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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 →

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I’m not always one to follow trends, especially regarding the cameras I use. But there is some wisdom in reviewing cameras that are still reasonably trendy within the film photography community. And doubly so when that camera is significant within the overall history of photography within the consumer sphere. That camera is the Canon AE-1. While the AE-1 Program and F-1 get much fanfare, the AE-1 remains a stalwart consumer camera that has maintained much of its following within the modern film photography community. It is often found on big-name Instagram and YouTube Accounts, loaded with Portra 400, and sold well above their actual value.Read More →

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Regarding CatLABS, you never know what they will pull out of the bag next. Earlier this year, I reviewed their latest version of the XFilm 320 Pro and was presently surprised with the results. While I never touched the original version (which is said to be Eastman Double-X), I did try their original version of XFilm 80. I loved the stuff in my original review and revisiting it at ASA-32. When I got my hands on the new 320 stuff, I grabbed a box of XFilm 80 II. And I’ve been sitting on it for a while, but during the hot days of summer finallyRead More →

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In: Musings
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I never thought I would have to write a piece like this one. Still, with the rise of generative AI software, sorry, plagiarism software, there has been some interesting talk online about how many bloggers within the film photography realm have started turning over the hard work of writing reviews to things like ChatGPT. And while I know that some people are, the people I closely interact with all ‘do their own stunts.’ But people love having proof, so today, I will walk you through how I create a full camera review from start to finish, using a review I wrote on the Nikkormat FT2,Read More →

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I had to go back into my archives to see if I ever posted anything directly related to my 2015 trip to Europe. And yes, the images did appear in several review posts, but I never made a great post about the trip. I don’t understand why! But it probably got caught up in my poorly managed posting schedule, which I only in the past couple of years got onto the right track and had some semblance of order. But either way, I think for this Friday, I get things in order and revisit a special trip of mine with some insights into that tripRead More →

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Despite being far more niche these days, film photography still hangs on. And while there are plenty of options out there for getting your films lab developed and colour film developed, both C-41 and E-6 is fairly uniform no matter what chemical you buy. Except for E-6, Cinestill has a unique E-6 kit, but that’s a whole other thing. When it comes to Black & White, there is a tonne of options available to you for development. It can seem a bit overwhelming at times. But I have spent close to a decade developing my own Black & White at home and have tried aRead More →

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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 →

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In: Optical Review Blogs
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In the automotive world, especially in the world of hotrods, there’s a term ‘sleeper’. A sleeper is a car that doesn’t look like a performance automobile, but under the hood is. For many years my dad babied a 1983 Caprice Classic, installed a new engine, new exhaust, fuel injector, all to complement the Impala SS suspension and close-ratio police steer box that came with the car. The Caprice spent many years as a sleeper until he started working on some exterior detailing. Why do I mention a car on a lens review? Well, it’s because the lens I’m covering today is a sleeper, it doesn’tRead More →

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If there is one lens that lives on my XE-7 so much so that I feel it’s fixed to the camera, it is the Rokkor-X 45/2. This lens is a beautiful piece of glass that honestly, I wouldn’t want to replace with a 35mm focal length for my Minolta kit. It’s the lens that went through all of a trip to Disney World and Universal without being taken off the camera despite bringing a 135mm lens with which did more on the digital a6000 then on the XE-7. And while it looks a little silly strapped onto the beast that is the XE-7, as aRead More →

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In: Project:1867
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One of the first History courses I took in High School was Canada in the 20th Century. Most Canadian history texts that are used in schools start at this point. And there’s no surprise. As a nation, Canada came into its own in the 20th Century. Many point the crucible of World War One as the focal point. Others state the post World War Two era leading up to the 100th Anniversary of Confederation. But everything that happened in the 20th Century built on what happened before and the sins of the past were going to come back to haunt. As Canada emerged from theRead More →