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If you have never heard of FX-37, don’t worry. I didn’t know about the developer either until I saw a post from Flic Film about it on their Instagram feed. It fits in with the plethora of other “FX” developers, some of which I have reviewed on the blog (FX-39 II and FX-2). FX-37 is the invention of noted British photographer Geoffrey Crawley to solve the problem of sharpness in T-Grained emulsions. As a developer, FX-37 is a non-solvent developer designed to maximise the sharpness of these modern emulsions but can also work with traditional cubic-grained films. Technical Details Manufacturer: Flic Film Name: Crawley’s FX-37Read More →

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The Minolta Zoom 24-105mm is Minolta’s late-model elevated kit lens, released initially with the Maxxum 7. It was designed to be better than the lower spec kit lens, the 28-100mm. And you know, when you put the two lenses next to each other, the 24-105 is a far better lens and doesn’t carry a hefty price tag. In all fairness, I was not happy with the results I got from the 28-100, and my copy broke and had to be fixed with a doner lens. However, the 24-105 is only slightly better as a lens because despite being an elevated kit lens, it is stillRead More →

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When I hear the name Miranda I think of two things first and foremost, number one is Star Trek and the venerable Miranda Class that first appeared in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and has remained a staple of the Federation Starfleet (I prefer the roll bar version) the second is Shakespeare which is where the class name takes its inspiration from. But when it comes to cameras, the Miranda brand is one that doesn’t get much respect, despite being an innovative company that sadly lacked the level of quality assurance that the bigger names could provide. I first learned about Miranda camerasRead More →

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So far in this ongoing series, I have only focused on my written content, mainly because there continues to be an influx of AI-generated blog posts. But this isn’t the only area where AI is starting to get in the way of real creative content. AI videos are a thing with avatars that can act and look like real-life people. Also, the number of ‘faceless’ videos with obviously generated images and voices is large. I’m happy that my channel is AI-generated content-free and always will be! Let’s dig into the process of how I go about creating a YouTube video. In the case of thisRead More →

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Kit lenses: I have ones I like and others I’m not too fond of; of the ones I’m not too fond of, it’s the Canon Zoom Lens EF 28-80mm. After using the lens extensively last year for the Frugal Film Project, I realised that it has many things that could be improved in the optical quality and set out to get my hands on Canon’s elevated kit lens, the 28-105mm USM. I also used the lens while reviewing the Canon EOS Elan 7ne and A2. First introduced in 1992 as the standard kit lens for the EOS A2, it features the USM or Ultra SonicRead More →

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The one aspect of my photography that I rarely discuss is how and why I make images the way I do. I love talking about history, gear, and the technical aspects of the craft but not about why I pick the subjects, the composition and why I mainly shoot in black & white (mostly with film). The primary reason is that these are all highly subjective, each individual has their thoughts and options. In this case, all the options are valid and personal. And no, this is not about a hot take or a controversial option; it’s only my thoughts on the creative process. EvenRead More →

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I enjoy working with interesting and odd films, and while we’re blessed with a tonne of modern options that are sharp and fine-grained, that wasn’t always the case. You often traded sharpness for increased grain to allow for faster films. And there are still some older stocks that represent that trade-off. I hadn’t even heard of Kodak Recording Film 2475 until a follower on Instagram messaged me about the film stock, wondering if I had ever shot the stock. I had not, and they graciously offered to send me some rolls. I expected to receive some bulk-loaded film but received factory-loaded cassettes instead. After findingRead More →

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On the eastern side of the Iron Curtin, one of the biggest producers of photographic materials was ORWO, or Original Wolfen. ORWO was born out of the split between the Germanys and the companies that existed. Famously, there is Carl Zeiss, but there is also Agfa. While Agfa reformed in the west, its factories in Wolfen were formed under the new name ORWO. While ORWO did produce a series of photographic films for still photography, they also produced specialised motion picture films. The two standard negative films are N74+ and UN54+. UN54+ is the film that I’ll be reviewing today. Now, this isn’t the firstRead More →

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I haven’t had an F2 in my collection now for almost three years now, but when I was in Toronto in December and walking up to meet my friend Bill I got the idea that I would like to do a video review on the Nikon F2. It was the last professional mechanical camera released by Nikon and is a rock solid performer. And of course, Bill has a tonne of F2s in his toolkit so all I could do was ask and he loaned me out this lovely black Nikon F2 Phototomic (DP-1 finder). So I took it out at the start of FeburaryRead More →

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Like last year’s review of ORWO Wolfen NP100, ORWO Wolfen P400 is a version of ORWO N74+ but modified to better suit still-photography by removing the anti-halation layer. I had this film stock on my wish list and was able to find it last year through Freestyle. The one thing I also noticed is that there is a slight difference between the two film stocks to indicate that something else has been done to the film stock in the process of stripping that layer. Thankfully there is already a lot of existing times that are listed directly for P400. The first thing I noticed withRead More →