This is only the second time I’ve reached a significant milestone in my ongoing reviews, the magic number of one hundred. And to be clear, I’ve done one hundred film reviews, not reviewed one hundred separate film stocks. And that’s because I’ve reviewed some rebadged films; sometimes, I knew it was a rebadge and then made a point not to go after that film stock again, notability ORWO films. I reviewed the four motion picture-specific films from ORWO as their Lomography rebadge. But in the case of Fomapan 100, I reviewed that first as KosmoFoto Mono 100 and then again as Fomapan 100. Agfa AviFotoRead More →

Regarding film developers, I tend to stray from those designed for one specific film stock. It’s not that I don’t want to try them; I have a dislike of closed image systems. A good developer should be able to achieve a specific result with various films. And for a while, I thought that Foma Retro Special is explicitly designed for Foma Retropan 320 Soft, and while this is the ideal film for the developer, it can do so much more for the entire line of Foma films. After finding a source for the developer, I purchased a pack since I am finally running a reviewRead More →

When it comes to slide film, Fuji Sensia introduced me to the medium, but it was Astia that made me love slide film. Sitting neatly in the worlds of Velvia 100 and Provia 100, Astia is often an overlooked member of the Fujichrome family, with more people going towards Velvia for rich saturated colours or Provia for a more natural tonality. But Astia was a happy medium between the two; you get a stronger contrast than Provia and more natural colours than Velvia. Astia quickly became my go-to slide film for trips and events where I wanted the magic of slide film with a bitRead More →

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 →

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 →

When it comes to political change in Canadian history, there has always been two behind any major change. Robert Baldwin and Louis La Fontaine for example, and while George Brown would play a major role it would be George-Étienne Cartier who would provide political support to John A MacDonald but ensure that French-Canadien culture would not be lost. Born the 6th of September 1814 in Sainte-Antonie-sur-Richelieu in Lower Canada. Baptised with the name George in honour of King George III. But George’s family already had a long history in the new world, even claiming relation to Jacques Cartier (although there is no evidence to supportRead More →

There are many iconic cameras out there, the Nikon F, the F2, the Leica Rangefinders, Rolleiflex, Stylus Epic, Crown Graphic, and many more. And while many films have achieved popular success, there is only a single one that has captured the imagination of thousands if not more through its life, and that film is Kodak Kodachrome — introduced in 1935 as one of the first commercially successful colour slide film. Launched initially as a colour movie film, it soon flooded into the still photography market. The Kodachrome I shot was introduced in 1974, although the first ASA-64 Kodachrome was released as Kodachrome-X in 1962, however,Read More →

Ever since I started doing the scanning of my film my workflow has remained static, an Epson flatbed film scanner, the V500 first and the V700 currently. It worked, I got decent quality enough to get lab prints of my film scans up to 11×14 and be able to share around Flickr, 500px, Facebook, and Instagram. Now a dedicated film scanner is a different animal from a flatbed like the Epson. Names like Imacon, Plustek and Nikon I knew about, but they always were outside of my price tag. And as a photographer who shoots multiple formats and doesn’t have a lot of desk space,Read More →

While not many people would notice it, but when watching a film, and you come across this amazing sequence in black & white, the rich tones across the board, and just a classic cinematic look and wonder, how can I make my still images look that good! Well if you are watching a film shot on traditional film stock the answer is rather easy, Eastman Double-X 5222. Chances are you’ve seen a film shot on this stock, such as the opening sequence of Casino Royale or Shindler’s List. I first came across Double-X a few years back when I purchased some rolls through the FilmRead More →

This past Tuesday, the Ides of March, is also Expired Film Day. So I figured I would do a post about shooting expired film along with tips/tricks that I’ve come across with shooting old/expired film stocks. While I do a majority of my shooting with fresh film stock there is a certain level of fun and intrigue when shooting with expired film stock. 1. You can Shoot Film that is no longer available fresh. There are plenty of film stocks out there that is new that you can often make behave like well loved film stock in the past but it just never will beRead More →