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When it comes to medium format cameras, there are two formats that I’ve always been drawn to, the iconic 6×6 square and the slightly smaller 6×4.5 or 645. I’ve run with a Pentax 645 and more recently the Mamiya m645. I have shot with other medium format cameras, 6×9, 6×7, and 6×8 and even larger exposure sizes. But I keep on coming back to 645; it’s great for everyday shooting and gives you that larger image size than 35mm. But the cameras are often bulky unless you go with a folder. But what about the best of both worlds? Enter the Fujifilm GA645Zi, the thirdRead More →

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I kept typing the title “If I left the Zoom”, which is also appropriate these days, but there’s nothing to do with Zoom this week. Instead, the title comes from the third studio album from one of my favourite bands, Jars of Clay. But like zoom, this week also has nothing to do with Jars of Clay. Instead, we’re heading to the Toronto Zoo. The Toronto Zoo is a spot I haven’t been to since my last 52-Roll project on an early date with my (then future) wife, Heather. The first Zoo in the city of Toronto was the Riverdale Zoo that opened in 1873.Read More →

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I love that Ontario has a pile of wonderful small towns to explore, and many still carry through their wealth of heritage structures, and I’m glad I’ve been able to feature several of them here this year. While many are communities that I’ve been to many times, today we’re in one that I’ve only visited once before, the town of Paris, Ontario. The first time here, I was passing through on a New Years Eve on my way to a party in St. Thomas and only stopped for a brief time. But it kept on being in the back of my head. So here weRead More →

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If you’ve been following my photography for some time now, you’ll know I have a strange enjoyment of photographing doors. I think it traces itself back to my first trip to Montreal. Either way, with it being the start of term at Sheridan, I needed a theme that I could do casually across the full seven days of the week. Usually, I do my best to get the entire roll shot in a day, but I decided to give myself seven days shooting five frames each day. So let’s break on through (to the other side). (See what I did there). I honestly don’t knowRead More →

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I always seem to want to come back for more. One of my first experiences with a Soviet camera was a Smena 8m, this was a gift from my good friend Michael Raso, and the camera was interesting, to say the least. There wasn’t anything bad with it; it was pretty unique and produced excellent images. It was hard to work with, too much to do, too fickle, and I wasn’t getting to know the camera well enough. So I passed it onto another photographer who went on to use the camera to produce awesome results. There wasn’t anything wrong with the 8m; I thinkRead More →

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Connections, its something that we have found that many of us have a great need for. With the past year and more of stay-at-home orders, reduced social contacts, especially those outsides of the virtual world, the need for human contact has grown even more. So this week, we’re back among people to celebrate a small group within Milton (and beyond) that provided a great many people, myself included, some form of social contact and allowed for the formation of a social group. That group’s name is Connect, and for Week 33, we celebrate that group and its ending. Eight years ago, a friend of mine,Read More →

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I’m a big fan of Eastman Double-X; it’s a beautiful mid-speed film that offers up amazing latitude and forgiveness along with a lovely grain structure. But for the longest time, it has only been available in 135 (35mm) format because, well, that is generally what cinematographers shoot motion pictures in. Still, it has great potential in medium format. There had been an attempt to have the film produced in 120 format but never went anywhere. At least until earlier this summer, when Cinestill put out the word, they had their BwXX in 120. BwXX is Cinestill’s Eastman Double-X branding and is the same stuff you’veRead More →

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I have known about Adox HR-50 for some time but have purposefully avoided including it in past years. Originally released in 2018, HR-50 was one of the new film emulsions to come out of Adox shortly after releasing CHS 100 II (reviewed last month). The reason being that HR-50 is a semi-closed imaging system and I never had good luck with those, as seen by my Adox CMS20 II review. I caught a lot of flack for that one. There is also the trouble with getting the stuff here in Canada. But when I saw that both the film and the dedicated developer, Adox HR-DEVRead More →

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I honestly cannot remember where I first saw St. Marys mentioned, but there’s a good chance it was on Pinterest. And it is well worth a trip with a historic downtown that I love with tonnes of historic buildings that stand a lot of railway history. While off my usual beaten track, it was well worth the detail out for a lovely stroll. Sadly I couldn’t stay for too long and missed many interesting sites in the town; I certainly hope to make it back out here for a future “On The Road” video for my YouTube channel. The area where St Marys is todayRead More →

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The year was 2012; I had been shooting film in a far more serious way for three years at that point. I learned of a speciality film store called Freestyle Photographic from an episode of the Film Photography Project. They had all sorts of weird films from Europe that I had never heard of nor seen at my local camera store (which at that time was either Henry’s or Burlington Camera). With companies like Efke and Adox, strange, exotic for my North American sensibilities. I purchased a pile of Efke and Adox CHS Art films, both in 35mm and 120, 50 and 100-speed offerings. WhileRead More →