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My introduction to photography came in the early days of digital photography entering the mainstream, so my medium of choice had always been film. You could pick up decent film cameras for cheap while digital cameras were still the realm of professionals or the rich. And the early options were low-quality. I had used digital through high school and my first years of college; my high school had the early Apple digital camera and also the Sony Mavica (the one that took 3.5″ floppy disks). And my dad had won an early HP digital camera through work. But I realised it was only a matterRead More →

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I can thank the sale of the Konica-Minolta camera division to Sony and a gift of a Nikon F80 that marked my one and only system shift in my photographic journey. The F80 was my go-to camera for many years, and it was the one that helped build up my Nikon AF system. There’s even one lens in my kit that I got with that F80. While my first two cameras were purchased through Garage Sales, the X-7a and the F80 were both gifts from other members of my church. It came to me from a teacher at Sheridan College. I wish I could rememberRead More →

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A fixed-lens rangefinder is good, but the gold standard for photography was an SLR. I had used SLRs before, including the beat-up K1000 in my high school darkroom and a fellow student’s parent’s SLR. And now that I had been bitten by the photography bug, I was on the hunt for one. The effort did have a false start; I got a Zenit B at a garage sale and failed miserably with that camera. I ended up trading it for another K1000 because the other guy wanted the Helios-44-2 lens attached. But then I happened across the Minolta SR-T 102. Since I already had aRead More →

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Many photographers of a certain age started with the Pentax K1000. I went a different route, and it’s different from even my preferred camera type today. I went with the Minolta Hi-Matic 7s, a fixed lens rangefinder from the 1960s. The Hi-Matic made things real; it was the first camera that was mine and the first good camera that I used. Before this, I used disposable cameras, like the point-and-shoot my parents had, and I still remember the 110 plastic camera I got at a McDonald’s event (at least, that’s what I think in my head-canon). While I would end up with a lot ofRead More →

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Okay, it’s a bit clichéd to start with an iconic student camera, but there’s a symmetry to beginning with the K1000. See, eleven years ago, I kicked off my camera review series, and the second such review was the Pentax K1000, this K1000, as a matter of fact. And to turn a phrase, this is my K1000; there are many like it, but this one is mine. So why am I starting with the K1000? Well, because it is the second such camera that I clearly remember from my childhood, it captured some of my memories from that time. If you haven’t already guessed fromRead More →

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Well we made it through another year. Like every years things did not always go to plan and that’s okay. Because it’s important to be flexible, especially when this blog and other channels is not a full time job. The year was a lot of fun despite being a little chaotic. I always have hope that things will eventually calm down, but they do in fact always calm up. There was a rather unfortunate bump through the fall with a five week support staff strike that did reduce some capacity for creation, but I had the chance to play catch up through October and NovemberRead More →

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With apologies to Led Zeppelin, this is not a project about classic rock but rather churches. The Church has been a major part of my life; I grew up at Knox Presbyterian Church, was baptised, attended Sunday School and Vacation Bible School, and was a part of youth groups both at Knox and other churches around my home town of Milton. I was a part of the Presbyterian Young People Society and helped run the group for several years. I met my lovely wife Heather through a Bible Study, we got married at Knox Milton, and I watched my nieces baptise in the same fontRead More →

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I remember it clearly, having walked into Henry’s store to get film for an upcoming PYPS weekend, Winter Weekend 2006 in Oshawa, Ontario. I don’t remember exactly why I pulled the roll of Sensia 400 off the rack; my jam in those days was colour negative films. But that was also the weekend that I had a digital camera for the first time, so maybe I started to branch out in my shooting. Sensia was the right speed I usually shot (400), and the name was close to Superia (at a glance), and my journey into slide film had begun. Eventually, I branched out andRead More →

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Much of my early years of photography were taken up with the Minolta system. From my initial gateway camera, the Hi-Matic 7s to my first SLR the SR-T 102. The next step in my journey would be some level of automation, and for that, in stepped the X-7a. A gift from a church member who was no longer using the camera gifted me the camera and a single lens. But having a set of Minolta SR lenses already, I had an excellent selection of optics. And the camera would be my first experience with a motor drive, go through some of my earliest explorations andRead More →

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PYPS, Presbyterian Young People’s Society, Pick Your Potential Spouse. However you want to call it, yesterday I learned of some news that I never expected to receive. And while I have, like many before me, aged out and ultimately drifted away from the organization a friend whom I met through PYPS posted the following on Facebook. THE FUTURE OF PYPS Hello PYPS family, Recently the Synod of Central Northeastern Ontario and Bermuda had their annual meeting and decided to pull funding from our ministry. We felt that, in the face of declining attendance, the money that has been allotted to PYPS in the past couldRead More →