Every story needs a beginning, and Oakville’s story starts here, with a creek. Without the creek, there would have been no Oakville. Survival of life depends on water; without it, nothing could live. And water provided not only for the natural world but also humanity. To drink, wash, and travel through the dense backwater than was Ontario. And it also provided the earliest power of the early industries. Formed during the last great ice age and the retreat of the same glacier that began the great lakes and the Niagara Escarpment, the nameless creek meandered from the escarpment into one of the many lakes formed.Read More →

I expected that Vision3 50D would be my favourite of the three Vision3 films I reviewed this year. The biggest reason is that I love a good slow film; they make you think a little more. After seeing what I could produce with 250D, I also expected more of the same from 50D. I also had the chance to try out the remjet removed version of this film, CineStill 50D a few years back and was impressed by the film. But I cannot say it’s my favourite; I don’t know if it was the ECN-2 processing or the lighting conditions, but I found the filmRead More →

It has been a long time since my family, and I have taken a proper vacation. And while this trip was mainly to visit family, it was a vacation. The past few years have limited how far we can go from home. So taking advantage of parental leave, we took a flight out west to visit family who won’t be coming out east soon. We crossed the 100th Meridian into the great plains and visited Queen’s City, Regina, Saskatchewan. Formed out of an ancient sea, the great plains that spread out across the middle of North America saw their earliest human habitation, 6000 BCE. TheRead More →

I first visited the community of Oakville as part of a tour of Sheridan College. Sheridan was among the colleges I had applied to in my final year in High School. I only chose two colleges, Mohawk and Sheridan, but chose programs at both Davis Campus in Brampton and the Trafalgar Campus in Oakville. Ultimately, I attended the Trafalgar Road Campus and started there in 2002. That same year I attended a PYPS (Presbyterian Young People’s Society) event at Knox Presbyterian Church in downtown Oakville, getting my first taste of the town’s historic core. But it wasn’t until I started working full-time at Sheridan afterRead More →

The 1990s were weird. I know; I grew up in the 90s. But then some cameras were quirky, strange options with different looks and styles. And there is the Photura. At first glance, you will think that the Camera is a camcorder, but not a camcorder from the 1990s, but rather one of those solid-state deals from the 2010s before smartphones caught on as a means of recording your life. But the Photura was not alone; think about the Ricoh Miri and the Yashica Samurai. Yet, there’s a unique thing about the Photura; you can operate it with a single hand, drop in 35mm loading,Read More →

Whenever I think I have gotten to know what each photography company has to offer, I’m always surprised when something new comes across my desk. I always figured that Foma produced films and clones of other developers. But when someone commented on an earlier review about Fomadon LQN, I started to think that maybe other developers weren’t cloned available. Sadly I couldn’t get Fomadon LQN from my usual source (but a review is coming); the source did have LQR. So I grabbed a bottle, thinking there might be something to Foma developers. LQR is the high-contrast brother to LQN, and after my good luck withRead More →

While the Mark 1 Intrepid is long obsolete, it was a fantastic camera for the era in which it was produced. It became the foundation of a resurgence in modern large-format camera creation, not only from the folks at Intrepid. And while this camera is long gone, it certainly left an impression on me and my photography. This camera was designed to make large format affordable and modern construction. And it certainly made that dream a reality. Was the camera perfect? Far from it, I had many problems with this camera, but for what it was and what it cost, it made a large format,Read More →

My experience with pancake lenses is fairly limited, having only used a couple of this classification of lenses, and in both cases, with excellent results. I’m talking about the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 and Minolta 45mm f/2. So when I started to build up an EOS lens system, the EF 40/2.8 was at the top of my list of lenses to get. And the best part is that you can get them either new or used to save a few bucks. And don’t let the small size fool you; this lens packs a big punch, proving that size matters not. Size matters not. Look at me.Read More →

Located in the historic village of Campbellville, St. David’s Presbyterian Church is unique in that its design takes from several different architectural styles and is named (after a fashion) for the person who donated the land it sits upon. Presbyterian worship in the village of Campbellville started in 1864 when members of the Nassagaweya Congregation could not make the trek to the Nassagaweya Church in Haltonville. At this time, such a journey was a bit of an undertaking, and the area had an unsavoury reputation. The Campbellville congregation was formally recognised as a mission station of the Nassagaweya congregation in 1869 and made a two-pointRead More →

Of all the Vision3 films, 250D is the one I have the most experience with, having shot a couple of rolls and processed them at home. The problem was that when I processed them before, I did them cross-processed in C-41 chemistry. And they looked a little on the green side, but they looked good. And then, when I returned to this film stock with proper ECN-2 (home) chemistry, I was blown away. Under dull conditions, a snowstorm and bright light 250D produced amazing clean images. And it certainly was a significant shift from what I got from last month’s review of Vision3 500T! FilmRead More →