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 →

There’s something strangely satisfying about a Nikkormat. These are beefy, mechanical cameras, that screams 1960s camera technology. While these are older machines they are close to bulletproof and are among one of the more popular SLRs released by Nikon at the time, maybe even more popular than the Nikon F. These were Nikon’s answer to the growing hobbyist market that at the time was dominated by the likes of Canon, Minolta, and Pentax. The FTn is not my first experience with the Nikkormat, that would be my lacklustre experience with the FT3. But I didn’t let that sour my view of the Nikkormat line, andRead More →

There is a tonne of iconic film stocks that have been released and are no longer with us; I’m thinking Kodak Plus-X, Kodak Panatomic-X, almost the entire line of Polaroid Film. And among those Polaroid films, the one that probably hurt the hardest when it saw cancellation in 2008 is Type 55. Type 55 is a unique film even among Polaroid instant films in that it produces a usable print (obviously) but also a usable negative. And it is a legend that the negative used in Type 55 is based on Kodak Panatomic-X. It is also among those films that I wish I got toRead More →

I’ll be the first to admit; I never was a fan of TMax Developer. It was, at least in my mind initially TMax developer was a one-trick pony. Suitable for only modern T-Grain films (TMax, Delta, Acros). But that quickly changed as I started to branch out and trying to see what the developer can do with both modern film grain and classic grain. I discovered that TMax developer is something a little more than a one-trick pony. Technical Details Manufacture: Kodak Name: TMax Developer Primary Developer: Hydroquinone Type: Reusable or One-Shot Mix From: Liquid Handling TMax developer is a liquid, it runs clear andRead More →

It’s a rumble in the electric jungle! Last month I pitted Olympus and Nikon against each other with their small-format mechanical options, the Olympus OM-1n and the Nikon FM. This month I decided to test the automatic versions of these compact cameras, the Olympus OM-2n and Nikon FE. Like their mechanical cousins, both cameras were built during the rise in the use of electronics in cameras that came in the late 1970s. Now here we have a significant difference in metering as both use a different system, and in this case, both cameras have functioning meters. Again this isn’t to tell you which camera isRead More →

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 →

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 →

It’s a rumble in the mechanical jungle! Last year I pitted my Nikon F5 against the Minolta Maxxum 9, and I had a lot of fun doing that review, not to prove which camera is better but to show the difference between the two top dog professional cameras. And I have been waiting for a chance to repeat the format for some other cameras. So why not take out two iconic small-format SLRs that came out in the 1970s, sadly I had very view from that era, at least until recently when I got a pair of them. Today we’re going to compare the OlympusRead More →

If there is one developer that is the closest thing to a magic bullet in my chemistry set, that developer is Pyrocat-HD. While Rodinal is the oldest commercial developer, Pyro based developers pre-date Rodinal into the early days of photography, being used back in the days when plate-based photographic media were the norm. And while the developers changed overtime, Pyrocat-HD is among the newest in the category being developed by Sandy King as an improvement over PMK Pyro. Sandy promotes the developer as giving 1/3rd of a stop in film speed with about 10-15% less developing time. Along with consistent staining action and lower toxicity.Read More →

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 →