There is something special about an Easter Sunday drive. Also when that drive follows a wonderful Sunday morning Worship with the amazing people at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Asheville, North Carolina. From there I began what would be the long drive home with the first stop being Elkmont in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park in Tennessee. The area saw it’s first residents come around the 1840s, while these early settlers sought gold the rich lumber soon brought more and more people. Initially settling around Jake’s Creek these early logging communities were usually no more than shanty towns often having the company offices, a hotelRead More →

Toronto resident Mike Robinson is a master of the Daguerreotype process, producing images of unparalleled beauty and technical excellence. In this bonus episode, John talks with Mike about the challenges and rewards of this venerable photographic process A video of Mike at work Mike has been kind enough to supply us with some images of his recent work. All images are copyright Mike Robinson, all rights reserved.  Read More →

This past Tuesday, the Ides of March, is also Expired Film Day. So I figured I would do a post about shooting expired film along with tips/tricks that I’ve come across with shooting old/expired film stocks. While I do a majority of my shooting with fresh film stock there is a certain level of fun and intrigue when shooting with expired film stock. 1. You can Shoot Film that is no longer available fresh. There are plenty of film stocks out there that is new that you can often make behave like well loved film stock in the past but it just never will beRead More →

While many in the world are keen on March Madness and College Basketball we here at the CCR are looking at all mechanical cameras. That means that the cameras may have a battery to run the light meter but they can still work without one! Cameras Featured on Today’s Show… Nikon F2 Photomic – This is the camera you can take into the Zombie Apocalypse and document the end of the world and it won’t let you down. Make: Nikon Model: F2 Photomic Type: Single Lens Reflex Format: Miniature Format (35mm), 24x35mm Lens: Interchangeable, Nikon F Mount Year of Manufacture: 1971-1980 Nikon F2 Photomic –Read More →

The Minolta X-700 was a game changer for Minolta it introduced to their shooters a camera that had a full program auto-exposure mode as well as semi-auto (aperture priority) mode and manual all in a lightweight body backed by some great optics. It also introduced a whole host of cousins in the X line of Minolta cameras. Actually my second Minolta SLR was an X-7a basically the same as the X700 but lacked the program mode. This is a great camera for a beginner photographer as it gives them a chance to experience every mode that is generally used and these cameras can be prettyRead More →

I don’t remember what drew me to purchase the Horizon Kompakt; I had worked with the panoramic format before, but in the digital sphere, I stitched images together by shooting multiple frames to capture a unique take on an environment. But in 2011, I walked along Queen Street to a Toronto UER meetup, stopped in the Lomography Store (sadly closed), and picked up the Horizon Kompakt. In hindsight, I spent the extra money on the Perfekt. I immediately loaded up a roll of film (with the help of the store staff), went out, and shot through the roll. Well, I was hooked and hit theRead More →

Paparazzi, Paparazzi…the taunts seemed almost to be sung as I grabbed a shot of two women walking across the street. They don’t bother me, besides I’m far from a paparazzi photographer, these two women are not famous nor am I going to be selling these photos. Besides I can barely hear the voices over the History Extra Podcast about Richard I and the Third Crusade. Having just come from a beautiful photowalk in the High Park Area I had some time to kill before meeting up with my buddy James at Trinity-Bellwood Park to head up to the Dakota Tavern to catch the Silver HeartsRead More →

Sometimes you just can’t trust a camera’s meter or you want to do something creative with how you meter your photos. And then there are times your camera just doesn’t have a trusty built in meter. So you have to do things old school and that’s use an external meter. Something that lives in almost every photographer’s bag. To give a quick review there are two types of meters based on how they measure light. The first is incident metering that measures the amount of light falling on the subject and then there’s reflective meters that measure the amount of light reflected off the subject.Read More →

The bakelite beast, the snap shot camera of the 1950s and a staple camera in most every antique camera store I’ve visited. The Brownie Hawkeye flash was one of many cheap Kodak snapshot cameras that was a staple of plenty of families and still stands up today as a solid starter 620 camera because you can actually use a 120 spool in the camera providing you have a 620 spool in the take up! But although it works, I really don’t recommend it, as you’ll often damage the film itself. Disclaimer: This is an old review, and is scheduled for an update and may lookRead More →

Even though it looks like the iconic Kodak Brownie, we’re going to clear the record; this camera is not a Brownie. And although this model came after the Brownie, it is a camera that has its origins before the Brownie and flexible films. The Hawk-Eye is a camera that I don’t take out that often the reason being that it stands at over 100 years old. I did get it before it joined the century club and at that point, I still thought it was part of the Brownie family. I took it out for review shortly after its 100th birthday. A basic, no-nonsense cheap,Read More →