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While developing a colour-negative film is not as exciting as slide film, it is still satisfying. And while some might be hesitant these days to risk processing colour film in a home environment due to the increasing price and lower availability of colour-negative stocks, it is a way to help reduce the cost. And if you are a bit wary of the process, don’t worry. I was also when I first started, and while I did mess up the first set of four sheets of Ektar (yes, 4×5 Ektar), I soon figured out where I made my mistakes. Colour Negative processing uses those processes ifRead More →

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Honestly, you can thank Facebook for reminding me of this amazing trip that I took nearly eight years ago when I am first starting to see posts reminding me that this started to occur. It was 2012, several months after my first major Urban Exploration Meetup, since a rather off-putting event in Buffalo, New York. MAMU or the Mid-Atlantic Meetup had been resurrected by DJCraig, who I had met in December 2011 outside an abandoned hotel north of Dayton, Ohio, at a separate UE event VCXPEX. Early in April, I found myself on a twelve-hour drive south, the first time I had ever done suchRead More →

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These days the two big camera names that see fanboys (and girls) in both camps is Cannon vs. Nikon. But that wasn’t always the case. In the 1950s Nikon and Canon were still fairly unknown in the pro-market, both were producing rangefinder cameras stamped with “Made in occupied Japan” the real competitors of the 1950s was Contax and Leica. Since I have both a Leica IIIc and a Contax IIIa I figured I should do a side by side comparison and have these two heavy-weights of the mid-century fight it out. Before you continue, I suggest reading by reviews of each camera, first the ContaxRead More →

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When it comes to rangefinders, if you know me, I’m not a fan; they just don’t fit, I struggle to use them, and generally, I am more likely to reach for an SLR. But then there’s my Contax IIIa; for some reason, this is the rangefinder I just won’t let go of; it’s far from perfect, needs a bit of work, and often is a bit frustrating to use. It suffers from frame spacing issues, and I’m sure it will give up the ghost one day. Yet, since I picked it up off John Meadows the first time, I am often drawn back to itRead More →

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This one is for my friends at Kodak! Despite Ektachrome being cancelled in 120 and 35mm formats, I happened to find a decent sized stash in the back of my stores, mostly E100VS. Over the Easter weekend I had a chance to go south…to Tennessee, and one of my stops was the towns of Bristol. Why towns? Simple there are two Bristols, one in Virginia and one in Tennessee, and they share a common downtown along State Street, as the name implies is the State line. When I stopped in on the town on my way down I was quickly rained out, but Monday asRead More →