Bill Smith's Photography

I got my black Olympus OM-2n back from John Hermansonn of Zuiko.com fame, the meter was jumpy and that got fixed with an overhaul. The camera now shoots better than new and will get a lot of use this year. If you are a single digit  Olympus OM shooter, in particular the OM-2(n), 3(Ti) and 4(Ti), Zuiko.com is pretty much the only game in North America I'm aware that can fix these cameras to factory specs. Even with the Canadian dollar hovering around .75 USD when I paid for my overhaul, it was worth every penny. Now I want to share an urban gem in Toronto, the city of ravines, it starts in Craigleith Gardens in Rosedale and tracks northwest towards St. Clair and Mt Pleasant Cemetery further beyond. The Park Dr. Reserve lands and David A. Balfour Park along Yellow Creek cuts between Rosedale and Moore Park with a natural oasis in the middle of the city. Now if you're truly ambitious, you can cut through the cemetery and pick up the Kay Gardiner Beltway park and walk all the w...

I'll let the pictures to the talking. Camera: Olympus OM-4, Zuiko 28 f2.8 lens, Film: Kodak Tri-X 400, HC110 B.

Experimenting with a Bay I Rolleinar I close up lens attachments and I love the results. All shot with my Rolleicord IV with Kodak Ektar 100 colour film.

A continuation of the last post with my Beach photowalk last Saturday. I really like the below shot, the woman looks like she is confounded by choice with the Kew Beach Park Xmas tree lot. They do sell some of the nicest trees in the city and if I did not have an allergy to whatever rides along with fir, pine or spruce I would have a real tree from here in my living room.

Old Slides from the Archives I dug into the archives recently and re-scanned some material I shot four years ago during the Analog Photography Users Group Conference in Toronto. Over 300 hard core film photographers specializing in different subject areas descended down on Elevator Labs in Leaside for four days of seminars and workshops. I participated in the Sunrise and a day later street photography workshops, taking away a lot in terms of knowledge. I have landscape photographer Robert Teague to thank for enlightening me to the joys of Fuji Velvia 100. I shot with an Olympus OM-1 for the whole conference and the Epson V500 does wonders in scanning the slides. The rusty truck was shot at the Distillery District and the remaining photos were taken at Humber Bay Park way too early in the morning in May 2006.

The Magic Image This is not a perfect image, it's not totally razor sharp but I love it. I wanted to give the impression you are on Bay St. downtown Toronto in the middle of the crowd and I nailed it. I used my last roll of Efke 50 in my Leica M3, the perfect film/camera combo. I can hand hold at slow shutter speeds and I get a really cool vintage look because the manufacturing process with Efke films has not changed in 50 years.

Kodak Tri-x 400 is one of those legacy black and white films that can be used for most photographic situations. What I like about it is you can push (deliberately underexpose) up to 3200 ISO and get a decent negative with stand development with Rodinal Developer . The images below were shot on a Nikon FE2 I re-sealed for my brother and I wanted to test it out. The roll of Tri-x was exposed at 3200 and processed in 1:100 Rodinal so if I was mixing up a 500ml solution it would have 5ml of Rodinal concentrate. I stand developed for two hours starting off with 30 seconds of gentle agitation and after that three gentle agitations every half hour. The solution temperature was at 20c, give or take a degree. The biggest mistake people do when using this combination is over agitating the tank full of developer or being too aggressive with the agitation. That will introduce a lot of grain which most times you don't want. This is my go to combination for doing event photography for my IABC ch...

Welcome to Spring! I took advantage to shoot in the city for a change after a fine winter of skiing and wandering around the Forks of the Credit. I find with spending time away from Toronto, I get to see it differently when I return. Some neighbourhoods I have over photographed and need a break, the best example being Kensington Market. I love midtown Toronto and if I had move into the city from Oakville, I would give this part of the city some very strong consideration. The first photo was shot on the way in at the mouth of the Humber River, I love this bridge as a photo subject. For this set I used my Nikon FM with the Nikkor Ai 28 f2.8 lens, shot Fomapan 200 and processed it in Rodinal at 1:50.