Bill Smith's Photography

  Finally, shot my last roll of Ilford Delta 100, took long enough, going forward I'm shooting Ilford FP4 125 as prefer cubic over T grain. Thought I shot it all, apparently this roll was hiding in one of my camera bags. It was a nice day so the film wound up in my recently returned Nikon FM3a, the meter while accurate needed some encouragement to turn on like firing the shutter, or slapping the side of the camera. Now the meter triggers how it's supposed to with a FM/FE series body.  The FM3a of course was the perfect camera to roll with on this day trip running with the 28, 50 and 105 lens kit. Yeah, the FM3a was the best film camera of the early 21st century and it was a shame it got discontinued when it did.  Camera: Nikon FM3a, Nikkor Ais lenses.  Film: Ilford Delta 100, Ilfotec HC 1+31. 

 Ever have one of those weekends where you get a big scare only to have things turn out well in the end? Jo-Anne had that weekend when we day tripped up to St. Jacobs on a warm and muggy August Saturday. We parked in the north end of town and went for coffee. Jo-Anne realized her wallet wasn't in her camera bag/purse. She went back to my car, nope, didn't fall out inside the car. Jo-Anne thought she might have left the wallet at my place, no, it wasn't there. The wallet indeed fell out, but onto the ground under my car.  A good samartian noticed it, took the wallet with him and called Jo-Anne and we stopped by his place in Kitchener on the way home and got her wallet back.  Jo-Anne was on edge all day and understandably so. I remember driving to the gym once only to realize once I got there, I left my wallet at home, I know that feeling too well. Don't want to repeat it thank you. All that said it was a nice if muggy day in St. Jacobs.  Camera: Olympus OM-1md, Zuiko ...

  Classic Camera Revival has an annual Mystery Camera Challenge and I usually wind up with a camera that either has super odd ergonomics or just flat out quits on me. This year I wound up with a plastic brick of a camera from the 1990s call the Minolta Weathermatic. It is an auto everything camera, it chooses the shutter speed and aperture, all I can do choose between 35mm or 50mm focal lengths and how I can compose the image. I can't even set the ISO.  In hindsight while the Weathermatic defaults to 100 ISO, I should have run with a roll of Fomapan 100 instead a bulk loaded roll of Ilford Delta 100. The negatives, the vast majority of then were super dense but could be rescued during the scanning process. The end results were on the lo-fi and dreamy side but I got photos. The Weathermatic from where I'm sitting isn't meant to be used underwater but during the shittiest weather you can throw at it or when ran a foam machine at a rave. it was interesting having all the the d...