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The province that we know of as Ontario today looked a lot different some two hundred years in the past. There were no superhighways, factory outlets, or any major population centre every hour along the road. Trips were measured in days, not hours, and unless you were wealthy and in the merchant class, you rarely left your home settlement. The major cities numbered populations in the hundreds maybe thousands if lucky. And in Upper Canada (Ontario) the major centres were York (Toronto), Niagara (Niagara-On-The-Lake), and Kingston. The first major push to bring new immigrants into the backwater of Upper Canada was underway after the Anglo-AmericanRead More →

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When it comes to Film Washi, I remained initially unsure of hopping onto the wagon of the world’s littlest film company. While some of their initial offerings were paper-based, they began to expand into traditionally based film stocks. Film Washi Type “S” or Washi S as I’ll be calling the film from now on, is not designed for pictorial use at all, even titles or special effects. Washi S is designed for optical recording of sound. Which as you may have already through will produce a high-contrast image. But I will say one thing I am impressed that I got good photos out of theRead More →

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When it comes to 200-Speed films, I don’t have the best view, and usually end up with decent results (Rollei Superpan 200), other times I dislike them entirely. When it comes to Ilford’s offering, SFX 200, it goes in a slightly different direction. See, I have shot SFX a lot more than I initially thought, but it never stuck too much into my film supply mostly because if I need to shoot a 200-Speed film, I’m more likely to pull a 400-Speed film (Tri-X or Fomapan 400) or push a 100-Speed film (TMax 100). See, SFX is fun in the sense that it has anRead More →

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While Ortho 80 Plus might appear to be a new film, it isn’t a new film. I’m surprised I missed reviewing the film earlier in this series. I skipped over a film I had shot in the past for a good two years. And thinking back that doesn’t surprise me; the film never made much of an impact. But also the film was, until recently, only available in 4×5. But I also only shot a single box of the stuff back in 2014. The results were excellent, and it was the first time shooting an ultra-low ISO film and one that had no set filmRead More →

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When it comes to reviewing film cameras when I first started back in 2015 I thought was among the first to be doing so, as it turns out I probably was based on the times that a few fellow alliance members have been around reviewing film cameras. Throughout the previous 120 camera reviews, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve considered a hand-built camera, that number is one. Reviewing a homemade camera is difficult mostly because there’s a strong chance no one else has reviewed it or in the case of today’s camera even shot it outside the person who builtRead More →

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Back last year I made a single roll review of the Eastman 2238 film, but now that I have a lot more resources available to me and having found three rolls sitting in my storage, I decided to do a proper review of this beautiful film stock. As I mentioned in the one-roll review, 2238 is what is called a Panchromatic Separation Film and is used to create archival film prints from colour film prints. Unlike past speciality motion-picture stocks this is a Panchromatic film, meaning it is sensitive across all the colour spectrums. Now, 2238, like all films, is not designed for regular pictorialRead More →

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I honestly can’t remember when I got this sealed box of 4×5 film. I remember getting it from my good friend and partner in photographic crime Bill Smith. Now, this was all before the great interest in Ultra-Low films and it took a lot of digging to find out anything about the film. Then I realised I was looking for the wrong number. I should have been checking out Eastman 5302. After expanding my search I found some developing formula on Flickr and decided it would be finally time to get out and check this mystery box out. It took a while to figure outRead More →

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Can lightning strike twice? Fujifilm thinks it can! In 2018 Fuji ceased production of Fuji Acros 100, just before I released a review on the film that turned into a bit of a eulogy. But then in 2019 Fuji announced that they would reintroduce Acros as a new version, Neopan Acros 100 II. Of course, there were already plenty of conspiracies over the source of Acros 100 which translated over to Acros II, ranging from giant master rolls kept in some deep freezer hidden somewhere in the world. And when the first details on Acros II hit the Internet and a box reading “made inRead More →

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If you’ve ever seen the TV show Madmen, you’ll probably have your 21st Century, post MeToo era sensibilities challenged with the sheer amount of sexism that was and is still rampant today. Now if you’re a little confused, let me introduce you to the Nikon EM. Designed to fill in the entry-level gap in the Nikon SLR line, the EM was primarily marketed towards women. The reason is that as a camera, it is basic, set for semi-automatic aperture priority, and that is the only mode available. It also is small, compact, and lightweight. But don’t let that stop you, the EM is an excellentRead More →

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If the standard Svema Foto films are too grainy for you, how about stepping it down a notch and picking up a roll of Foto FN64, or FN64. Before this review, I had only shot a single roll of the stuff, and it did not turn out well. I eventually figured out that due to the thin PET base, the film is subject to light piping, and I ended up fogging the whole roll. Now if you’re a fan of the slower film that is having something different from what you get from other typical films, then FN64 is something for you to try. AndRead More →