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It’s always fun to revisit trips on anniversaries. Last year, I posted about the ten-year anniversary of my epic three-week trip to Europe to participate in the 200th Anniversary Reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo. And I was recently thinking about the last time I did a big trip, and after someone favourited an old image from my NOPEX trip back in 2011, I realised that this year marked the 15th anniversary of that trip. So, for a bit of context, NOPEX, or “Northern Ontario Products Exposition,” was a week-long car-camping trip through Northern Ontario with my good friend James. The groundwork had been laidRead More →

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A few years ago, I reviewed a rather interesting developer, Diafine. Diafine is a universal black-and-white film developer. Universal in that it will develop all films using a fixed set of development times, which also requires that the film be exposed at a specific exposure index. But what if you could make this even simpler? Well, that’s where the fine folks at Flic Film come into play with their Elementary Developer. Like Diafine, Elementary is a two-bath developer with parts A and B, which you use as separate steps, but you only have one exposure time for all films and no need to expose theRead More →

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After Edgar’s disappointment in exploring a radar station from the Cold War, it would be several years before I could check one out. It wasn’t for lack of trying; I did try and figure out a way to visit the former CFS Falconbridge location, but that never materialised. However, when planning the first MayPEX trip in 2009, one of the places on our hit list was the former CFS Ramore, an almost intact radar station that served on both the Pinetree and Mid-Canada lines during the Cold War. Located in northern Ontario in the mainly francophone town of Ramore, but unlike Edgar, it was initiallyRead More →

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My history with Consumer’s Glass starts somewhere other than Hamilton, but rather my hometown of Milton. One of the earliest abandoned locations I ‘discovered’ after getting a hot tip was the former Milton plant, but that was among the final Consumer’s Glass plants constructed and among the first to be torn down. The Milton works, completed in the late 1970s and became operational in 1980, was a local landmark, the tall silos standing over a small industrial section and easily seen when heading east on the 401 approaching Highway 25. The Hamilton works, however, were far more interesting, not only larger but older, much olderRead More →

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I have far surpassed one hundred and fifty camera reviews and one hundred film reviews, my other two reviews being lenses and developers have only made it to the big fifty this year. If you read my previous post on lens reviews these are my least favourite. And while I rather enjoy creating film and camera reviews the most, developer reviews come in as the third favourite. The reason being is that I have the most amount of freedom connected to their creation. And while I’m working on a full post on how I write developer reviews, this post is about looking back at theRead More →

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I know that place, I muttered to myself while watching season 2 of Star Trek Discovery. The tell-tale support pillars were instantly familiar to me, as I had seen them many times before; there was no doubt that those were the generator supports from the massive Richard L. Hearn Thermal Generating Station in Toronto’s Portlands. I knew that Discovery filmed in Ontario and the GTHA (Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area), having seen the white church from Balls Falls and the Niagara Escarpment near Milton, all featured in both Season 1 and 2 of the then-latest Star Trek series. Hearn was my first extensive exploration and one thatRead More →

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Once you have it down, one of the most satisfying parts of home development is taking it to the next level is building your B&W developer. And the first developer for many photographers that they brewed up themselves, including me, is Caffenol. As the name implies, it’s a developer with a coffee base. Specifically, the caffeic acid that is found in instant coffee. While it’s easy to buy all the raw material in your average grocery store to build your caffenol, there is something nice about having a ready-made pack. And it should come as no surprise that the fine folks at the Film PhotographyRead More →

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When it comes to assistance with long processing times or the need for constant agitation, there aren’t that many options out there today. Sure there is the original Jobo system, but these are completely closed systems that often carry a high startup cost. And on the opposite end of the spectrum are the Besler and Unicolor Cibachrome bases and tanks. But what about something new, using modern solutions. Last year I had the chance to try out one such system, the AuRA film processor, and it certainly made an impression on me and my processing. Sadly these aren’t yet for sale, and given the technologyRead More →

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In the 1990s, a particular bread of camera was cheaply made, often in mass quantities and questionable quality. While many have been passed off these days as cheap and trash cameras, some achieved a bit of a cult following. One such camera was the Vivitar Ultra-Wide & Slim (VUWS). Vivitar never made the camera itself; instead, it was marketed and sold under the name. And actually, I don’t think Vivitar ever made anything of their own. What set the UWS apart from the other contemporary trashcams of the 1990s; it featured a simple 22mm f/11 ultra-wide lens, something that most well made point-and-shoot and toyRead More →

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These days I will rarely work with Ilfosol 3, but it remains a developer that I always keep in the back of my mind. After learning how to develop my own black & white film from my good friend Julie using Kodak D-76, it would be a few more years before I started taking on the process full time. When I went into Burlington Camera to get all the equipment I needed to take on the daunting task some eight years ago, Joan pointed me towards Ilfosol 3 as a good starting point when you didn’t want to keep a large quantity of developer mixedRead More →