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If there is one type of cameras that I have little experience with its folders. Back in the summer, I did have a chance to review one; nothing could prepare me for the Ventura. It’s a camera with a bit of an identity issue, in addition to the Ventura Deluxe it could also be the Ventura 66 or the Isolette II, and while this camera did not perform how I thought it would it did give me a pleasant surprise. The history nerd in me also digs the fact that the camera was made in the “US Zone” part of the occupation of Germany afterRead More →

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There’s something to be said about a solid camera in your hands. It gives you a sense of being in the zone, a healthy weight, the feel of the mirror slamming up to expose the frame. Meet the Spotmatic, and this is one beast of an SLR. It’s clunky; it’s heavy, and yet feels so right to shoot. The Pentax Spotmatic was one of the first SLRs on the market to feature full open aperture TTL metering. And then there are the lenses, which focus smoothly and are super sharp. Disclaimer: This is an old review, and is scheduled for an update and may lookRead More →

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Brigadier General William H Winder, like many officers in the American Army, made a name for himself in the War of 1812, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Winder has been grouped by many in the same category as William Hull and is considered one of the worst generals of the war. The ill-starred general was born in 1775 near Baltimore, Maryland, Winder wound attend the University of Pennsylvania and study law and return to Baltimore and began to practice law in 1798 and earned a reputation for being one of the best lawyers in the entire state. The battle field fromRead More →

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I’m going to come out and say it right off the bat. I’m used to handling big and bulky SLRs. Yet as I feel smaller cameras like the Nikon FE, Nikon FA, and Pentax ME Super, I realised that there needed to be a single instigator of this shift in SLR size. That camera is the Olympus OM-1, released just under two decades from the first ‘system’ SLR, the Nikon F. But the OM-1 switched the game, changed the narrative on the system camera. It showed you didn’t need a bulky camera to get results. And those who use the OM-1 or any of theRead More →

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While I have reviewed many cameras over the course of the two years running this project, and there have been many satisfying cameras. The one sub-type of cameras I haven’t explored in much detail is the SLRs from the 1990s. That is the plastic consumer SLRs that dominated the market before the advent of digital SLRs. The only other one I’ve checked out was the Nikon F90, which is a fantastic camera! And after listening to Episode 152 of the Film Photography Podcast I decided to check another one out and landed on a sweet deal on the Maxxum 700si! Camera Specifications Manufacturer: Minolta Model:Read More →

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Robert Barrie is one of the more unique people related to the War of 1812 that I have researched and written on. While he managed to earn a disreputable reputation among the American population among the British and Canadians whom he interacted with he was well liked and respected. Barrie was born on the 5th of May 1774 in Florida, which at the time was still under British Rule, the son of Doctor Robert Barrie and Dolly Gardner. Despite his birth in North America he was raised in England. After his father passed away when he was still an infant his mother would move backRead More →

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One of notable Governors of the British colonies that made up British North America during the Anglo-American War of 1812 is a man who helped aid the economic growth despite the war and presided over one of the least known campaigns in the war. Baptized John Coape Sherbrooke on the 29th of April 1764, the only son of William Sherbrooke and Katherine Pyndar. Born and raised in Arnold, Nottinghamshire, England as part of the gentry John, following his formal schooling was commissioned as an Ensign in the 4th Regiment of Foot in 1780, and three years later gazetted Captain transferring to the 85th Regiment ofRead More →

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While the major campaigns of the War of 1812 get the spotlight and widely known, and it is true; these were the battles that shaped the course and action of the war those weren’t the be all and ended all of the war. And even today the British capture and occupation of what is now Maine, or as it was two hundred years prior Massachusetts, the War of 1812 remains relatively unknown even to those living in the modern communities today. I would not have even known about this conflict if it were not for my reading and participating in the reenactment of the warRead More →

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There’s something to be said about the ergonomics of cameras, for the most part, they hadn’t moved beyond the box cameras that dominated the snapshot market. Even the single lens reflex cameras and rangefinder cameras were boxes. And while they weren’t too bad to hang onto for extended periods of time there had to be something better. Today we have cameras with excellent grips, but the first thing I realized when I picked up the Contaflex Super B was that it wasn’t a box, and the trapezoid shape of the body would make the camera an enjoyable one to shoot as I walked from theRead More →

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To say the Mamiya Universal is clunky and hard to use is an understatement. But it is not wholly un-useable, you just need to find the flow of the camera. The Universal isn’t a bad camera, underrated, hard to use yes, but a good camera. And while the whole Press series is a strange departure and little more than a footnote in the history of Mamiya, it almost seems like they were trying to build a system camera to see that they could before hitting the big time with their medium format SLRs. But there is a strange draw to a camera system that youRead More →