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Being in North America and raised on Kodak and Ilford developers, I did not even know that Atomal existed, other than seeing it listed on the Massive Dev chart and just passing it by as another European developer. But when I was hunting for more Rollei developers at Freestyle, I came across Atomal 49 as an ‘other people purchased’ listing. I was excited to give this a shot, and after mixing it up, I posted in a Film Photography Chat group on Facebook and asked if anyone else had used the stuff. The response was overwhelming how many people used the stuff. However, the bestRead More →

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In: A Faded Glory
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The late 19th century brought the final push to extend out the transcontinental line. The arrival of the 20th century, the Canadian Pacific Railway was the only line that extended across Canada, at least from Vancouver to Montreal. In Ontario, Grand Trunk managed to secure itself as the big player in the province by absorbing all the competition but could not do that with Canadian Pacific finding itself against a competitor that it simply could not buy out. This was the golden age of rail travel when mighty steam locomotives travelled across the country; rail networks connected people and places, mail and cargo were easilyRead More →

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It is always a good idea to future proof your lenses, especially when working with the Minolta manual focus cameras. I say that because, like Nikon, while the original 1958 SR-Mount is basically the same as 1977 SR-Mount, there are subtle differences, like the Nikon F-Mount. I first picked up this lens as part of a drive to get better glass for my Minolta X-7a, my second Minolta SLR. While I could go with MC variant lenses, I went with the MD variant. The reason being that if I had updated my X-7a to an X-700, I needed lenses that would work with all theRead More →

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While we love shooting and talking about our own cameras, what happens when you’re thrown for a loop you can get some interesting results! So with the gang all back together in person, we decided to take this favourite format and take on another mystery camera challenge! This time around we have John, Jess, Bill, and Alex all trading cameras around the table. John takes over Alex’s favourite, the Minolta Maxxum 9. Jess getting to work with a beautiful Nikon FM from John. Alex lugging around a beast, the Nikkormat FTn from Bill. And it wouldn’t be an MCC without Bill ending up with aRead More →

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When it comes to slide film, it is not something that I like to shoot often, mostly because when it comes to processing, it’s time-consuming and costly; even purchasing the stock is costly. Plus, scanning some slide films stocks are difficult to nail down both exposure and colour balance. And then there’s Provia 100F; Provia is a solid performer and one that gives an excellent starting point in the world of shooting slide film. It reminds me of Sensia and Astia, both excellent slide films with a bit more forgiveness than the Velvia line and natural colour reproduction. It also scans easily without too muchRead More →

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In: A Faded Glory
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In about three decades, the railway in Ontario had grown from a small collection of operators to the principal means of moving people and cargo around the Province and, by extension, Canada. But the one thing that it still lacked was a complete link across the entire length of British North America. While some efforts had been made in 1873, the resulting scandal ousted the MacDonald conservatives, and the new Liberal Government made some efforts to start the construction in 1875. Despite completing 1,000 kilometres of track by the time they were voted out in 1878, not enough had been done. MacDonald returned to power,Read More →

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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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A solo show as Alex sits down to discuss downsizing a camera collection. Tips on how to choose what to keep and what to sell or give away and the all-important techniques to avoid the dreaded separation anxiety. Want a subscription to SilverGrain Classics and are a fan of Classic Camera Revival? Visit their shop online and buy a magazine or a subscription? Looking for a good spot to get your gear and material fix check out Burlington Camera (Burlington, ON), Downtown Camera (Toronto, ON), Film Plus (Toronto, ON), Belle Arte Camera (Hamilton, ON), Pond’s FotoSource (Guleph, ON), Foto Art Camera (Owen Sound, ON). InRead More →

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In: A Faded Glory
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Today moving around is easy. At the same time, we deal with traffic and delays, our availability of automobiles, aeroplanes, transit, and trains. Combined with well-paved roads, GPS, maps, gas stations, rest areas, travel for us in the 21st Century is a breeze. But some two centuries earlier, life in Ontario, then Upper Canada, was far more challenging. Many who lived in the settlements well outside the few urban centres never strayed too far from home. Local roads were often blazed trails from Indigenous people who lived on the land. Sir John Graves Simcoe had ordered military roads, but even these were little more thanRead More →

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I need to start learning that when it comes to black and white developers, all of this has happened before, all of this will happen again. Take, for example, Rollei Low-Speed, RLS is a modern rebranding of LP-CUBE XS. There’s very little information about both developers online outside of official documentation. But it also has some interesting notes and is the first time using a film described as a deep layer developer. But the one thing I am familiar with is a developer that works best at speed less than the box. In fact, the amount of reduction in film speed is what I sawRead More →