Well we made it through another year. Like every years things did not always go to plan and that’s okay. Because it’s important to be flexible, especially when this blog and other channels is not a full time job. The year was a lot of fun despite being a little chaotic. I always have hope that things will eventually calm down, but they do in fact always calm up. There was a rather unfortunate bump through the fall with a five week support staff strike that did reduce some capacity for creation, but I had the chance to play catch up through October and November to round out the year and get things started for next year.
The 2025 Review Cycle
The 2025 review cycle saw three films, four lenses, four developers and four cameras (a majority Asahi Pentax options). So I made a point to pick out my favourite and least favourite of each of my four main reviews. First up, because I do like to keep things positive, let’s go into the best of the year. Starting off with a film stock, I got a chance to review FPP Jiangshi 400, the latest entry in their house ‘monster’ brand of film stocks. Like the others, this is a rebrand, in the case of Jiangshi 400, it’s Lucky Pan SHD 400. Right off the bat the film surprised me in that it had a beautiful grain structure, amazing contrast, and responded well to all four developers. But that first roll in Kodak D-76 rocked. Now, it does work best at ASA-200, rather than full box speed, but I don’t mind loose a stop of speed if I get better results. For my top pick in lens review, I’m going with the Minolta Maxxum AF 20mm f/2.8, this is an old-school ultra-wide angle lens. I do like my ultra-wide angle lenses and this one certainly give me something in my Minolta kit that I don’t have in my Nikon kit a 20mm prime. Plus this lens is compact and produces amazing images. The developer that proved my favourite this year is Fujifilm Microfine, a developer that I until this year thought only existed on paper. But no, it appears to still be produced. Not only did this produce the best results I’ve seen from Acros 100 II it also did an amazing job with TMax 100, Kentmere 400, Double-X and RPX 25! The only downside is that it’s only for sale from Japan. The one thing I wasn’t able to put my finger on was the ‘best’ camera I reviewed this year, mainly because other than the one mentioned in the next paragraph, the Pentax MX, Pentax MZ-S, and Miranda Sensorex were all excellent and each stand on their merits but all three were ‘the best’ in their own right.
Minolta Dynax 600si Classic – Minolta Maxxum AF 24mm 1:2.8 – FPP Jiangshi 400 @ ASA-200 – Kodak D-76 (1+1) 9:30 @ 20C (Constant Rotation)
Minolta Maxxum 9 – Minolta Maxxum AF 20mm 1:2.8 – Kodak TMax 100 @ ASA-100 – Rollei Supergrain (1+15) 8:30 @ 20C
Canon EOS Elan 7 – Canon Lens EF 28mm 1:2.8 (Yellow-12) – Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 II @ ASA-100 – Fujifilm Microfine (Stock) 8:00 @ 20C
I’m pretty happy with all my reviews this year, but there are certainly ones that don’t meet my expectations. Now I was tempted to slot in Kodak Recording Film 2475, but that stock is discontinued, fast, and expired. So despite being a rough stock to work with I’ll give it a miss because it was a “Classic” Film Review, not a current production film. So the worst film on my list this year is ORWO P400, this is a modified version of ORWO N74+ a fast motion picture film modified for still photography. I got some good results with D96 (Flic Film B&W Cine Film Developer) but the other three developers made things worse. So an interesting thing happened, I went to review the last lens, the Minolta 28-80mm kit lens from the mid-1990s, this I had already in mind as being the worst lens to review, and the lens went and died. Thankfully I had a backup lens to throw into its place, so it wasn’t a total loss, but I never got to review this lens but I’m okay with that. For camera, I had to stick the Pentax Zoom 280-P, it isn’t that it’s a bad camera it was just a little disappointing. Mostly because it is inconsistant and there are a couple of things that don’t square and both have to do with the flash. First is that you cannot turn off the flash in normal use modes and second is that the flash tends to pop when I least expect it and doesn’t pop when I expect it to. Like the above paragraph the one thing I wasn’t able to choose was a bad developer, of the four I reviewed each were excellent (with Microfine getting top billing), but the remaining three were all excellent and not a single one made me not want to use it again.
Minolta Maxxum 9 – Minolta Maxxum AF 20mm 1:2.8 – ORWO Wolfen P400 @ ASA-320 – Adox XT-3 (1+1) 9:30 @ 20C
Minolta Dynax 600si Classic – Minolta Zoom AF 28-80mm 1:4-5.6 – Derev Pan 400 @ ASA-320 – Zone Imaging 510-Pyro (1+100) 10:00 @ 20C (Constant Rotation)
Pentax Zoom 280-P – Pentax Zoom Lens 28-80mm 1:3.5-8 – Ilford HP5+ @ ASA-400 – Rollei Supergrain (1+15) 7:00 @ 20C
State of the Channel
I’m pleased with the growth I’ve made on my channel through this year, I reached 3,000 subscribers, a number I never thought I would reach. But there are two things that I worked hard to achieve through the year. The first is the addition of short-form content. I never thought I would start to explore this particular aspect of video creation. I always thought that it was a bad format. But after trying it out in 2024 I started to include more content and finally added into the regular rotation. These often allowed me to expand my reach, create almost teasers for the long form content. And most importantly to challenge myself to be able to compact a film, developer, or camera review into a one to three minute piece. Second I wanted to improve my consistency across the board especially with my review content. Each review needed to hit the same beats, and its something that I’m glad I did, because it makes the production easier. I also made a point to start recording my voiceovers not as video but strictly audio using a proper recording booth starting in the summer months. I also had to make use of a different space through the summer due to renovations to the space I was used to using. The temporary space was a bit more cramped but worked all the same. While attempting to maintain some consistency I also tried out some new and different video types. The fun ones were the tier lists, I got the idea from Molly Kate, and completed three such videos this year, fresh b&w films, expired b&w films and b&w developers. I used point-of-view styled videos this year also, especially for my on-the-road series which made life a lot easier for me. It allowed me to have more photo content and not have to lug around all the gear needed and when you’re a one-man show, the less you have to carry the better. Plus it gave me the option to include some narration or just let the photos speak. Probably my favourite video from this year was done back in March at a bonus Toronto Film Shooters Meetup that I hosted. It was a dull rainy day and I didn’t add in any narration, just photos and music for a cozy little photo walk through the city. I rather liked the format and went on to produce a second one in May in the Distillery district. I’ll probably use this style next year for at least one video.
For next year I have some fun things planned for the channel and already have a bunch of content ready to go! There will be the usual with some film reviews (Kentmere 200), developer reviews, HC-110 and Rodinal. And camera reviews, the Hanimex 35ES, Canon Demi EE17, Minolta Maxxum 7 plus a few more that I’ve been meaning to review. There will be another system tour of my Canon gear. Short-form content will also continue to be released, which has been doing well overall and is surprisingly a lot of fun to create and write for. Plus now that IG and YouTube allows for three minute videos it makes life so much easier. But probably the videos I’m looking forward to is finally being able to do some interviews with fellow photographers since I now have a pair of wireless mics that will make things easier. And a bonus video about how I make videos by following along with the creation of the HC-110 review. And of course I do want to add in a couple of ‘On the Road’ videos from photo walks and events!
1812:Revisited – Returning to a favourite project
My original historical photography project returned this year, not just by reposting my original series of blog posts. If I did that, it would still be going on; remember that project ran from 2012-6 and had a lot of content. Instead, I made the point to distil it down to twelve posts; ten covered the war, while two covered the before and after the conflict. I did review and refresh a few of the original posts in the interim, but there’s still a lot of work there. The best part about the whole thing is that I didn’t have to go out and make new images; I could go back into the original project and use the existing catalogue of images. Plus, I could add other photos I’ve taken at events and use the vast selection of images in the Wikimedia Commons, which I can use under the Creative Commons or Public Domain licenses. It proved fun to go back and rewrite and revisit the conflict for the 210th anniversary of the war’s end, and I’m happy with how I could break things down, but it wasn’t without a lot of work. In case you missed it, you can go to the index page, and the twelve entries are at the top, and you can even look at the older entries from the original project run.
Pentax 645 – SMC Pentax A 645 75mm 1:2.8 – Kodak Tri-X 400 – Kodak HC-110 Dil. B 6:00 @ 20C
Graflex Anniversary Speed Graphic – Fuji Fujinon-W 1:5.6/125 – Ilford Ortho Copy Plus @ ASA-40 – PMK Pyro (1+2+100) 12:00 @ 20C
Sony a6000 – Sony E PZ 16-50mm 1:3.5-5.6 OSS
Hasselblad 500c – Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm 1:2.8 – Ilford FP4+ @ ASA-100 – Kodak D-23 (Stock) 6:00 @ 20C
Sony a6000 – Sony E PZ 16-50mm 1:3.5-5.6 OSS
Graflex Pacemaker Crown Graphic – Fuji Fujinon-W 1:5.6/125 (Orange-22) – Adox CHS100II @ ASA-100 – Blazinal (1+25) 5:00 @ 20C
Classic Camera Revival
This year marked two major milestones for Classic Camera Revival, first is marked our tenth anniversary, yes, CCR has been on the air for ten years now and I never expected it to last this long and is still going. We also celebrated our 200th (official) episode. One of the best parts about CCR is that we’ve built something that can be flexible and adaptive to changes. We added a new cohost to the mix, Jess Kosmack, and did some in-person recording and team building throughout the year. The highlight was hosting a CCR 10th Anniversary Photo Walk and Brewery Tour in July. The plan was to walk from the Great Lakes Brewpub on Sugar Beach to Godspeed Brewery in Leslieville. But the weather had other ideas and we ended up having to call it short after only two stops along the route as temperatures had soared to 43°C. But we did have fun and there was a good twenty people there. You can watch the whole thing below!
There’s always the threat that the show will eventually end. I joked that we would either Jump the Shark or end up in a Cousin Oliver situation with CCR and end up imploding. Thankfully we’ve managed to avoid that for another year and are heading into 2026 our 11th year and 12th season ready to go! And right now, the plan is to finally revisit the missing episode and take a tour of Grainnation Labs in Toronto for the first episode. One thing that I would like to do again is another CCR specific meetup, after seeing the turnout for the 10th Anniversary I think a social event is a good idea. So I’m planning on completing the 10th Anniversary Route in the late April next year going from where we left off at Eastbound (without visiting Eastbound) and heading up to Godspeed via Radical Road, Black Lab, and Rorschach.
What’s New
With some features ending and other things shifting around I’m happy to say that there are going to be a couple of new monthly features on the blog this year. We’re going into the third year of the new schedule and I am rather enjoying the slower pace. It does sometimes make it difficult to post photography centered content in a reasonable amount of time, but a couple of changes will help free up some days. So here are my stats on my blog as of 10 December, it stands at 254K views, which is down by 14% from last year, which isn’t bad considering that a lot of online blogs have seen a drop in views. But that’s also not accounting for the last couple of weeks in the year. So I’ll update that number come January.
Nikon D750 – AF Nikkor 28mm 1:2.8
Extreme Film Reviews
I had this idea last summer actually, as in the summer of 2024! But I didn’t want to commit to starting it in 2025 because I already had some plans in place. The idea came to me while I was helping out update some desktop computers at Davis Campus and started scribbling ideas on a whiteboard in the classroom I was working in. The idea is to test to see how far I can push a black & white film stock in a semi-controlled environment. So for the opening cycle of these reviews I’ll be using Kodak and Ilford/Harman film stocks, one roll per month. I’ll be using my Nikon F5 and the 28mm f/2.8 lens. The camera will be mounted on a tripod and I’ll be using a shutter release then shooting five frames of the same subject, which is seven subjects per roll. But I will bracket each shot from -2 stops to +2 stops (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2) then developing the roll in a listed Diafine time. Each post will talk about my methods, the qualities, an analysis and finally giving the lowdown on the film stocks. It won’t be totally scientific, but none of my reviews ever are! These will be listed on a dedicated page on my blog for the Extreme Film Review. I already have a few of these ready to go! I did a soft launch of this series earlier in the month, so you can get a taste of how these reviews are going to work.
Nikon D750 – AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm 1:2.8
Nikon F5 – AF Nikkor 28mm 1:2.8 – Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 II @ ASA-100 (+/- 2-Stops) – Diafine (Stock) 5:00 + 5:00 @ 20C
Nikon F5 – AF Nikkor 28mm 1:2.8 – Ilford Delta 3200 @ ASA-3200 (+/- 2-Stops) – Diafine (Stock) 4:00 + 4:00 @ 20C
Nikon F5 – AF Nikkor 28mm 1:2.8 – Kodak TMax 400 @ ASA-400 (+/- 2-Stops) – Diafine (Stock) 3:00 + 3:00 @ 20C
Nikon F5 – AF Nikkor 35mm 1:2D – Ilford HP5+ @ ASA-400 (+/- 2-Stops) – Diafine (Stock) 3:00 + 3:00 @ 20C
Regular Reviews
My primary set of reviews for the new year will be focused on my Extreme Film Reviews but that won’t stop me from doing other reviews through the year. I will again commit to doing twelve regular reviews with a majority being lens reviews. This includes four Miranda lenses which I first used at the start of last year for the Sensorex review and have since received the 35mm f/2.8 lens thanks to my good friend Mike Eckmann. Also up is the KMZ Helios 44-2 the Soviet lens that every cinematographer has butchered for their mirrorless cameras. I’ll be able to review this one thanks to John Roberts who supplied me with an M42 to F-Mount adapter. And then there’s the Nikkor 20mm f/2.8D just to mix things up a little. Up for film reviews this year and the first regular review of 2026 is Kentmere 200, a new film stock from Ilford Photo and one that I’ve already been testing extensively since it was first released. I also have a couple of developers up for review, Adox’s version of D-76 and Flic Film’s Crawley’s FX-6a monobath. I’m also pleased to say that I’ll be wrapping up the Efke trilogy with a review of the classic emulsion, Efke 25! And yes there will be camera reviews including a Hanimex 35ES and Canon Demi EE 17, plus maybe one more if I can decided on something. Also watch the YouTube channel as I’ll be doing some more camera reviews over there next year including revisiting some old favourites!
Substack
One of the latest things to hit the online blogging community is email newsletters and there are a lot of different platforms out there, but this year I decided to start one on Substack. Other photographers who I like seeing their work have somewhat migrated to this platform and have largely abandoned the other platforms where I’ve seen there works. I never thought I would start one of these but I decided there’s no harm in trying. I tried to be regular in my posting there, usually going on the weeks where I don’t have a long form video being posted. Which puts the newsletters going out a couple of times each month. These are posts that are outside of this blog, shorter content and things that I can’t fully fit into the schedule for this blog. A B-sides, allowing me to give teasers for future content here, travel photos, and other content. If it doesn’t fit into here its more, hey let’s just put it onto Substack. How long it will last I don’t know, but it’s just another spot to write. And the more I can practice writing the better I can be. Also because it’s not on a Meta or Google platform it gets other eyes onto it. I also purposefully reduced where I shared the content, focusing on Threads, BlueSky and Mastodon. I started this as an experiment in 2025 but plan on sharing the posts through Facebook starting in 2026. And over the course of the year I did hit 186 subscribers as of 10 December which isn’t too bad for allowing only organic growth.
Nikon F5 – AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm 1:2.8 – Kodak TMax 400 @ ASA-800 – Ilford Microphen (1+1) 9:00 @ 20C (Constant Rotation)
Camera Tales
I honestly don’t know where I got this idea from, while I’ve been doing camera reviews for ten years now I wanted to try something a little different. A little more personal with some of the cameras that have made the biggest impact on me as a person and as a photographer. I had originally hoped to re-introduce my series on churches but I think I’ll give it a rest for another year. Instead I wanted to better explore these cameras outside of a review (although there will be a single paragraph with a ‘mini’ review). And unlike reviews I don’t have to actually go out and shoot the camera, but in some cases where I have the camera with me I’ll probably run a roll through for nostalgia sake. These will also feature a mix of film and digital because both mediums have played an important role. These include cameras like the Pentax K1000, Minolta Hi-Matic 7s, DiMAGE Z2, Rolleiflex 2.8F, Nikon F80 and many more so keep tabs on the blog for that series! And this series is pretty much completed and ready to post throughout the year on a monthly basis.
Nikon D300 – AF-S Nikkor 17-55mm 1:2.8G DX
On one other note before I wrap this up, I made the decision to end the monthly Photochat which I have been running for over ten years now. While it originally started off on Twitter, I moved it over to BlueSky and Mastodon for obvious reasons. But even with cutting it down to once a month, I found it more and more difficult to come up with ideas and even then the engagement proved low. Which ultimately made it not worth the time and effort. Plus it seemed to happen naturally when I looked at the schedule beyond September, I had left the feature out, so it made sense. Thankfully since that decision, someone else has taken up the banner! I’m also happy to say that there will be another volume of Between Darkness & Light my continued exploration of my UrbEx adventures. And that wraps it up for 2025, there are still a few weeks left in the year so there will still be the final entries in the 1812 series, Volume II of Darkness & Light, a CCR episode, a celebration of ten years of camera reviews, and a full and short YouTube video.