When it comes to magic in photography, nothing can compare to watching a wet plate develop and clear or printing in the darkroom. But a close second is developing your slide film at home. After fretting about ruining slide film by developing it at home, I decided to go for it and put in some crucial rolls from Europe. If you force yourself to do it right the first time, develop something that matters! And when I pulled off those first two rolls, I was blown away! And while they looked ugly when wet, when dried, it was magic. The Unicolor Rapid E-6 kits makeRead More →

Back in the Summer of 2013 when APUG was the place to get your online fix of the analogue photography community, I noticed a post in the Toronto local board that there weren’t enough meetups for the film photography community. Which was at the time partly true, sure there had been a couple of FPP/APUG meetups in the area in the past, I had even helped coordinate one in 2011. But there had not been anything since. So I took it upon myself to plan these events, at least four, in a year. The first one dropped in July 2013, had a decent turnout andRead More →

John Lambton is the single man who shaped our view of the rebellions of 1837-8 for better or worse and can take the blame for the general mistrust between English and French Canada, born on the 12th of April 1792 in the City of Westminster, where the centre of the British Parliament sits even to this day. He knew little of his father who passed away in 1797 when John was only five. His mother quickly remarried but his step-father had little desire in raising John and his brother. Instead, the boys were raised by a family friend. Nevertheless, John was well off, being theRead More →

Back at the end of 2017, the film photography groups across Social Media began to talk about a photographic media producer in St. Petersburg in Russia called Silberra. While Silberra is not a new company they launched their Crowd Funding Campaign to expand their film manufacturing, introduce new film stocks, and expand their markets outside Russia and Eastern Europe. And while they encountered a pile of setbacks, but after waiting for nearly a year, we finally started to see some of the film starting to hit the market. Silberra Pan100 is the one film that I liked right off the mark, having done a first-lookRead More →

Found in a dusty warehouse, based on where the film came from, Sweeden, Lomography promoted their Berlin 400 as an iconic cinematic film. 400-Speed, Black & White, and from East Germany. Well, that certainly narrowed it down to only one film, thankfully it is one that I did have planned to review at a later date, so why not discuss it under the Lomography Brand! The film, if you haven’t already guessed is ORWO N74, which made collecting developing formulas easy. Shooting cinematic film in still cameras is nothing new, at least for me, I still love shooting Double-X for urban work, so getting intoRead More →

Like Svema Foto 400, I’ve only ever shot a single roll of Kentmere 400, and that was when it was being bulk loaded by the Film Photography Project as their EDU line of films. And yes, like Kentmere 100, this film stock is also produced by Ilford/Harman for their export market. While I personally think the film is best for students and those photographers on a budget, I don’t mind the film. It’s a lot closer to the old Ilford Pan 400 than their HP5+ stock, and that’s not a bad thing. And while I can still only find the film in the old packaging,Read More →

I like to think I have an open mind when it comes to different film stocks, but it’s easier to write that than to practice it. Thankfully thanks to these reviews I’ve found that I have come to like several stocks that I once derided. It would be in that category I will place Kentmere 100. Kentmere, once an independent company saw purchase in 2007 by Harman, and today is manufactured by our friends at Ilford. My first couple experiences were fairly terrible, especially the first and second rolls, but in those cases, I’ll chalk it up to the camera and my own mistake inRead More →

The North American film photography community can probably thank Mike Bitaxi for the introduction of Polypan F. And to make things more interesting, the film is not intended for pictorial work. Instead, Polypan F is a motion picture copy film. As such the film is a blue-sensitive orthochromatic film, but looking at it, you can hardly tell. But if there is one thing the film is known for it’s the GLOW, thanks to the lack of an anti-halation layer on the film. Sadly the film was discontinued, but there’s still plenty of bulk rolls floating around. Undoubtedly worthwhile trying if you come across it. IRead 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 →

By far my favourite of all the Delta films (which isn’t hard, there are only three) and my favourite of the mid-speed Modern Films (Delta, TMax etc.). Delta 100 is what I expect from a modern film, sharp, fine-grained, and can do anything you want it to without any major issues. Unlike the faster films, this one can work with pretty much any developer I throw it in and loves any lighting situations. And while as an indoor film it can suffer from rather harsh reciprocity failure, if done right, you don’t have to worry. Film Specs Type: Panchromatic B&W Film Base: Acetate Film Speed:Read More →