Well, here we are at the start of a new year and looking back at last year’s outstanding Frugal Film Project! I had a lot more fun with this project, and it helped nurture my soft spot for consumer 1990s/2000s SLRs. It’s funny; I never saw these as viable cameras before, yet they have a beautiful charm. You don’t have to worry too much because they can be a dime a dozen. Plus, they work with many lenses that most people use with their other autofocus systems. Canon, Nikon, Pentax, and Minolta (Sony) all have lenses that work on both digital (full-frame) and 35mm bodies.Read More →

I first learned about the fourth generation of Minolta SLRs from the Film Photography Project and Leslie Lazenby’s promotion of the Maxxum 700si as one of the perfect autofocus SLRs ever produced. And having used one in the past, the 700si is a good camera. I used one for a few rolls before passing it along; I had yet to return to the Minolta A-Mount. Then I got a 7000, which burned and was replaced with a Maxxum 9 because why not go from one end to another? It was with the ‘9 that I got my taste for the A-Mount. But in my reviewRead More →

There’s nothing better than getting out for a small photo walk to help close out the year, and while technically, this walk took place before Christmas, this is my final post for 2023! Most Classic Camera Revival hosts try to get together for a social event at the end of each year. We tried last year, but the weather didn’t cooperate the day we picked. So this year, we wanted to take advantage of it. On 17 December, the gang (most of us) gathered in beautiful Dundas, Ontario, for the host-only end-of-year walk. I packed my Dynax 600si Classic to test the era-appropriate 28-80mm kitRead More →

You will have to pry my Rolleiflex from my cold dead hands. But as wonderful as they are to use and the top-notch images, they aren’t the cheapest camera. But the folks at Rollei (Franke & Heidecke) realised that the cost of their cameras put them out of reach of many photographers. Enter the Rolleicord, the low-cost TLR, in the greater Rollei ecosystem, is the lowest tier, with the 2.8 Rolleiflexs at the top, followed by the 3.5 Rolleiflexes next and then Rolleicord. But that doesn’t mean you should turn your nose up at these cameras. While they never reached the same level of technologicalRead More →

Have you already reviewed this film? The answer would be yes and also no. ORWO Wolfen NP100 is a film that is a variant of the cult favourite motion picture film, UN54+. However, the folks at Filmotec have added an anti-halation and anti-static layer to the film stock to make it better for still photography. And that’s enough of a change for me to warrant a full-on review. Now the history of ORWO is complicated; the company was formed from the original home of Agfa in the German town of Wolfen. When World War Two divided Germany in the post-war era, Wolfen ended up inRead More →

The often overlooked Nikkormat line of cameras is an excellent addition to anyone with a large selection of manual focus Nikon glass, both original Auto-Nikkor or the modern AI and AI-S glass. Sold as a consumer camera built to the same quality and specification as the professional Nikon cameras of the era, today, they have more of a cult following. While most people will gravitate towards the improved original Nikkormat FTn or the short-lived FT3, the FT2 is the forgotten middle child and is the ultimate Nikkormat. With backward and forward compatibility, a modern battery cell, over its life, never changed. Thanks to Bill SmithRead More →

It’s fall vacation time! While yes, my family and I went away to Regina back in the summer. While we did some touristy things, it wasn’t so much a vacation as it was to visit family and introduce the little guy. In October, we went out on a real family vacation. It was the first in a long time for my little family of three. We decided to keep things simple and drove out to Ottawa, Ontario—the national capital of Canada, which is about a six-hour drive from where we live. The valley in which the modern city of Ottawa is located was formed whenRead More →

Holga Week here in Canada is always a gamble; being the first week of October each year, the weather can often turn nasty. Last year we were treated to some fantastic weather, and I am happy with the results I got. But could magic strike twice? The long-range forecast for next week looked good! And having no actual weekend plans, I decided to choose three films out of my stash and shoot around Sheridan College. Unlike last year, I also filmed a video for my YouTube Channel that drops in November. I have yet to get another Holga camera to throw into the mix, soRead More →

One more shot, one more shot! While today such a call is commonplace in the day where the number of images you can get is dependent on how fast your camera’s shutter works and how large and fast the memory card that you have in your camera is, but back in the early 20th Century, asking for one more shot could mean sacrificing one in the future. But many iconic images and photographers worked with large format cameras and the idea of a Press Camera pre-dates the camera I’m reviewing today by nearly three decades. While the Crown Graphic is not as well known asRead More →