Strike Back Like the Empire! Yes folks after a long wait, the FP4Party Strikes Back! And I’m back into the groove of things. And despite it being the start of term, it gives me all the more reason to get out and give the Rolleiflex and Mamiya m645 a bit of a winter workout. Especially the poor Mamiya which has been spending much of its time as a project camera. But sometimes I have to let it out to play a little bit more! This time around I shot only three rolls of 120 film for the January Party. But to switch it up, IRead More →

Svema, or by its proper name, Свема is a film stock that is relatively unknown here in North America unless you are of course fans of the Film Photography Podcast. The name comes from the combination of two Russian words, Светочувствительные Материалы, translated means Photosensitive Materials. While Svema collapsed when the Soviet Union died in the 1990s, another Eastern European film manufacture, Astrum, continues the legacy of Svema using some of the old machinery in a new factory in Shostka, Ukraine. If I had limited experience with the 100-speed version of the film, I have even less with Foto 400. The only time I’ve shotRead More →

A short episode today to introduce our fifth season and what a season we have planned! First and our biggest news is that we’re moving up our episode count, and going for two episodes a month. Our regularly numbered episodes will continue to keep the standard round table format and will continue to be released on the last Friday of each month. However, the second episode will be released closer to the middle of the month and feature either a Deep Dive into a singular camera model digging into its history, design, variants, and everything about it. The second type of the second episode willRead More →

Svema, or by its proper name, Свема, is a film stock that is relatively unknown here in North America. But if you’re a fan of the Film Photography Podcast you will have heard of Svema. It would be Svema Foto 200 that first burst onto the FPP scene, and quickly became a favourite film of Leslie Lazenby. The name comes from the combination of two Russian words, Светочувствительные Материалы, translated means Photosensitive Materials. While Svema collapsed when the Soviet Union died in the 1990s, another Eastern European film manufacture, Astrum, continues the legacy of Svema using some of the old machinery in a new factoryRead More →

One thing that I feel that certainly helps any group is spending time together outside of the normal grind of the project you work together on. And for that, it’s the Classic Camera Revival podcast. I first started this idea last year as an end of year way to just get together have fun and do some talk about the next season for the podcast. This year our numbers were reduced due to illness and a broken ankle, but even with just the three of us good times were had in downtown Hamilton, Ontario. Hamilton and I have a long history, having a grandparent whoRead More →

In the category of gone too soon is New55 and their amazing film stock, Atomic-X. Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve spoken on Atomic-X when they first started releasing just their negative material for their revival attempt at the iconic Polaroid Type 55, I grabbed a box of one-shot envelopes to try out. The Atomic-X negative was in reality based around their goal of a Postive/Negative material, however, when I tried the New55 PN I got no usable results, the envelopes fell apart on me or the chemicals failed to spread it just became a disaster. But when they offered up 25-sheet boxes ofRead More →

It’s taken me nearly three years, but I have now reviewed one hundred film cameras! Even though the review rules have slipped a couple times (namely review a sheet film camera and a pair of polaroids), so it’s only fair that I distil these one hundred cameras down into a few top five lists! Just note that there’s no particular order for these top five lists and certainly are my own personal opinions! Also of note, I’ve done my best to not double-dip, that means if a camera appears in one list, that means it won’t appear in any other list. Top Five 35mm SingleRead More →

We have a little bit of Saturday Night Fever here at the Classic Camera Revival and we just cannot get enough of those disco-era cameras from the 1970s. Turn up the Beegee’s, and get on your best bell bottoms, ’cause gimmie, gimmie, gimmie a cam before midnight! Camera’s featured on Today’s Show Minolta XE-7 – Back in the 1970s, Leica and Minolta joined forces and produced several ‘cousin’ cameras, the first being the Minolta CLE/Leica CL. But the second camera to come out of the Alliance was the Minolta XE-7, cousins with the Leica R3. And while at forty-yards the two may look alike, whenRead More →

Before Plus-X there was Verichrome Pan. The two films have rather similar looks, but if there was a film that defined the look of the mid-century, that is the 1940s through 1950s of the 20th-Century that film is Verichrome Pan. Despite its age and the mid-speed nature of it, the film today remains surprisingly stable, having shot some that had expiry dates of the late 1960s. Designed as a general purpose film for the average consumer who at the time of its release in 1956 had nothing more than a box camera the film had a wide exposure latitude to overcome the disadvantages a boxRead More →

Well, I’ve made it through another year, filled with a lot of technical content in the blog. One goal I have for the new year is to balance the technical content with the historical and general photographic content. So what do I have planned for the new year? Well dear followers and reader, please continue! You will also not a subtle change in some of the blog entries. Now when Classic Camera Revival is mentioned it will be only concerning the Podcast, the Camera and Film Review blogs will no longer include the CCR name, starting with Film Review Blog No. 28 and Camera ReviewRead More →