Bill Smith's Photography

Even when it's utterly miserable, you can still find some decent photographs waiting to happen..... Camera: Canon New F-1, FDn 50 f1.4 lens. Film: Kodak Tri-X 400, HC110 B.

I haven't shot with my Canon New F-1 in a while, in fact I have two of them. My New F-1 with the eye level prism about as reliable as it gets. I bought it off my brother ages ago along with some FD lenses when I expanded my Canon FD kit. Yes this Nikon fan boy loves shooting Canon FD on occasion too. I then bought a second Canon New F-1 body with the AE prism so I actually can use aperture priority. The New F-1 was Canon's answer to the Nikon F3, it feels solid in the hand and quite inutitive. Sadly the New F-1 AE needs another trip to a repair tech due to a small meter glitch, well not really the meter but a tiny diapharm that covers the manual focus meter when AE is in play, t is now coverning 95% of the manual meter mode when I'm in manual. Why oh why didn't Canon just go with something along the lines of Nikon FE(2) or Pentax K2 in terms of metering, or even Minolta with the XD series? There's a reason why Nikon ruled the pro body market with F3HP and this is...

Today's winter sky is pale pewter...... Nikon FM, Nikkor Ais 24 f2.8 lens. Film: Fomapan 400, ID-11 1+1.

One of my favourite cheap black and white films is Fomapan 400, if you shop smart you can find it around $7 CAD online. The film sometimes gets a bad rap, I don't know why, I get great results, you just have to figure out what the true film speed is with different developers. With HC110, D76 or Ilford's clone ID-11, the film clocks in at 200-250 ISO. In Tmax developer which is a compensating developer, Fomapan 400 becomes a 400 ISO film. Camera: Nikon FM, Nikkor Ai and Ais lenses. Film: Fomapan 400, ID-11 1+1.

A timeless combination with camera and lens. Rollei RPX 400 as a black and white film sings on sunny winter days. Camera: Nikkormat FTn, Nikkor S 50 f1.4 lens. Film: Rollei RPX 400, RPX D 1+11.

Vivitar was a photo marketing company founded in 1938 under the original name Ponder and Best that made and sold photographic and optical equipment. From the 1960s onwards marketed third party lenses and in the 1970s the 283 flash which I affectionately call the sledgehammer due to the amount of power it had. While Vivitar focused its efforts on the enthusiast market, they put some serious research and development money on the Series One line aimed at the professional market. The most popular lens was the 70-210 F3.5 Macro zoom available in Nikkor, Canon FD, Olympus OM, Minolta MC/MD, Pentax M42, and K mount and I think Konica too. The first version of this lens was made by Kino Precision/Kiron Optical of Japan. Sadly as time went on and Vivitar changed suppliers, their Series One line got degraded through cost-cutting in the engineering process. Today's Vivitar Series One shouldn't be touched with a barge pole. I love this lens. They generally can be found for under $100 ...

Nikkormats are fun cameras to shoot worth, built like tanks the way Nikon used to make them with Olympus OM-1 ergonomics. What I love about them? The cold won't stop Nikkormats, even during Polar Vortex temperatures that make people cry and the camera is the same as I am, old enough to know better but still deliver the goods. Yes, there's no snow on the ground, these photos were taken before both dumps of snow. in the past three weeks. The first few weeks of January was more like November with a wicked windchill in Southern Ontario. Camera: Nikkormat FTN, Nikkor S 50 f1.4 lens, Nikkor N 24 f2.8 lens. Film: Rollei RPX 400, RPX D 1+11.

By the end of this walk, we were glad to get to the Rebel House to thaw out and have lunch. Camera: Nikon FM, Nikkor Ai 50 f1.4 lens, Film: Kodak Tri-X pushed to 1600, HC110 B.