Bill Smith's Photography

Spring has been slow to launch this year, these photos were shot two weeks ago and you can still see a pile of melting snow/slush. Thankfully it is a lot warmer today. I love shooting in the financial district, a number of older downtown office towers are being renovated by their owners which adds to the texture in the photographs. I'm making an effort to shoot more medium format and I reaching for my twin lens reflex cameras exclusively, namely my Rolleicords and Rolleiflex. There's something about shooting from a slightly different perspective and a near silent shutter along with the outstanding optics. I guess that's why I haven't picked up my Hasselblad system since 2016. It's time to review what I have and make some changes, the 500 C/M system not getting used and I would love another Rolleiflex, a 2.8 Planar or Xenotar to compliment my current 3.5 E Planar. For now, I have to start researching what the current market value is for my Hassie gear and what...

A wander around the financial district late in the afternoon in mid September. Camera: Asahi Pentax MX, SMC Pentax 50 f2 lens. Film: Ilford HP5 400, and Rollei RPX 400 processed in  HC110 B.

I own three Canon F-1's, a pair from the mid 1980s and an early example from my guess 1971 or '72. Now the early Canon F-1 had this mystery light leak that was driving me nuts and testing the patience of my camera repair tech in Hamilton. We finally figured out what the problem was, there's a gasket between the focusing screen and the mirror box, well some repair tech forgot to put it back in, figured that out after four ruined rolls of film. Now for the test drive, I took the camera in with me last Thursday in the afternoon before an IABC/Toronto panel discussion on trends in interactive design. The F-1 is a great camera, also a heavy one too especially mated with the FD 35 f2 lens. I'm not complaining because the problem's solved. Yay!! The other thing I did is play around with Bergger BRF 400, to date I have been processing it in HC110, I get good results but curly negatives. This time out I used D76 1+1 (one part developer stock solution, other part water) ...

I finally found a black Nikon FE2 and I love shooting with it. Also on a whim, I picked up ten rolls of Rollei RPX 400 a panchromatic black and white film from Germany with the attributes and developing times of Agfa APX 400 but without curly negatives. I really like the tones I'm getting from this film. I am processing in HC110 B at 20c for six minutes straight and I'm happy with what I got. The FE2 is a dream to shoot with, it looks very much like the Nikon FM2 but has an electronic shutter instead as a result the metering is different and you have exposure compensation. Since I have a chrome FM2n makes sense to get a black FE2. Camera: Nikon FE2, Nikkor Ais 50 f1.8 lens. Film: Rollei RPX 400, HC110 B.