I took my Canon FTb up with me last weekend up skiing. I picked up a 625 Wein cell battery to see if the meter. The FTb was made in the early 1970s and the original batteries were mercury based and of course due to environmental concerns are no longer available. The Wein Cell gives off the same voltage without the environmental impact.

I used this camera before with a hand held meter and the shutter speeds are just fine which is surprising for a 37 year old camera. The meter works but takes a little getting used to. The FTb uses almost a modified spot meter principle as opposed to center weighted used in Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, Leicaflex and the Canon F1. It takes a little getting used to if you are used to center weighted metering.

One last thing, I found that helps a lot with bright sunny days and there's snow on the ground to slap on a neutral density filter if you are shooting with 400 ISO film. Otherwise getting a decent exposure would almost impossible without a slower speed film.

Ontario winter as it was meant to be, well this was a few weeks ago when we had winter. The weather forecast right now is almost more late March than late January. I shot this right after New Years in the Belfountain Conservation Area.

Gear and film:
Nikon FM, Nikkor Ai 28 f3.8 and AiS 50 f1.8 lenses and Kodak Tri-x processed in Xtol 1+1.

I put my Rolleiflex through it's paces two weeks ago at a concert shoot. Brian Hayman and quintet played at set at St. Jude's Jazz Vespers back on January 3rd.

The one challenge, no flash so I used my Leica M3 with pushed Tri-x and Fuji Pro 800 NPZ in the Rollei. To quote one fellow Flickr member who commented on one of the photos, "Planar lenses rock!"

I found a Bay II hood for the camera and my brother Alex gave me a warming filter, all I need to do is find some more filters and I am good to go with the Rollei kit.

I also found a new layout for the blog, now my 6x6 shots can be seen as I had intended, square.

My new Toy.

This is my Christmas present from my family, a 3.5 Series E Rolleiflex with a 75 f3.5 Zeiss Planar lens, I think made in the early 1960s if I got the serial numbers right.

I am using this camera on a photoshoot for the first time this afternoon. Stay tuned for the results.

Two shots of my Honeywell Pentax H3 I picked up two years ago on Ebay as an impulse purchase. It suffered from a stalled mirror which is common with old Pentax screwmount cameras and that is due to the shutter curtains not going through it's complete cycle.

In my current between opportunities state, a professional CLA (clean lubricate and align) is a little expensive so I went to Pentax-Manuals.com downloaded the repair manual for the Asahi Pentax S3 which is the same camera as the H3. I then also downloaded another how to link on the Instructables site on how to fix a seized mirror on a Pentax Spotmatic ES.

Bear in mind the Spotmatic ES was made at least ten years later than the H3/S3 and the insides would have evolved a little bit. However combined with the S3 service manual, I have some direction.

Old Pentaxes are reasonably easy to fix, if you have steady hands and high spatial reasoning. If you have an old body you got for stupid cheap, you will get a tutorial on how a mechanical camera works.

Happy New Year and a new decade!

I hope everyone had a good holiday season. I got one neat toy for Christmas, my own 3.5 Series E Rolleiflex with the 75 f3.5 Zeiss Planar lens. So Alex's Rollei is going home soon. I am trying the new (to me)camera out tomorrow with high speed colour film no less with an interior photoshoot.

In the spirit of fresh starts here is a little shake up a photo study of downtown Toronto around Bay St. around quitting time. It was shot in early December with a Nikon Fm and a Nikkor 28 F2.8 Ai lens with Kodak Tri-x processed in Xtol 1+1.

I love doing landscapes but I think after the In the Shadow of the GTA Greenbelt project, I am doing something urban.