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In: Optical Review Blogs
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Alright, I said I wasn’t going to get one of these, well, specifically an autofocus version of the Nikkor 20mm lens. The Minolta one solidified my enjoyment of the 20mm focal length, and I was passively looking for a manual focus lens, either AI or AI-S, because then it would work on all my cameras without fail. But I also don’t turn up my nose to a lens when offered. And well, here we are, the 20mm f/2.8D. I do like my wide-angle choices, and the 20mm offers up a nice in-between when 24mm isn’t wide enough and 14mm is too wide. And I don’tRead More →

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In the Urban Exploration hobby there is a concept of a risk to reward ratio. The idea is that an explorer needs to determine if the risk of entering the abandoned building is worth the reward of what might be seen inside. In my case, if I saw an abandoned house in an active neighbourhood, I might think that the risk of getting caught inside what could be a mundane house is not worth the potential reward of having a perfectly intact time-capsule. Another explorer might think differently. But if I saw an abandoned factory, I would probably think that the risk of getting caughtRead More →

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In: Camera Tales
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Many photographers of a certain age started with the Pentax K1000. I went a different route, and it’s different from even my preferred camera type today. I went with the Minolta Hi-Matic 7s, a fixed lens rangefinder from the 1960s. The Hi-Matic made things real; it was the first camera that was mine and the first good camera that I used. Before this, I used disposable cameras, like the point-and-shoot my parents had, and I still remember the 110 plastic camera I got at a McDonald’s event (at least, that’s what I think in my head-canon). While I would end up with a lot ofRead More →

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In: Film Review Blogs
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It has taken me a bit of time to figure out Kodak TMax 400, I’ve always been much more of a fan of traditional grained films, T-Grained films have always looked too clean, too modern. But they do have one thing, films like TMax 400 has a wide latitude. And I’ve also heard that TMax 400 pushes far better than Tri-X. Now I have done push processing with TMax 400 in the past, I’ve also done pull processing in the past so that should make things even more interesting. Film Specs Manufacturer: Eastman-Kodak Name: Kodak TMax 400 Type: Panchromatic B&W, Tabular-Grained Film Base: Acetate FilmRead More →

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Last year, for an episode of the Classic Camera Revival, I interviewed Pedro, the owner of Máquinas de Outros Tempos, or Machines from Another Time, a dedicated film lab and camera shop in Porto, Portugal. One of the other projects that the company runs is Cinemot, a supplier of film, both respooled and directly contracted for production. After listening to Pedro’s passion for film photography, I decided to order some of the film stocks offered by the company the black-and-white offerings. More importantly, I ordered these directly from Cinemot, and the time it took to get from Portugal to Canada was rather quick. Those beingRead More →

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I have a troubled history with 200-speed films. They’ve always given me more trouble and often try too hard, which can be detrimental. I struggled to find a way through Fomapan 200 and Rollei Superpan 200. Both Svema and Derev Pan 200-speed offerings were far more trouble than they’re worth. And then last year, along came Kentmere 200, a middle child for the Kentmere budget offerings. In all these colour film releases, Kentmere 200 took a backseat. But I latched onto Kentmere 200 almost right away. I already enjoyed Kentmere 100 and Kentmere 400, and the first flush of Kentmere 200 proved a solid performer.Read More →

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In: Photography
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I had a lot of fun last year working through some of my cameras and picking a different camera and film each month and shooting them for the enjoyment of photography. Often I would tie the roll to a YouTube video, specific blog post, developer review, or a podcast episode, but sometimes it would be for the fun of photography. These were always posted to Instagram and I worked again in collaboration with the community of folks through the 12monthsonfilm account. For 2025 I’ll admit there were repeat cameras from last year, but I did make a point to include some new arrivals and thoseRead More →

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In: News & Updates
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Well we made it through another year. Like every years things did not always go to plan and that’s okay. Because it’s important to be flexible, especially when this blog and other channels is not a full time job. The year was a lot of fun despite being a little chaotic. I always have hope that things will eventually calm down, but they do in fact always calm up. There was a rather unfortunate bump through the fall with a five week support staff strike that did reduce some capacity for creation, but I had the chance to play catch up through October and NovemberRead More →

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In: Film Review Blogs
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Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 II, a reborn version of the classic Fujifilm Acros 100. A film with a near cult-like following and one that is known best for having a low reciprocity failure. But when it comes to latitude, it is often seen as narrow. Even when pushed in processing, it can often result in dark, under-exposed, and under-developed images. So, it makes for the perfect film to kick off a new series of reviews to see how Diafine handles this legendary film. Film Specs Manufacturer: Fujifilm Name: Neopan Acros 100 II Type: Panchromatic B&W Film Base: Acetate Film Speed: ASA-100 Formats Available: 135 (35mm),Read More →

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In: Developer Review Blogs
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Like my last developer review (Fuji Microfine), Fuji Super Prodol (SPD) has little information online about the developer. SPD is the faster version of Prodol and according to what I could find online says that this developer is designed for push-processing films. And to make things even more interesting is that looking at the chemical formula it shares similar characteristics to Crawley’s FX-37. This was part of the care package from a reader that included Microfine which turned out to be an amazing developer with Fuji Acros 100 II. The package does appear to be a modern pouch, and appears to be still in productionRead More →