As you well know, I’m a huge fan of Kodak Panatomic-X and by far it is the one film I would like to see come back in some modern form. And while I can give TMax 100 a similar look, what if I could find that look I’m fond of in a modern new film? Well, I feel I can find that in CatLABS X Film 80 and sure it’s not an ASA-32 film, but what if I pulled it? I mean I got stable images out of TMax 100 at nearly a two-stop full, in this case, it’s only about a stop and aRead More →

Me debunk an American myth? And take my life in my hands? Where the great plains begin At the hundredth meridian At the hundredth meridian Where the great plains begin As a Canadian, I’m ashamed to say the furthest west I’ve ever travelled in our remarkable country is Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. But after getting married two years ago, I gained a whole new branch of the family and my wife, and I decided that it was high time I met them. And earlier in the month, Heather and I went out beyond the hundredth meridian and dived deep into the great plains. While notRead More →

If there’s one lens that I don’t use that much is the 135mm focal length. I shoot a tonne with my pair of Nikon 105mm lenses and the 100mm in my Maxxum system is becoming a fast favourite. But I have a pair of 135mm lens one in Nikon the other in Rokkor that just don’t get the same amount of love as the others do. And oddly enough there are plenty of other photographers out there that their lenses feel the same lack of love. Enter Dan Novack when he posted a challenge on the Negative Postive’s Podcast group on Facebook asking if anyoneRead More →

I honestly don’t mind leaving at 6:30 in the morning, I had a two-hour drive in front of me and these days, especially on the weekend traffic, is an unknown variable. But I was Peterborough bound, having grabbed a coffee at the local Starbucks before getting on the highway. But this wasn’t going to be the average Toronto Film Shooters Meetup, we had guests this time around. I’ve been in talks with our cousin group in Kingston for a joint meetup. It would then just be a matter of finding an interesting spot in the middle of our two cities. Eventually, I settled on PeterboroughRead More →

From the grand bridges spanning the St. Lawerence River, east along QC-175, the homes become older, these give away to even older structures, towered armouries, and then the grand Parliament Building of the National Assembly and in front of you stands the old walled city. The Old City of Quebec is only one of two cities in North America that retains their fortifications. Heather and I decided to make a super-long weekend for ourselves last month and head to one of the oldest cities in Canada, Quebec. Now, this was not the first time I had visited the city, but the last time I spentRead More →

Back when I was starting to work on my 1867 project a friend and fellow reenactor pointed me towards a facebook group called Friends of the Welland Canal. The facebook group is a joint effort between local residents and a group known as the Welland Canal Advocate (WCA). Over the Victoria Day long weekend, Heather and I took the opportunity to attend one of the monthly WCA hikes that took us through a section of the first and second canals that run through St. Catherine’s Centennial Gardens. That said when the canals were in operation, the area was actually in a separate community known asRead More →

The air certainly had a chill to it and if you didn’t know the date you might have laughed if I said it was the end of April. But it certainly didn’t feel like the end of April, it felt like the fall. I should have gone back up to the condo and gotten a sweater but I decided to soldier on. Despite the fact, the official Spring Toronto Film Shooters meetup was the next day I decided to scrap my initial plan for the day which was shooting solo in Elora and headed into the city for an informal TFS meetup in the beachRead More →

Out of all the Doors Open Events run across Ontario my favourite and longest attended is Doors Open Hamilton. The city knows how to do the event right with lots of buildings both public and private buying into the event and specifically allowing and even welcoming photography. My first taste of doors open had been back in 2007 and I pretty much have attended almost all of the Hamilton events missing only a few in the past decade and a bit. Plus being on the weekend closest to my birthday it has also become somewhat of a Birthday Tradition. This year I had an awesomeRead More →

It’s fun to change things up every so often. And what better way to do it than adjust when the Spring meetup for the Toronto Film Shooters! This year our spring meetup saw several changes from the normal flow of the event. First off it happened on a Sunday; secondly, we had a company host the event, Burlington Camera and the reason behind these two things was so that it fell on World Pinhole Photography Day! And while the weather had been looking terrible even as late as Thursday, when I arrived at the Burlington Camera parking lot, the sun was shining, and while chillyRead More →

I rather enjoy these little made up holidays and events for the photographic community. And you can thank the Internet for all this enjoyment and global networking that takes place. The brains behind World Film Photography Day is Lomography and while I didn’t bring out any of my toy cameras, the unsettled weather of late here in Southern Ontario I took out my Minolta Maxxum 9 with a newly acquired 50mm f/1.7 lens, and a fresh roll of Retro 400s. So no matter what condition the weather would throw me I’d be ready. Not wanting to waste too much time I headed down to myRead More →