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The 1990s and 2000s were a weird time for film photography and film cameras. Digital was starting to arrive as a medium, and often the first digital cameras were adapted from film cameras. But there was also a push to chase nostalgia, and several companies put out what can only be described as premium options. Sure, you have the standard names like Canon, Nikon, Olympus, and Minolta. However, the biggest player in this push for premium is Kyocera. Kyocera had come in, purchased a couple of historic brands, Yashica and Contax, and began producing cameras and slapping these names on them. Kyocera produced cameras fromRead More →

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It’s been a bit of time since I had the chance to do a solo photo walk through Toronto. I had a week off from work and decided to make the most of it. I had to come into the city to do a run at Downtown Camera to get film and chemistry for later in the summer, and decided to make the most of it by doing a bit of a walk through some of my favourite parts of the old town. But it wasn’t my usual route, so I decided to do something a little different in getting around. Despite the heat thisRead More →

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Here I am back in the half-frame saddle. I have a couple of people to thank for this. First, there is a student at the college where I work who has a Pentax 17. It was the first time I had seen one of those cameras in the wild, and I was more than happy to let me hold it and fiddle with it. It felt good, far heavier and well-built than I was expecting. Then there was an article by fellow blogger and all-around awesome guy, Johnny Martyr, about his experience with the Canon Demi EE28. Now, in all fairness, I had been lookingRead More →

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When I started working on this series, I knew I needed to include a TLR on the list. But the biggest question is which TLR to include, as I’ve had three in my toolkit, all of which have had some impact on my photography. But after some thought, I settled on the Rolleiflex. The reason is that it’s been the longest-serving medium-format camera in my toolkit, and one I’ve been using before it was cool in this film photography resurgence. Does that make me a hipster? Yes, it probably does. At least I don’t wear a beanie. The Rolleiflex is not my first TLR; itRead More →

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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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There are small cameras, and then there are small cameras. When designing cameras, there are certain constraints that you must work within. In the realm of 35mm cameras, you do have to make sure there’s enough room to fit the cartridge, and there have been some small 35mm cameras that I have reviewed. The one I think of is the RETO Ultra-Wide & Slim, and in the 35mm world, the smallest I’ve worked with is the Pentax MX (smaller than even the Olympus OM-1 and Nikon FM). But once you start to scale down the size of the film, you can bring the size ofRead More →

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Alright, I said I wasn’t going to get one of these, well, specifically an autofocus version of the Nikkor 20mm lens. The Minolta one solidified my enjoyment of the 20mm focal length, and I was passively looking for a manual focus lens, either AI or AI-S, because then it would work on all my cameras without fail. But I also don’t turn up my nose to a lens when offered. And well, here we are, the 20mm f/2.8D. I do like my wide-angle choices, and the 20mm offers up a nice in-between when 24mm isn’t wide enough and 14mm is too wide. And I don’tRead 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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I have a troubled history with 200-speed films. They’ve always given me more trouble and often try too hard, which can be detrimental. I struggled to find a way through Fomapan 200 and Rollei Superpan 200. Both Svema and Derev Pan 200-speed offerings were far more trouble than they’re worth. And then last year, along came Kentmere 200, a middle child for the Kentmere budget offerings. In all these colour film releases, Kentmere 200 took a backseat. But I latched onto Kentmere 200 almost right away. I already enjoyed Kentmere 100 and Kentmere 400, and the first flush of Kentmere 200 proved a solid performer.Read More →