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I can’t recall when I first saw the historic city of Galt, Ontario. It was probably on a trip to see the outlet shops at the old Southworks location (now the Gaslight district), but I did do a bit of Urban Exploration in that same area several years later. Today, Galt is a part of the modern city of Cambridge, one of four historic settlements that merged in the 1970s. Galt was among the largest, and the historic core remains one of the best to visit if you’re a fan of historic architecture. When I first thought about taking a closer look at Galt, itRead More →

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And Now for Something Completely Different… Today, Alex is joined by David Smith, a Biology professor and researcher at Western University in London, Ontario. While we mostly talk about cameras on the show, David has something unique: microscopes. As many history nerds know, many camera companies we know and love today began producing optics, including microscopes. Dr Smith came by this affinity for collecting honestly, as his mom is an antique dealer. David talks about his microscopes, how he started the collection, and how it led to film photography and a fantastic collection of Leica rangefinders, lenses, and medium-format cameras. You can find Dr SmithRead More →

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If there was a symbol of Hamilton’s rise, fall, and rebirth, that symbol downtown would be the Lister Block. It also was one of the jewels of the Hamilton Urban Exploration scene and could make for a fun night of exploration, which, depending on access, would see an easy group including the Lyric Theatre, Tivoli, Royal Connaught and then Lister Block. After getting out, I grabbed slices from National Pizza. But those days are long gone, Lister and Connaught being restored, Lyric long gone, and Tivoli is sealed demolished. Among all the places I explored, Lister Block is one that I was around when itRead More →

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Alright, I said I wasn’t going to get one of these, well, specifically an autofocus version of the Nikkor 20mm lens. The Minolta one solidified my enjoyment of the 20mm focal length, and I was passively looking for a manual focus lens, either AI or AI-S, because then it would work on all my cameras without fail. But I also don’t turn up my nose to a lens when offered. And well, here we are, the 20mm f/2.8D. I do like my wide-angle choices, and the 20mm offers up a nice in-between when 24mm isn’t wide enough and 14mm is too wide. And I don’tRead More →

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In the Urban Exploration hobby there is a concept of a risk to reward ratio. The idea is that an explorer needs to determine if the risk of entering the abandoned building is worth the reward of what might be seen inside. In my case, if I saw an abandoned house in an active neighbourhood, I might think that the risk of getting caught inside what could be a mundane house is not worth the potential reward of having a perfectly intact time-capsule. Another explorer might think differently. But if I saw an abandoned factory, I would probably think that the risk of getting caughtRead More →

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Last year, we were so caught up in our own tenth anniversary that we completely forgot about the fifth anniversary of the K-Mount! While the K-Mount is most often associated with Asahi/Pentax, it was a joint invention by Asahi and Zeiss Ikon. Like the M42 mount, the K-Mount was intended to be a universal, open-source lens mount. But the partnership never materialised, and the two companies parted ways, with Pentax retaining the mount and one Zeiss lens design. Since its introduction, the K-Mount has changed slightly as technology advanced. To celebrate, the team is here to discuss the cameras and lenses for this iconic mount,Read More →

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Many photographers of a certain age started with the Pentax K1000. I went a different route, and it’s different from even my preferred camera type today. I went with the Minolta Hi-Matic 7s, a fixed lens rangefinder from the 1960s. The Hi-Matic made things real; it was the first camera that was mine and the first good camera that I used. Before this, I used disposable cameras, like the point-and-shoot my parents had, and I still remember the 110 plastic camera I got at a McDonald’s event (at least, that’s what I think in my head-canon). While I would end up with a lot ofRead More →

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It has taken me a bit of time to figure out Kodak TMax 400, I’ve always been much more of a fan of traditional grained films, T-Grained films have always looked too clean, too modern. But they do have one thing, films like TMax 400 has a wide latitude. And I’ve also heard that TMax 400 pushes far better than Tri-X. Now I have done push processing with TMax 400 in the past, I’ve also done pull processing in the past so that should make things even more interesting. Film Specs Manufacturer: Eastman-Kodak Name: Kodak TMax 400 Type: Panchromatic B&W, Tabular-Grained Film Base: Acetate FilmRead More →

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Last year, for an episode of the Classic Camera Revival, I interviewed Pedro, the owner of Máquinas de Outros Tempos, or Machines from Another Time, a dedicated film lab and camera shop in Porto, Portugal. One of the other projects that the company runs is Cinemot, a supplier of film, both respooled and directly contracted for production. After listening to Pedro’s passion for film photography, I decided to order some of the film stocks offered by the company the black-and-white offerings. More importantly, I ordered these directly from Cinemot, and the time it took to get from Portugal to Canada was rather quick. Those beingRead More →

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Last year we chatted with James McFarlane about his journey and pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. What we did not count on is finding a second film photographer who took his film photography on his own pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. Today Tyler Cahoon of the Retro Film Project joins Alex and John as he talks about his Camino journey, the reasons behind his pilgrimage, the people, the photos, the cameras, and film that came along. You can find more from Tyler online… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@retrofilmproject Watch Tyler’s Camino Journey Here: https://youtu.be/uOl7Dkm9VEE Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/retrofilmproject/ Looking for a good spot to get your gear andRead More →