And now for something completely different. Out of all the cameras I’ve reviewed, I can say that this is the first time I’ve reviewed a custom hand-built camera. I mean this camera doesn’t even have a name, so I have for the sake of my record keeping, named it the Francuz Cherry 66. As it is for sale and built by eBay user Francuz01, Cherry for being made from cherry wood and 66 for the fact it shoots 6×6 exposures. Now pinhole and I have a strange relationship, I initially had no desire or time or it and when I did shoot it I dislikedRead More →

It’s not every day that a new film jumps into the market without some pre-release hype, but leave it to CatLABS to slip under the radar with new film stock. In their description of the film, they state that it is in the spirit of Panatomic-X so who am I to skip over the film, I wanted to shoot it now! The film is rated at ASA-80 so a couple stops faster than the classic Kodak emulsion but something I could work with and even pull if needed. I think the film comes from the New55 Atomic-X which is also has a little bit ofRead More →

As you well know, I’m a huge fan of Kodak Panatomic-X and by far it is the one film I would like to see come back in some modern form. And while I can give TMax 100 a similar look, what if I could find that look I’m fond of in a modern new film? Well, I feel I can find that in CatLABS X Film 80 and sure it’s not an ASA-32 film, but what if I pulled it? I mean I got stable images out of TMax 100 at nearly a two-stop full, in this case, it’s only about a stop and aRead More →

According to the Kodak Datasheets on Eastman Fine Grain Duplicating Positive Film, which I will refer to from now on as Eastman 2366, is a low-speed duplicating film intended for making master positives from black-and-white camera negatives. Eastman 2366 is a blue-sensitive black-and-white film has very high resolution and provides very high acutance. In other words, this is not a film for regular photographic use. But what’s the fun in that? I first came across Eastman 2366 among other specialised Motion Picture Film from the Film Photography Project but to develop these as negatives using standard chemistry, while possible it’s hard to find times toRead More →

If there’s one lens that I don’t use that much is the 135mm focal length. I shoot a tonne with my pair of Nikon 105mm lenses and the 100mm in my Maxxum system is becoming a fast favourite. But I have a pair of 135mm lens one in Nikon the other in Rokkor that just don’t get the same amount of love as the others do. And oddly enough there are plenty of other photographers out there that their lenses feel the same lack of love. Enter Dan Novack when he posted a challenge on the Negative Postive’s Podcast group on Facebook asking if anyoneRead More →

It’s the rumble in the professional jungle! Yes, I’m pitting the two mid-1990s pro bodies I have in my toolbox against each other in a friendly competition! This contest isn’t to see which is better than the other, I use and work with both cameras often side-by-side. And honestly I consider them both equally amazing cameras in my mind, I mean look at the glowing reviews I’ve given both cameras. For this little contest, I’ve set a few rules. First, this contest saw completion on the same day, shot-for-shot. Also, I set both to matrix/average metering and full Auto Exposure. In both cases, I mountedRead More →

If you’re confused at the title, don’t worry, there never was the Republic of Canada, well not in any formally recognised manner. I happened across this strange pseudo-nation while doing the initial planning stages of this project. The grand republic is the brainchild of William Lyon MacKenzie and Charles Duncombe; they desired to reshape both Upper and Lower Canada into a single country with a Constitution and Government structure similar to that in the United States of America. And while he aimed to establish his new republic through force of arms, his failure at Toronto and Duncombe’s failure in the west did little to dampenRead More →

Ektar 100 is one of my favourite colour films, and that’s saying a lot because I don’t shoot a lot of colour film. But when it comes to Ektar 100, it is the first of many ‘new’ colour films to come out of Kodak since I first started shooting film. The name itself, a historical word in the Kodak Dictionary is an acronym for Eastman Kodak TessAR the lenses produced between 1936 and 1962 and I own a 203mm Ektar which I still run on my Crown Graphic. Then it became a line of professional films rated at 25, 100, and 1600 starting in 1989,Read More →

I have to say, Kodak took the photography world by storm when they announced the return of Ektachrome. Kodak got out of the colour reversal game in 2013, after over 70 years of production dating back in 1940. But in 2018 they announced the return of Ektachrome in a new formulation called E100. It again took some time, with a re-release of TMax P3200 keeping us teased, but it finally hit the market with an initial release which was snapped up, but now the supply is flowing! I never shot a lot of slide film and stuck mostly with Fuji products. But when I shotRead 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 →