Bill Smith's Photography

 My luck with photo walk weather hit a wall this time around. The January thaw occoured and instead of snow, we got light rain, sorta, kinda mixed with snow. It was a smaller group this month thank you to both the awful weather, and Line 1 being closed from St. Clair Station northward for track work. That said awful weather gets you some decent photos.  I wound up rolling with just the Nine Element 28 F2.8 lens from Light Lens Labs on my Leica M6. I wanted a combination that can handle the more gloomy light. I also used Rollei RPX 400 at box speed, hindsight I should have pushed a stop. All in all, it was a good walk.  Camera: Leica M6 Classic, Light Lens Lab Nine Element 28 f2.8 lens.  Film: Rollei RPX 400, Rollei Supergrain Developer 1+15. 

 Mid walk back in December  I switched to Eastman XX I usually roll with two rolls of the same emulsion on a photowalk but forgot and only packed the one roll I shot. After developing and scanning the Eastman XX roll, and wow, and I like the results more than Kodak Tri-X. Over the course of the roll we transition from bright light to overcast to downright miserable, the results still delivered.   Like Tri-X, Eastman XX cups after it dries, you can either reverse the film for a week or, flatten with a heavy photography themed coffee table book. I'm willing to put up with that because Eastman XX has a high silver content as a motion picture stock compared to still film.  The other thing with this roll, I got a chance to shoot more with the Light Lens Lab 9 Element 28 F2.8 lens is very fun to shoot with. With the M6 framelines, shooting is really easy, you don't need an external viewfinder.  Camera: Leica M6 Classic, 50 f2 Summicron Lens, Light Lens Lab 9 element 2...