One of the film community’s biggest photography trends is the use of speciality motion picture films for regular photographic applications. You saw the rise in popularity in films such as Eastman 2238 and Fuji 4791. Well, Lomography jumped onto the bandwagon with a pair of releases last year. Both were rerolled films from Filmotec/ORWO. The second release of these films came in Babylon 13, with Lomography publishing times for shooting at ASA-12. Having ordered the traditional five-pack, I found that the film, in reality, if ORWO DN21. As the name suggests, DN21 is a duplicating film, acting as an inter-negative between a master positive andRead More →

Oddly enough this is not the first Praktica SLR that I’ve had in my collection, one of my earliest SLRs that I never actually got around to using was a Praktica Super TL that ended up going into one of the early giveaways for the Film Photography Podcast in their first season along with a LOMO Lubitel 2. So when the LTL showed up at my doorstep, I decided to give the cameras another go. The LTL is, given its age, a bit of an anachronism. By the 1970s, most camera makers west of the iron curtain and Japan used open aperture TTL metering. Yet,Read More →

When it comes to fine-grain developing, the developer that most people reach for today is Kodak Xtol. But Xtol is one of the newest developers to come out of Kodak, before Xtol if you wanted to tame that grain, you reached for Microdol-X. While I’m unsure as to when Microdol-X was first released by Kodak, I’ve found images online of the powder coming in cans rather than pouches. The logo style is that of 1935, so I’m guessing it was released at some point in the mid-1930s at the earliest. I stumbled across Microdol-X while visiting Pittsburg back in 2015, while my main goal wasRead More →

When it comes to films that are not designed for normal pictorial use, I’m not one to shy away from them. That being especially after I went through three of the FilmWashi offerings, one of them being an Optical Audio Recording film. Even before I had loaded up Washi S into a camera, I had been approached by the Film Photography Project to beta test a new film they had acquired and were planned to release after collecting some developing times for the film. The name was FPP Super Sonic, and like Washi S, is an optical audio recording film. The idea of recording audioRead More →

I never heard of the Duex before as I scrolled past the cameras being offered up for free on the Toronto Film Shooters Facebook Group, and this camera certainly caught my eye. One of the first things to catch me attention is the design of the camera, it screams art deco and saw the production during the height of the style’s popularity. The camera itself is asking to be used amongst the amazing architecture of The Loop in Chicago, Illinois or Manhatten in New York City. But since we’re in the time of plague still, it’ll have to be more local. The Duex is oneRead 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 →

Consumer film, often film photographers of a certain type will turn their nose up at them, but as someone who started their film journey on consumer film processed in the local 1-hour lab, going back to review these films is a bit of a throwback. Like all modern consumer films from Kodak, Ultramax traces its heritage back to the original Kodacolor film. The original Kodacolor saw production from 1924 to 1963. In 1963, the updated Kodacolor-X increased the film speed from ASA-25 to ASA-64, both these early offerings using the C-22 process, Kodak discontinued Kodacolor-X in 1974. In 1972 Kodak released a new version, KodacolorRead More →

If you’re of a certain age, your entire childhood was captured by a class of cameras that first showed up on the market in the late 1970s, the compact point-and-shoot. While the idea of automatic compact 35mm camera is nothing new, and the idea of the family snapshot as old as Eastman Kodak. But in the 1970s something new showed up on the market, autofocus. No longer did the photographer have to fiddle to get things in focus, autoexposure allowed for no thought to metering. The point, then press the shutter. Harkening back to the original Kodak, you press the button, we do the rest.Read More →

Several years ago, when I was starting to branch out in my home film developing, I would try a lot of different, strange, and odd-ball developers. Sure I went with the basics, D-76, HC-110, Rodinal. But as I continued to listen to the Film Photography Podcast, I started to get my hands on stranger items, PMK Pyro being the first speciality developer and from there Pyrocat-HD which has become a fast favourite. But then I heard Matt talk about a developer call FA-1027. The next trip I made to New York City, I popped into B&H and got myself a bottle. Sadly I have onlyRead More →

It feels good to get back to your roots. When I first started my exploration in photography, I shot mainly consumer colour films, Fuji Superia and Kodak Gold and Ultramax. Kodak Gold is a wonderful film with a rich history going back to the first Kodacolor film released in 1940, and it was improved version Kodacolor-X in 1963. Both of these films used the C-22 process. In 1973 the new C-41 process introduced Kodacolor II. In 1982 the three flavours of Kodacolor-VR came out with 100, 200, and 400 films. Kodak Gold 200, the film I’m reviewing t,oday is the modern version of Kodacolor VR-GRead More →