Bill Smith's Photography

I haven't wandered around downtown Burlington since last year. My favourite camera store Burlington Camera reopened and after picking up some colour negatives that were processed I went for a little photo walk and Americano at Tamp Coffee on Brant St. Conpared to my stomping grounds of Southeast and Downtown Oakville, Burlington's downtown has a totally different vibe, and taking a good long look at this town it has a couple of decent pizza joints, two independent book stores (one new, another used),  Burlington Camera (no brainer) and a good craft brewery with two others not that far away in Hamilton next door. What's not to like?  I was shooting with one of my Canon New F-1's and Lomography Kino Berlin 400, the new formulation, which for those in the know is respooled ORWO N74 400 motion picture stock. I like this film better in 35mm than in 120 format, sounds heretical but I was fighting newton rings when scanning my results from the Texas Leica over March Break. Ber...

By the mid 1970s, the Nikkormat was showing its age. Built like tank, you could use it as a defensive weapon if you ran out of film but other companies like Canon were embracing plastics with their AE-1, and Olympus with their OM-1 embraced a compact design. With the introduction with the automatic indexing F mount in 1977 eliminating the need for the "indexing shuffle" Nikon was making a leap forward in camera design, only, the FM and FE weren't quite ready. The Nikkormat FT3 model which was the same as the FT2 but with the improved lens mount. I was given this camera at a Toronto Film Shooters photowalk a year and a half ago, I think, time is losing meaning at this point by my friend and Classic Camera Revival co-host Alex Luyckx. It had a jumpy meter, fast forward to late winter/early spring,  I managed to fix the meter with some electrical contact lubricant called DeOxit on the ring resistor. It's not a permanent fix but I have a lifetime supply of this lubric...

I did a photowalk on my last day in the Beaches with my friend and fellow Classic Camera Revival co host John Meadows   and we wound up talking what might happen if the pandemic were to get worse, well, next week, it did. but what are you going to do but keep at least 6'/two metres away. We also talked about the photography community, doesn't matter the medium film, or digital is on the front line documenting history what happened just before and now during the great shut down. During this dark time and I'll be pushing this, support your local indie businesses that have e-commerce portals, in particular camera stores when possible. I know Downtown Camera in Toronto as of writing this (it might and most likely will change) is still doing mail order colour processing. I plan to send a few rolls to them for development and order some film as well. I'm also re-sealing a new to me black Olympus OM-1n, more on that in a later blog post. Don't worry I still have plenty ...