Bill Smith's Photography

 The City of Mississuaga is just west of Toronto, taking its name from the Mississaugas of the New Credit of the  Anishinaabe people was formed in the late 1960s merging a bunch of smaller towns and villages together. For the May 2022 Frugal Film Project installment I paid a visit to both Clarkson's Ratteray Marsh Conservation Area and Port Credit. Bear in mind this was shot in early May and the Credit River was pretty quiet, so I didn't bother to shoot much of it.  Mississauga is one of Ontario's largest cities and is home to multiple neighbourhoods, factories, warehouses, corporate head offices and still is synonomous as being a car focused suburb. As a result, it can be tough to shoot in this city because everything is so spread out like Los Angeles in some regards.  Camera: Nikon N90S, Nikkor AF-D 28-105 F3.5-4.5 lens.  Film: Kodak Ultramax 400. 

 Funny what can happen within a few weeks. I shot this set the first week of May and it was pretty depressing the first half of the roll, then it was  like someone turned the dimmer switch way up and it got super bright outside. I haven't seen light this clean in months. Either way Color Plus 200, Kodak's historic cheap and cheerful (now not quite so cheap, if you can find it) handled the assignment well.  Color Plus 200 is the counterpart to Gold 200, both sell into the same market segment that historically was hte casual photographer documenting life events. More recently being adapted by photographers of all skill levels as a subsitute for more expensive Portra and to chase a nostalgic look. I'm no different. I'm more inclined to shoot the the expensive stuff in my F4, F5, F90X and F100 for the more accurate matrix metering. If I want something more "From the before times" feel, I'm inclined to reach for my stocks of Gold, Color Plus and Fuji Superia 40...

 I have a long off and on relationship with Adox CHS 100, first discovering this film at the first Analog Photography User's Group Confernece in Toronto back in 2005 (time really flies). Adox is a storied brand that made film up until 2003 first as a family owned firm and later as a division of Dupont Chemicals until it was shut down. The brand revived under the stewardship of the camera store Fotomimpex in Berlin importing and rebranding film made by Efke in Croation on old coating lines that were used by Adox and using old Adox formulas from the 1950s and '60s sold to them by Dupont. Fast forward a few years and the Efke coating line breaks down and with no spare parts, there's more film.  Not to fear, Fotoimpex bought an old Agfa research and development facility outside of Berlin and Ilford's Swiss coating line. The old Adox CHS 100 back in 2005 came on an acetate base, the new and improved CHS 100 II now comes on a PET base and has much tighter quality control.  Ad...