When it comes to lenses, I enjoy working with wide-angle offerings, and they can genuinely tell you how dedicated a company is to manufacturing and designing quality optics. And even with my limited experience with Canon EOS lenses, the 28mm f/2.8 surprised me. It’s a tremendous carry-around lens that, despite being a first-generation model, still stands up today as delivering quality results in an affordable lens. And this was the second EOS lens I picked up, as I knew I wanted something fast and wide that wasn’t a zoom lens. Lens Specifications Make: Canon Model: EF 28mm 1:2.8 Focal Length: 28mm Focal Range: ∞ –Read More →

Sitting outside of downtown, St. George’s Anglican Church looks as if it has been transplanted from the English countryside. With a small churchyard and a scattering of graves, this historic parish is among the earliest churches within the community of Georgetown. Anglican priests had been calling in Georgetown since the 1840s. These saddlebag preachers rode a circuit, often holding services in family homes or schoolhouses. These services suited the areas of Ontario that were far from the urban centres. As the community grew, a section of land was purchased on Norval Road (Guelph Street) to build a meeting house and a burial ground. A simpleRead More →

If you’re thinking, haven’t you already reviewed this film stock? Well, you would be right after a fashion. While CineStill 800T is based on Vision3 500T, it is a version that has been under-exposed by a little under one-stop and had the remjet protective layer stripped away. This is the real deal; released in 2007, Eastman Vision3 5219 500T is a fast tungsten balanced film designed for use under artificial light, specifically those that produce light at the temperature of 3200K. It can also be used in daylight and produces, unfiltered, a blue tinge giving an almost day-for-night look. Of course, you can compensate forRead More →

If there is one city in Ontario that I always like to visit on projects, it is Stratford, Ontario. While far smaller than most cities in Ontario, Stratford offers a glimpse of what cities looked like in the 19th Century, with plenty of historic buildings scattered throughout. The city still holds onto some of its historical past with the railroad and furniture making. But also fully embraces its Shakespearian tourist present. The part of Ontario where Stratford is found was once home to the Attawondernk Civilisation; these indigenous peoples were lumped together under the Neutral name by the first French explorers and fur traders whoRead More →

Some still exist when it comes to the former villages that occupied the stretch of Dundas on the former northern edge of Oakville. The village of Sixteen Hollow (alternatively Proudfoot Hollow) has vanished save for an oddly named Presbyterian Church, Knox Sixteen. George Chalmer’s established the small community in the late 1820s, a mill and tavern forming the community’s core. Being made up mainly of those who traced their heritage to Scotland, they brought with them the Presbyterian Church. These early settlers would worship at home with a saddlebag preacher, or when the Presbyterians established a congregation in Oakville would travel south when they wereRead More →

I did not think I would enjoy working with these sorts of cameras. Sort of like how I felt about the RETO Ultra Wide & Slim, the LOMO APPARAT is a simple-use camera centred around an ultra-wide angle lens. But the APPARAT has some other tricks that the RUWS does not have; first, there’s a built-in flash, and second, this camera is far bigger than RUWS. Like all Lomography cameras, it’s centred around making photography fun, abandoning the traditional ideas of sharpness and accuracy. Shoot from the hip and see what happens. But you can quickly determine the different quirks. The APPARAT gives the photographer.Read More →

A small white frame church is easy to miss; easier still is dismissing the building as a new build designed to match an older structure. But the small white church sitting on the western side of Bronte Road is original and an active church. When William Peacock first settled in the village of Palermo in 1832, at this point, a Methodist congregation was already well established. Peacock, an Anglican, would need to travel further afield to worship at a familiar church. But as the population grew, William convinced the rector at St. Luke’s in Wellington Centre to come to Palermo to celebrate mass, the firstRead More →

When it comes to magic in photography, nothing can compare to watching a wet plate develop and clear or printing in the darkroom. But a close second is developing your slide film at home. After fretting about ruining slide film by developing it at home, I decided to go for it and put in some crucial rolls from Europe. If you force yourself to do it right the first time, develop something that matters! And when I pulled off those first two rolls, I was blown away! And while they looked ugly when wet, when dried, it was magic. The Unicolor Rapid E-6 kits makeRead More →

If there is a single classic film emulsion that kept Polaroid Pack Film cameras going well after the demise of the original Polaroid company, that film is FP-100c. And while the film is no longer available today, it is the film stock that made me turn my head and start looking for Type-100 Polaroid cameras ever since receiving a ColorPack-II from the excellent Michael Raso and the Film Photography Project. FP-100c is the same film that continued the tradition of Polaroid Type-100 pack film that you shoot, then peel apart and shake it (like a Polaroid Picture) to help dry the chemistry. And to haveRead More →

Located on the historic Norval Road (Guelph Street), St. John’s United Church can trace its history to the Methodist revival of the 1840s and is the only Church to come from the Episcopal Methodist tradition project. The earliest Methodist saddlebag preachers to arrive in the area held services not in Georgetown but in the nearby settlement of Glen Williams, forming a congregation there in 1839. These Wesylian Methodists built a small wooden frame chapel in Glen Williams and served the area. Noted firebrand preacher Rev Edgerton Ryerson visited the site in 1841, preaching both in Glen Williams and in the new settlement of Georgetown; MethodistsRead More →