This past year has been a lot of fun looking at different cameras. While some of these cameras I will have already released a review, others will be coming out next year. But that’s the thing about writing these reviews is that I’m often working 2-3 months ahead of the actual release. I put a lot of work into these reviews, between looking up specs, shooting multiple rolls of film through the cameras and trying to get the best results so I can give a fair and balanced review. But a group in the film photography blogging community decided to put out a series ofRead More →

When people hear the name ORWO, they mostly think of their brilliant motion picture films, UN54 and N74. Their newer offerings include the recently announced but yet-to-arrive NP100 and NP400 plus NC500. But that is only a small cross-section of their original offerings. ORWO, or rather ORiginal WOlfen is built in Wolfen, Germany, the original Agfa plant that ended up on the eastern side of the iron curtain and continued to produce films and developers after World War Two through the Cold War. Their films became popular among photographers in East German and the Soviet Bloc. My first experience with ORWO films is one ofRead More →

This is not my first time working with SPUR HRX, but it’s always been a developer that I’ve wanted to go back to revisit with a few more different film options. I first learned about HRX through a former co-host of Classic Camera Revival, and the developer certainly piqued my interest. SPUR HRX is the latest and far more stable update to HRX-3 (I know it doesn’t seem logical to go from HRX-3 to HRX) and stands for High-Resolution X from Speed Photography, Ultra Resolution. HRX offers up an ultra-high resolution, fine grain, and excellent tonality. If that sounds familiar, it should because it soundedRead More →

The first thing you’re going to think when you take a look at a C220f is that this is going to be a heavy camera, and then you’re going to pick it up and notice that it is relatively light for its size and form factor. I love a good system camera, but outside of the SLR world, there isn’t much in the way of system cameras in the medium format realm. At least until you look up Mamiya’s rather interesting C-Series of TLRs, they are proper TLRs in every way, but it’s also a complete system camera with interchangeable lenses, grips, and finders; theRead More →

I’ll be the first to admit that pinhole photography and I have not gotten along well in the past. It’s a bit hit or miss with me, and I don’t always associate photographic success with the gear I use. Sometimes having the right equipment will make you enjoy the format. Pinhole is one such format. My first attempts were bit misses, using a pinhole body cap adapter on my Pentax 645, and then again on various Nikon cameras. It wouldn’t be until I got my hands on a dedicated pinhole camera that I started to see results that I actually liked. So when I startedRead More →

If there is one lens that completely changed my outlook on photography, this is that lens. I know I usually don’t say that gear can make you a better photographer, and I’m not saying that this lens made me a better photographer. But it did help me realise and execute my vision. I use these two photos as an example of that, in the first photo, shot in 2005 on a K-M Z2 digital camera at the widest angle I knew exactly what I wanted to capture. That grand scale of the Hearn generating station, but I couldn’t with the gear I had. So whenRead More →

I should have known that the park would be closed as I pulled into the small out of the way intersection on Dundas Street. I didn’t have much time actually to get out and take pictures, and it was a ten-minute drive to and at least another ten-minute drive back. That left me a half hour to actually do some shooting. That left me five minutes down and five minutes back, and I would need that time. The yellow gates closed, and the pile of snow surrounding it said that I would need to hike into Sixteen Hollow. There’s something mysterious about a ghost town,Read More →

While these days the old standbys are still excellent choices to develop your film and offer up a great deal of variety there’s something to be said about having a universal one-size-fits-all developer. I first discovered this last year with Adox FX-39 II. But I quickly fell a rabbit hole of similar developers. And I’m not talking about Diafine, but rather Rollei Supergrain. Supergrain is an updated version of Amaloco AM 74. Supergrain offers up a series of dilutions and times that will develop most films at the same associated times. Perfect if you’re shooting a whole bunch of different films but have limited timeRead More →

After last month’s debacle with FilmWashi D and the ultra-thin base, I made a point to check Z before even loading it up into the camera, thankfully, the base while thin, is a little closer to what I’m used to working with JCH Streetpan and Rollei RPX films. Like D, Z is designed for aerial surveillance specifically for the mapping of vegetation. To aid in this, the film has a near-infrared capability. While this might not have been used in spy satellites but you never know, it could have been used in spy planes? Knowing that the film has infrared capabilities, I decided to shootRead More →