It’s fun to change things up every so often. And what better way to do it than adjust when the Spring meetup for the Toronto Film Shooters! This year our spring meetup saw several changes from the normal flow of the event. First off it happened on a Sunday; secondly, we had a company host the event, Burlington Camera and the reason behind these two things was so that it fell on World Pinhole Photography Day! And while the weather had been looking terrible even as late as Thursday, when I arrived at the Burlington Camera parking lot, the sun was shining, and while chillyRead More →

There’s a certain axiom when dealing with history, it comes from the reimaging Battlestar Galactica, all of this has happened before, all of this will happen again. The rise of the reform movement and the radicalisation of elements of the reform movement merely in response to extremism on the opposite end of the political spectrum. And yes this is where we get messy and political. While Upper Canada saw a great deal of expansion and improvement under the governorship of Sir Peregrine Maitland and Sir John Colborne, not all were happy with how the Colonial Parliament operated. These complaints were brought to light when RobertRead More →

There’s a little category of cameras between manual focus and point-and-shoot. These cameras, often mistaken for Point-And-Shoot are Manual Focus, have little automation, and require you to guess the focus. We’re calling them Scale Focus Cameras and on today’s show, the CCR gang has a wide range of cameras from semi-automatic to toy. Voigtländer Bessa 66 Back when the Bessa name indicated some form of medium format folding camera, the Bessa 66 is often called the Baby Bessa. For John, this camera is special, produces amazing black & white images. The camera itself was a gift from John’s friend David Kent. He has a post-warRead More →

There’s always a certain amount of excitement when a new film hits the market, and I couldn’t hold it in and wait to discuss CatLABS X Film 80 in its full review. So having not picked up a camera the whole Easter Weekend, I was, that Monday getting the shakes and needed my chemical fix. Having obtained the brick of film the week before and having ten rolls available to me, I figured why not check out a single roll. So I loaded it up into my trusty Rolleiflex 2.8F with a Green-1 filter just for kicks. As soon as the film came out ofRead More →

There are many activities that Canadians love in the winter; there is none more Canadian than ice skating. To make it even more Canadian you ice skate on the Rideau Canal. But the world’s longest skate way was originally designed for a completely different use in mind than a key feature in Ottawa, Ontario’s Winterlude festival. Built during the same period as the First Welland Canal, the Rideau Canal addressed the concerns raised during the War of 1812, where the St. Lawerence River provided the only path for supplies to arrive in Upper Canada from Quebec City, Montreal, Halifax and England herself. Travel on theRead More →

Taking a look at one of the most sought after films from Lomography, their Purple line of Colour film brings back a similar look to the colour infrared films like Kodak Areochrome. But despite the Chrome in the Name, Lomochrome Purple XR is a colour negative film. Well, enter Purple XR, which can be shot at three different speeds to produce different results. Sadly I only had one roll thanks to the Emulsive Secret Santa, so why not shoot 12 frames for each speed have the roll processed as usual and see what happens! If you also note, I’ve had to come up with differentRead More →

I rather enjoy these little made up holidays and events for the photographic community. And you can thank the Internet for all this enjoyment and global networking that takes place. The brains behind World Film Photography Day is Lomography and while I didn’t bring out any of my toy cameras, the unsettled weather of late here in Southern Ontario I took out my Minolta Maxxum 9 with a newly acquired 50mm f/1.7 lens, and a fresh roll of Retro 400s. So no matter what condition the weather would throw me I’d be ready. Not wanting to waste too much time I headed down to myRead More →

Ever since I started doing the scanning of my film my workflow has remained static, an Epson flatbed film scanner, the V500 first and the V700 currently. It worked, I got decent quality enough to get lab prints of my film scans up to 11×14 and be able to share around Flickr, 500px, Facebook, and Instagram. Now a dedicated film scanner is a different animal from a flatbed like the Epson. Names like Imacon, Plustek and Nikon I knew about, but they always were outside of my price tag. And as a photographer who shoots multiple formats and doesn’t have a lot of desk space,Read More →

Like the speed test, I ran on TMax P3200 I decided it was only fair to give Delta 3200 a fair shake as well, but to make things more interesting, I decided to run it through in Medium Format instead of 35mm. After my review last year of Delta 3200, I decided that the film responded best in Ilford Microphen. Microphen has become one of my favourite developers to push or pull processing fast films. Like the TMax speed test, I’ll shoot the film at 1600, 3200, and 6400 and develop each in Ilford Microphen. Note that while I firmly believe that Delta 3200 isRead More →

If there is a singular piece of infrastructure that changed the course of an entire region of Ontario that piece is the Welland Canal. Today the massive ship channel that serves as an extension of the St. Lawerence Seaway has humble beginnings. Before the construction of any canal, the only way to move supplies between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie was using the Niagara River. The river proved to be a difficult route for the British. The first being proximity to the American guns at Fort Niagara the second being the wonder of Niagara Falls. It resulted in long portages often starting at Queenston. TheRead More →