fun experiment over the next 12 months to see what I can do with it in different situations. I have some other themes/locations planned to shoot with it to mix things up a bit.

If you want to join in on the fun, its not too late to join the Frugal Film Project for 2024 and get shooting! Check out their Facebook page for more info.

Cheers!

Jeremy