Revised 2018-04-16
Japan Camera Hunter StreetPan 400 B&W Film Profile/Review
This tech page is for Japan Camera Hunter StreetPan Film, or JCH_PAN_400. This is a high speed B&W film that comes in 35mm roll, and 120 roll. It is a panchromatic black and white negative film with a nominal rating of ISO 400. It has extended spectral sensitivity into the near IR range. It is claimed to be very scanner friendly, and has low fog levels with lots of contrast.
Development
There are many ways to develop JCH_PAN_400. Following Japan Camera Hunter’s recommended development times on their website is a good place to start if you’ve not developed this film before. If you send your film in here to Simple Film Lab, we develop JCH_PAN_400 with Replenished Kodak XTOL with constant rotary agitation as standard practice. The development time is 11:00 at 75 degrees Fahrenheit. We use a 1+4 water+vinegar stop bath between development and fixing. We fix all BW films in Kodak Fixer. Below are two charts that show contrast and EI for development time for replenished XTOL at 24C with constant rotary agitation.
Contrast vs Development Time
ISO/EI vs Development Time
Exposure Guidance
There are many ways to meter and expose JCH_PAN_400. If sending JCH_PAN_400 in to Simple Film Lab to process and scan, we recommend taking an incident light reading of the darkest part of the scene you want to retain details in and subtracting 1 stop of exposure from that reading. For example, if the darkest part of the scene that you want to retain detail in reads 1/125 shutter, f/4.0 at ISO 400, either set the shutter to 1/250 or close down the aperture to f/5.6, or a combination of the two to reduce the exposure by one stop. If you don’t have a light meter, then set your camera exposure compensation to +2 stops, and that will generally result in an acceptable exposure for most situations once scanned in and density corrected. JCH_PAN_400 does not have a super high exposure latitude and in full daylight is a lot closer to an ISO 200 film, so keep that in mind.
Characteristic Curve
Using Simple Film Lab, here’s the characteristic curve for JCH_PAN_400 overlaid with the ISO standard 0.62 Contrast Index that it is scanned in with:
The scale along the bottom is exposure EVs, the scale along the left is the measured density as seen by the film scanner, meaning raw ADC values. The EV 0 mark is an 18% exposure card exposed correctly via an incident light reading with a Sekonic light meter through a T-Stop rated lens. Every dot along the curve is a full stop of light. The black curve is Contrast Index that the emulsion is digitized and linearized with, the green curve is the actual measured density values of the emulsion using the development described above. This curve was created exposing the film at EI200 instead of the standard IE 400.
Dynamic Range/Exposure Latitude
Following the development practice described above and scanned in with the ISO standard CI 0.62, the film base plus fog starts to happen at EV -3 and is clear film base by EV -4 if exposed at EI 400. On the highlight side, with replenished XTOL it pretty much hits maximum density by +9 EV. The shape of the H+D curve is very “S” shaped.
With the above information, in Adobe Lightroom, the visible dynamic range of an exposure is +7 EV to -6 EV. JCH_PAN_400 provides no under exposure latitude and 1 full stop of over exposure protection while still maintaining barely acceptable black levels and full highlight retention for the full visible dynamic range in Adobe Lightroom with no change in development. These over-under limits can be exceeded if you are OK with significantly reduced performance at the extremes of the exposure scale. This equates to an approximate exposure index range of EI 200 to 400, which isn’t among the best but is usable. The standard development is already a 1 stop push, pushing the film even more does not add appreciable usable shadow detail and adds a lot of contrast and grain.
Resolution/Grain
JCH_PAN_400 has good resolution. There isn’t really any information available for it as far as spatial information goes, but it renders a good amount of detail and is sharp enough. In terms of grain, it’s present, but I don’t really have a lot to complain about. More development time makes the grain more noticeable, but in replenished XTOL, it’s pretty smooth grain, so it’s present, but not really objectionable.
Sample Images
Here’s a link to a Flickr Album of more images shot on JCH_PAN_400. I’ll add more images as I have them available.
Downloadable Sample DNG Files
As part of this tech sheet/film review I’m making a ZIP file available that contains some Adobe DNG files that are a sample of what you would receive if you sent your film into Simple Film Lab to process and scan. It’s relatively large, but if you want to see what you can get, worth a look. Click Here
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