Bill Smith's Photography

 The Nikon F100 is a very powerful camera, and it earns the nickname of F5 lite honestly. With the 28-105 lens, you can easily head use this for travel. With the added bonus the camera using AA batteries, you won't be in the lurch when the juice runs out. Sadly the F6 went with CR123 lithium batteries so if you're in the middle of nowhere, having spares is mandatory.  In some ways my kit for my annual NLP Muskoka retreat has morphed, running with a pair of lenses, the 28-105 and the 70-210 telephoto zoom, I just shaved a ton of weight off the kit that goes into the backpack. Run with the F100 kit for colour and a Rolleiflex for black and white. Something to ponder until next year.  I still want a Nikon autofocus pro body, most likely the F5 but part of me, if a huge pile of money fell into my lap would just say fuck it, I'm only here once, get the F6 and some AF-S or G glass, I'll have to live with the lithum batteries, but if you can swing the camera financially, batte...

This is a photo heavy post, you have been warned. I wound up at the Smith family cottage on Lake Simcoe near Beaverton a few weeks ago. While I have been to Cannington multiple times, and Beaverton twice including this trip, I've never been to Morningside Cottage.  It has been in the family for a century roughly and it the current guardians are my cousins Wendy and Leslie. When I arrived, even though I've never been up here before, I felt at home and looking out onto Lake Simcoe put a big dumb grin on my face and feeling happy. The cottage itself is a classic cottage for Lake Simcoe and largely intact save for some tasteful renovations to the bathroom and kitchen along with upgraded electrical work and heating. Otherwise Morningside is the same as it was in the 1940s and '50s. If there is one downside, right across the street is Canadian National's main line between Toronto and Vancouver and  even though it's busy, after a while, you stop noticing. Consideing b...

Osgoode Hall is a Toronto landmark you can't get inside unless it's Doors Open. I've shot the exterior but the inside is spectacular for it's architecture. The complex houses courts, The Law Society of Upper Canada and was the home to Osgoode Law School which moved up to York University when it formed. I dated a woman who worked here 20 years ago (gulp, where did the time go?), it was her first job out of university and she was enamoured with the law library. I never got a chance to see it when we were together. Going through during Doors Open 2019, my first thought was, I get it now. The interior architecture is beautiful, and rumour has it, the library is haunted, didn' t see any ghosts while I was there. I plan to come back next year for Doors Open and shoot some more. Camera: Nikon FE2, Nikkor Ais 28 f2.8 lens. Film: Ilford HP5 400, HC110 B. pushed to 1600 ISO.

April in Toronto can be hit, or miss or March continued on. When I planned the photo walk at the beginning of the week, the weekend forecast called for a decent Saturday and a cold damp Sunday. Well, things got reversed and Saturday up until 2 PM was overcast and felt like March continued on. I wanted to shoot both my Leica's with Kodak Ektar 100 and Kosmo Mono 100, Saturday morning I was committed and it became a 1/125 of a second F8 kind of day. Which brings me to the choice of cameras, my Leica M3 and M4-2. Even though it has been my camera for the past 14 years I still consider it Dad's M3. I bought the M4-2 off my brother eight or nine years ago and it was a smart purchase. I'm from the school of thought even if you're a camera collector (guilty as charged), you should use your gear. Leicas for some reason in some quarters induce what could be best described as Leica derangement syndrome. People either obessesively love, loathe and in some cases fetishize thes...