Bill Smith's Photography

 I don't get down to the Beaches as often as I used to, with Marcus and Charlotte now in their 20s and late teens respectively and that means my house and dog sitting services aren't required any more, safe for the annual trip.  That said what is fun is visting the Beaches Winter Stations mostly along Woodbine Beach, they are designed by architectural students from Canada and abroad and act are built in late January and come down at the end of March. The Toronto Camera Club put a meet up together to go photograph them and it was a fun afternoon. I finished the roll of Fomapan 100 just wandering the neighbourhood.  Camera: Nikon F3/T, Nikkor AIS 50 F1.8 lens.  Film: Fomapan 100, Rollei Supergrain 1+15. 

 Light Lens Lab is a dangerous web site for me. They specialize in in recreating classic Leica thread mount and M mount lenses, mostly from the Leica back catalogue, but the more unique and earlier lenses from the M mount era like the 9 element 28 F2.8 Elmarit and 8 element 35 F2 Summicron from the early 1960s along with the rare, and I mean rare made in Midland Ontario Elcan 50 F2.  So why by a note for note recreation of a Leica 50 F2 Rigid Summicron from the cusp of the 1960s? There's plenty of used examples out there for, just a bit more than the Light Lab 50 Rigid. In human years, the OG Leica glass will be ready to quality for the Canada Pension Plan/Old Age Security, and sadly the original front elements and lens coatings are about as durable as chalk, and finding a perfect 50 F2 Rigid Summicron from say 1959 is getting harder each year.  Shooting with the 50 F2 Rigid on my Leica M5 seems to be a perfect marriage. Having shot with the Dual Range and Collapsible Sum...