Roxanne! You don’t have to put out a red light…but in the case of the darkroom, it might be a good idea. Yes, the gang spends an afternoon in the darkroom pumping out prints. Including for Bryan his first darkroom print ever! Darkroom Printing While we have talked about darkroom work in the past, we’ve never actually done an episode where we’ve printed then sat down around the table to talk about the successes, failures, papers, techniques. And more importantly, introducing Bryan to the wonderful albeit sometimes frustrating joy of seeing your print come up on paper for the first time. After this recording, BryanRead More →

We here at the CCR have discussed the iconic Hasselblad camera system before and were to be rather honest rather critical on the system. But we didn’t dig too deeply into the camera’s history from it’s beginnings to where it has gone to date. That system is the V-System (formerly 500-Series), and today to help us dig into the camera’s history is two guests from Photoklassic International, Marwan Mozayen and Charys Schuler. As a company, Hasselblad was not always in the photographic industry. Started in 1841 the F.W. Hasselblad & Co. began as a trading company importing household goods into Sweeden which included sewing materialRead More →

These days you can pick up a ‘pro’ film body pretty cheap, but that doesn’t make you a professional photographer. The gang sits down to discuss not only the pro cameras in their collections and the finer points of being a pro photographer. Professional Cameras While many pro cameras can still command a high price on the used market, some of the older systems are relatively inexpensive for those who want to go with something a little older. And just because it isn’t an SLR doesn’t make it a professional camera. Nikon F6 While certainly not aimed at the professional market, the Nikon F6, however,Read More →

They aren’t flashy, pretty, but they do a good job. Like a Reliant K, they get you from point A to B without trouble or style. But they at least do a good job in the field. Public Service Announcement – New Hand Luggage Scanners Before we get into the main body of the episode, we here at CCR would like to bring attention to new scanners being employed by the American TSA. These new scanners are designed to better see inside your carry on and use a CT Scanner rather than traditional X-Ray scanners. And while they will allow the security officials to betterRead More →

If there is a single camera that you can point to in the history of photography that changed the way that professionals worked then the Nikon F would be that camera. While it did build on previous advancements (which we will get into), the Nikon F brought it all together like never before and began the idea of a camera system. That is a group of lenses and accessories that allowed a photographer to control and customise their camera to their tastes completely. On today’s episode, Bill and Alex Smith tackle this complex and revolutionary camera system. You have to understand one thing; the NikonRead More →

It’s been a long time coming, but here we are with our first episode on Instant Photography! And joining us today is our good friend and the latest addition to the team, Chrissie! Chrissie is a prolific instant shooter from Polaroid to Instax. In an Instant! Instant photography is nothing new and has, since the rise of the Impossible Project, now Polaroid Originals, and Fuji Instax has seen a resurgence since the death of Polaroid. And while many of the original cameras are starting to age, there’s still plenty to have out there! Polaroid Originals OneStep 2 If you think you’ve seen this camera before,Read More →

We’re not done with chemistry just yet! And while we still didn’t dig into Ilford Chemistry (Don’t worry, we’ll do an episode dedicated to Ilford in Season Six) we have an excellent selection of jack-of-all-trade developers to one-trick ponies. Pour Me Another Round… We’re back with another batch of developers, this time we’re digging into the strange and specialised, from motion picture developers to ones designed or a small set of films. Cinestill D96 The idea behind Cinestill D96 is actually bringing a Kodak developer into the hands of the general public. It’s no secret that Cinestill D96 is Kodak D-96 a specialised developer fromRead More →

Fast films, it’s something we in Canada need to work with a lot because of our long dark cold winters. But what is a fast film? Well, that depends on your historical context. The first version of Ilford HP released in 1935 was only rated at ISO-160, by the second iteration in 1939 it was boosted to ASA-200. It wasn’t until 1960 with the release of HP3 that it reached the speed of ASA-400. And today the list of fast films is lengthy and we could spend hours talking on every film we’ve shot, so we’re going to drop it down to only eight stocks.Read More →

When it comes to cameras there are many that hold a place in photographic history and in the case of Twin Lens Cameras, there are many that stand out as a fixed point in development history. And in the case of the twin-lens reflex camera market than Franke & Heidecke. Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke established the company in 1920 as an optical instrument manufacture, but they moved quickly into cameras and began to develop what would become the industry standard for TLR cameras. Now the TLR is not a new concept the first one being produced in 1880, but the two Germans were aboutRead More →

We’ve discussed large format on several occasions on CCR in the past, however, we’ve never done a basics episode for those wanting to get into large format. Well never fear, that is exactly what Alex and James are going to discuss today, so grab your notebook and ready to go big! Camera Types You can put all large format cameras into a single category of ‘large format’ or simply ‘view camera’ because you are mostly using a piece of ground glass to look directly through the lens so it’s almost what you see is what you get. However, there are differences between these view camerasRead More →