Bill Smith's Photography

 I really needed a day trip the day after mom's funeral so Jo-Anne and I hopped into the car and drove up to Elora for the day. What usually took an hour became a bit of a challenge with construcion on both Trafalgar Road through Hillsborough and along Highway 6 throuh the north end of Guelph on the return trip to Oakville.  The camera of choice was my dad's Leica M3, haven't used it in a while and I wanted to travel light. I chose Adox CHS 100 II as my film for this day trip, hindsight, I should have ran with something a bit more abusable like Ilford FP4. I had some frame that just came out underexposed, and its classified as user error. Adox CHS 100 II is great film but you have to be very much on the ball when it comes to exposure from personal experience if you want the best results.  Camera: Leica M3 DS, 50 F2 Collapsable Summicron, Voightlander 35 F2.5 Color Skopar Lens.  Film: Adox CHS 100 II, FX-39 1+19.  ...

We did a great deep dive on the Classic Camera Revival with the Pentax Spotmatic, they lovely cameras to shoot with. With my day trip up to Elora I wanted some time with my Spotmatic II, it is one of those "just right" in my hands camera with amazing optics. I was blown away with what I got with Fomapan 100 processed in Rodinal 1+50 through Super Multi Coated Takumar lenses. While it was sunny in Oakville, it was a lot hazier to almost overcast up in Elora which was a bit of a disappointment, but it's April in Central Canada, what do you expect? What was a shame, the trails were iced up along with the stairs down into the Elora Gorge. Nope, I like my mobility, I'll be back in May or June. Camera: Asahi Pentax Spotmatic II, Super Multi Coated Takumar 50 f1.4 and 28 f3.5 lenses. Film: Fomapan 100, Rodinal 1+50

Compared to the older AE-1, the Canon AE-1 Program is a joy to use, and more intuitive than the A-1 which was the all bells and whistles prosumer camera in Canon's line up. Sometimes simpler is better. I really love the bright viewfinder and with the AE-1 Program, changing film speed is no longer an arthritis inducing exercise. As for shooting on a less than wonderful day in the fall, Kodak Portra 400 rocks. It has super wide latitude, personally I over expose at around 200 ISO to get the saturated look you see here. Camera: Canon AE-1 Program, FD lenses.  Film: Kodak Portra 400 

Back in mid October I went up to Elora with friends for the Fall Toronto Film Shooters meet up. We decided to head outside the GTA slightly for some fresh territory for some. I always like an excuse to head up to Elora for the day. For some shooting even if the weather was threatening rain. I also had a chance to try out a new camera. I was gifted a black Canon AE-1 Program courtesy my friend Joe Folino, a Toronto area film photographer who runs groups on Flickr, Meet Up and Facebook. The camera was in great shaped but needed some serious lubrication as it was squealing like a pig, once that was sorted out, it was  joy to use Camera: Canon AE-1 Program, FD lenses. Film: Kodak Portra 400

The Oakville Camera Club did a long awaited return to the Elora Ontario, on Mother's Day Weekend, we wound up with 10 members come up for an informal walk around and culinary tour. I love Elora as a nice day trip escape from the Golden Horseshoe. I wanted to shoot colour and ran with Agfa Vista 400 through my mid-1970s vintage Nikon F2SB. The film is cheap, you're looking about $6 Cdn per roll for 36 exposures. Now, this is not the Agfa Vista of old, this is made in Japan by everyone's guess being Fujifilm. Now I have a friend swear it's Superia 400, I don't think it is, My guess it is either rebadged Industrial 400 or a contract run through Fuji machinery. This film is a contrasty hits you in the face colour film. Portra 400 this ain't. That said depending on your subject matter's skin town and you could get a decent portrait with almost a bleach bypass feel. For shoots like this, Vista 400 is really nice, I've used it in the city on a semi-overcas...