Bill Smith's Photography

 Haven't shot medium format much this year, just how life shakes out. If I'm headed to Jo-Anne's I'm more inclined to shoot a 35mm SLR or rangefinder because, it's just easier. Shooting original Fujifilm Neopan Acros 100 through one of my Rolleiflexes was a nice change of pace. Damn the tonality with Acros is something else. I can see why my friend James Lee has a walk in freezer full of the stuff.  Another part of this post is a cautionary tale, it was my brithday last week and I got a birthday present no photographer ever wants to get. A short story, I was running with Lightroom 5, an owned copy that first saw life on my Macbook Pro many moons ago. I kept it when everyone else long went onto the Creative Cloud train, figuring I would upgrade when I retire this iMac I'm currently on next year.  Well, the day before my birthday Lightroom 5 crashed like a Zeppelin into a New Jersey farm field. Figured ok, I'll do a restore from back up. Nope. Since Lighroom 5...

 Leftover negatives from last July, just got around to scanning them now and I'm still not a huge fan of Kodak Tmax 100. If I want super smooth, I'll take Fuji Neopan Acros 100 in 120 any day of the week.  Camera: Rolleiflex Series 3.5 E Planar Twin Lens Reflex Camera.  Film: Kodak Tmax 100, HC110 B. 

New film, yes it's really a new emulsion, coated and finished somewhere, we just don't know where. The who behind this is CatLabs of JP camera store in Massachusetts just outside of Boston, and they commissioned a new film that has the look of the long departed Kodak Panatomic X into a new emulsion that is relatively faster at 80 ISO as opposeed to the original's 32 ISO. The news behind Film 80 X crossed my news feeds via Instagram as I follow the store and they up a shot of a bunch 120 rolls of the film. I had to order 10 rolls to see what the fuss is about. First off Film 80 X is available in any film format as long as it's 120. Medium format shooters will be really happy. I put a roll through my Rolleiflex on a super sunny early May Sunday afternoon and photographed around Oakville's waterfront. I shot at box speed and processed in Ilford's ID-11 with a 1+1 dillution for 15 minutes along with a four minute presoak all at 20c. I was blown away. I recentl...

I don't shoot slide often, last year I grabbed a box of Fuji Provia 100 for kicks and giggles, Kodak's Ektachrome 100 wasn't released yet in 35mm. I shot two rolls up North and had my friend James process them. Fast forward to this spring, I went up with my friend John Meadows from Classic Camera Revival and The Toronto Film Shooters to Elora to wander around. The trails were still super icy so our wanderings were almost exclusively in town. I loaded my Rolleiflex with Fuji Provia 100 slide film. By the time we got up there, the skies became overcast and hindsight being 20/20 I should have rolled with Kodak Portra 400, I went with what I loaded and I'm happy with what I got This time out I sent the slide film away to be processed to Borealis Photo Lab in Montreal because there's no one in Toronto is processing slide film in volume with a dip and dunk line. I want to thank Rachel Labreche and her team for doing a fabulous job on my slides and if you are looking...

My friend James offered to process my slide film and I took him up on the offer, he owns a Jobo Processor and I know the end results would be great. Well, there was a teachable moment along the way. James lives up in Milton, and Milton draws it's municipal water from wells and is as hard as a granite countertop. That is the chemical wrench in E-6 processing. All my slide film came out almost a stop or two underexposed and there was some serious rescue work done in Lightroom. James apologized profusely, turned out he usually uses distilled water mixing up E-6 chemicals only this time used tap water. I  get it because that is the same exact blunder I would do on autopilot. So the teachable moment, if you're processing your slides at home, either 1) use distilled water or 2) invest in a water softener. Hard water does a number on the dye couplers so some colour channels are over represented and others under represented. I also had a roll of Velvia 100 and Provia 100 in 35mm pro...

There's a story, I wanted to shoot some slide film through my Rollei on my long weekend trip. A friend with a Jobo processer and E-6 Processing kit offered to develop my two rolls of Provia. Hey why not? Well, my friend, where he lives has very hard municipal tap water, and makes the slide film look like it was under exposed by two stops. So, no beautiful shots of downtown Cannington or of Billie Bear Resort on a Sunny Saturday morning on medium format slide film. Ok, I still have two rolls of Ilford HP5, I processed one in HC110 Dilution B, a bog standard developer and developing time. Well, HC110 is a robust developer that keeps for long time, and delivers. The first roll was that time I found out HC110 is great until it's not, I lost a roll. Ok, the other roll was processed in Tmax Developer and here are the results. Camera: Rolleiflex Series E 3.5 Planar Twin Lens Reflex Camera Film: Ilford HP5 400, Tmax Dev 1+4.