Bill Smith's Photography

  I haven't shot with one of my Minolta XD-11's in ages. It's a platform some shooters looking for a feature rich manual focus camera that's intuitive to use. In the late 1970s the Canon A1 was the all singing all dancing manual focus camera for those who weren't interested in getting an F-1. Sadly the A-1 had ergonomics that were, really Canon. The Nikon FE, Pentax K2 and Olympus OM-2n were only apterture priority. Minolta had the great leap forward with the XD-11 which had both aperture and shutter priority with the MD Rokkor lens range in a package that was intuitive to use. Leica used the XD platform for their post Leicaflex R series of cameras. Sadly you can't mount MD Rokkor lenses on the R4,5,6 and 7 models.  If there's one camera system I would recommend if you are on a bit of a bit of a budget is the Minolta XD-7/11, granted the electronics could get flaky but we're talking cameras 40 years and older. That said if you find an fully operational c...

I was pleasantly surprised to see Colin and Jenn come up from Metro NYC and the Toronto Film Shooters Facebook Group Summer Meet Up became an informal Film Shooters Collective photo walk. It is one thing to meet people online within the context of a Facebook Group, it is much better to meet them in person. I hope at some point I meet other members of the Film Shooters Collective. The Toronto Film Shooters have a great itinerary of outings in the works including the second Classic Camera Revival Meet Up in September over in Cambridge Ontario and a little insider information The Toronto Film Shooters have their fall outing slated for Toronto Island sometime in October. Camera: Minolta XD11, MD Rokkor X 50 f1.7 lens. Film: Rollei Retro 400S, HC110 B.

I haven't been to Niagara on the Lake in 18 years. In fact, save for my earlier sojourn to test out my roll of Ferrania P30 in Port Dalhousie, I haven't been to the Niagara region in about five years or so. I packed relatively light with my Minolta XD11 and went with Rollei Retro 400S film due to the overcast skies. Niagara on the Lake is a tourist town with the Shaw Theatre Festival being one of the main draws along with agritourism with established wineries and a growing number of craft breweries opening up. What shocked me was how busy the down was on a Saturday afternoon with less than wonderful weather. It made even street photography a challenge. We met up at The Exchange Brewery (worth the drive if you're into craft beer the #7 White IPA is super yummy) and we had a small group, traffic was downright evil on the QEW and a pleasant surprise. Colin Poellot and Jennifer Zehner from the Film Shooters Collective decided at the spur of the moment to road trip up from ...