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Like most history, there is always a bit of legend mixed in with fact and a fair amount of embellishment. That statement is even true when it comes to PL Robertson. If you live in Canada you know well the socket or square head screw, it’s standard across all provinces and all trades. Peter L. Robertson would often tell the story of how, as a screw salesman, a slotted screwdriver slipped during a demonstration and sliced his arm. Being both a salesman and an inventor, Robertson decided to invent a safer head for the standard screw. Although the more likely story is that Robertson sawRead More →

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In the automotive world, especially in the world of hotrods, there’s a term ‘sleeper’. A sleeper is a car that doesn’t look like a performance automobile, but under the hood is. For many years my dad babied a 1983 Caprice Classic, installed a new engine, new exhaust, fuel injector, all to complement the Impala SS suspension and close-ratio police steer box that came with the car. The Caprice spent many years as a sleeper until he started working on some exterior detailing. Why do I mention a car on a lens review? Well, it’s because the lens I’m covering today is a sleeper, it doesn’tRead More →

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Strangely enough, I caught the idea for today’s post by reading an article in the most recent edition of the Canadian Firearms Journal (May/June 2018). The article of course written about guns, this post is about cameras, though you do shoot with both. There is wisdom in the article, that can be applied to the traditional camera community. The article opens with a story, the author, Tyson Somerville, and a friend is out shooting, while Tyson’s gun is a well cared for, the gun being used by his friend is in rough shape. So as I sat in a local coffee shop waiting for aRead More →

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After our recent shelf queen episode (in which John spoke about his non-functioning Stereo Realist), John heard from listener Howard M. Sandler, who it turns out is quite the expert on Stereo Photography! We thought a deep dive into Stereo would be in order, and John was very happy to have Howard as a guest for this Stereo excursion. Below is an example of Howard’s stereo work. Howard was also kind enough to provide a treasure trove of links on the topic (listed below), so dive in! Howard’s stereo photos (mostly film, but not exclusively. Almost all presented in parallel viewing format) https://www.flickr.com/photos/hsandler/albums/72157674884839827 One ofRead More →

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People, Places, and Things they all intersect with our lives in various ways and at multiple times, all according to a plan. I’m one who believes that everything happens for a reason; you may not always realise it at that time or won’t until much later. Take, for example, Southside Community Church; my family attended the church briefly when it first opened, but I became attached even attending Sunday School there before going to Knox later that Sunday morning. In High School thanks to a coworker of my mom, I went to the youth group there also, met many friends, or older siblings of thoseRead More →

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Back last year I made a single roll review of the Eastman 2238 film, but now that I have a lot more resources available to me and having found three rolls sitting in my storage, I decided to do a proper review of this beautiful film stock. As I mentioned in the one-roll review, 2238 is what is called a Panchromatic Separation Film and is used to create archival film prints from colour film prints. Unlike past speciality motion-picture stocks this is a Panchromatic film, meaning it is sensitive across all the colour spectrums. Now, 2238, like all films, is not designed for regular pictorialRead More →

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My high school doesn’t exist anymore. Sure the building still stands, it serves a different purpose now, but the school I attended is no longer there. Everything got shifted to a new building and a new name. To be honest, I don’t miss it, or high school at all. High School was just a means to an end, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have any high points to my time there. First, I was able to seriously build up my computer skills, both in function and support. Second, my love of history, both in exploring and how I write about it was because ofRead More →

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When it comes to Olympus cameras, especially the OM-System, I sadly lack in my experience. Thankfully I’ve had the chance to run with both the original OM-1 and the advanced OM-4. Meaning there are only a couple of these amazing cameras that I have yet to have any experience with. In a reoccurrence of GAS, I happened upon a trade where I swapped a Pentax for a beautiful OM-2n. And after hearing all the good things about these cameras from two friends, Bill and Leslie, I knew I had a winning SLR. And while the OM-2n isn’t a primary camera in my daily use, IRead More →

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Bill, Alex, and Alex dig into Rollei’s other iconic camera, the small form factor Rollei 35, a small 35mm full-frame before they were popular. The trio discusses the camera’s history, the good, the bad and everything in between. When it comes to cameras produced by Franke & Heidecke, the first format that comes to almost everyone’s mind is the Twin Lens Reflex. But these aren’t the only iconic camera produced by one of the big names in the German camera business. The story of the company’s other iconic camera doesn’t begin with them; it instead starts in a living room. The living room belonged toRead More →

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A school mate and I trudged along the small muddy path along the Mill Pond in downtown Milton, the pond that was created by Jasper Martin to help drive his grist and saw mills. But what I did not expect to find was an abandoned rail bridge. What made things all the more interesting is that the bridge did not match in with Milton’s two main rail corridors, this one was different older almost. But let’s go back, back to the middle of the 19th Century. The first major railroads to form in Canada West (Ontario Today) were Great Western, Grand Trunk, and Ontario, Simcoe,Read More →