Classic Camera Revival

Matt's back! Yes, local camera builder, inventor and overall mad scientist, Matt Bechberger joins John and James to discuss his process on building homebrew cameras and what bits and pieces that make the best parts from broken and non-functioning cameras that help in his methods and spare parts bin.

Comrades! It's the return of the Communist Camera Revival and we have a bit of different episode today, Alex sits down with three fellow photographers to talk about all aspects of Photographic industry that grew in the USSR and the Soviet Bloc from the 1920s to the final collapse in 1991. And more importantly what you can still get and find today from Cameras to Film. And the surprising fact that there is a lot of stuff out there that is still new in box and is not as bad as a lot of people think. Don't believe the propaganda folks, the revolution will be podcasted. If you're wondering why the October Revolution is being published in November, that's because if you look at the actual date of the October Revolution is took place on the 7th of November (one week ago) in 1917, but according to the Julian Calendar was on the 25th of October. The October Revolution or Red October marked the opening of the Russian Civil War.

Despite everything, the past couple of years have been wonderful for film photography. Both with films being reintroduced like Kodak E100 and a new version of Fuji Acros (Fuji Acros 100 II). Plus you have folks like Lomography re-rolling iconic motion picture films ORWO UN54 (Potsdam) and N74 (Berlin) and there's the new production level run of FilmFerrania P30. You have Ilford introducing Ortho Copy as Ortho Plus in 120 and 35mm formats, it's been a good year! And today we are again joined by the awesome Jess Hobbs!

While often seen as boring, generic, and nothing special, Mamiya cameras are a favourite among the entire CCR crew, especially their medium format offerings. Alex, James, John, and Bill are joined by a pair of amazing photographers and YouTubers Aly and Jess to discuss their favourite Mamiya cameras! Today's episode features, the Mamiya C220, Mamiya Universal, Mamiya RB67, Mamiya m645, Mamiya 645 Pro, and Mamiya 645 AF-D!

These days distance is the name of the game, but what lens can you slap on your camera, well we at CCR have come up with four options that will help you go long! Join John, James, Bill and Alex in the studio today as we talk about four amazing telephoto lenses! The underrated Zeiss Sonar 250mm f/5.6 for the Hasselblad V system, the iconic Nikkor 105/2.5, the mighty Micro-Nikkor 200/4 and the surprising Maxxum 100/2.8 MACRO!

It's always fun to riff off a camera after shooting with it for the first time while we've done this theme before we're now on our third part of the challenge. But this time we're adding another twist. This time the camera provider has also loaded the camera up with a specific film stock with the only thing being known to the shooter is the film speed! The cameras featured in today's episode include the Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 521, Yashica YF, Voigtlander Bessa T, and the Minolta X-570!

In a continuation from the last episode, Bill and James are again joined by Marwan from SilverGrain Classics. In today's episode, we'll be talking about the cameras that disrupted Leica's little kingdom of Rangefinders, the SLR. And the fact that despite not wanting anything to do with them, Lecia would be forced kicking and screaming into the SLR market with mixed results.

Join Bill, James, and Marwan (of SilverGrain Classics) as they discuss the first of two episodes focusing on Leica cameras. In the first part we discuss the whole history of the iconic M-Series of rangefinders from the classic M3 to the modern MP and M-A cameras and everything in between!

If there's one thing that is certain in the day of interconnectivity and social media, film photographers tend to find each other and today Bill sits down with one of those connections, Aly from the Blog and YouTube Channel, Aly's Vintage Camera Alley. Bill and Aly talk on the subject of camera collecting, film photography, and more!

James sits down with Neil Piper of the Soot & Whitewash Photography Podcast for an in-depth discussion on his photography journey.  The pair discuss Neil’s perspective on art and photography and Project Box Camera.  Not focused on any camera(s) in particular, this episode is truly out of the box!

In our second part of our isolation podcasts, Alex discusses the Nikon FM and Nikon FE, two cameras that came out in the aftermath of the Olympus OM-System. The history behind these cameras, how they compare and their use in the field. Also, we welcome long time member of the Toronto Film Shooters Meetup and member of the Mississauga Leatherworkers Guild Mr Mark Rossi to discuss his own leatherworking business and the creation of Due North Leather. Due North, as you may know, is producing fine leather camera straps for a reasonable cost!

After our recent shelf queen episode (in which John spoke about his non-functioning Stereo Realist), John heard from listener Howard M. Sandler, who it turns out is quite the expert on Stereo Photography! We thought a deep dive into Stereo would be in order, and John was very happy to have Howard as a guest for this Stereo excursion. Below is an example of Howard's stereo work. Howard was also kind enough to provide a treasure trove of links on the topic (listed below), so dive in! Howard's stereo photos (mostly film, but not exclusively. Almost all presented in parallel viewing format) https://www.flickr.com/photos/hsandler/albums/72157674884839827     One of many stereo groups on flickr (images in a variety of viewing formats. There are also groups for specific viewing formats) https://www.flickr.com/groups/stereoimages/pool/     London Stereoscopic Co. They sell a good viewer for parallel images (the Owl viewer) and publish a gallery of good stereo pairs each month (Full disclosure: Howard has an imag

Bill, Alex, and Alex sit down and discuss the awesome but frustrating icon of a camera, the Rollei 35!

Alex and John sit down with Jason Lane to discuss Dry Plate Photography, his love of the format that drove him to produce modern dry plates and a modern holder to allow photographers to enjoy this 19th century format that helped popularise photography.

Sometimes a camera breaks and we can't get it fixed, but we don't want to get rid of it either, so they just sit on our shelves looking pretty or in pieces. The gang also talks about getting your camera repaired.

There are some terrible cameras out there, but sometimes a camera that has a huge following and produces some amazing images. And several of these cameras are owned or rather were owned by members of the team, but they just didn't fit our style. These cameras often sit on our shelves just not used anymore, they're part of the lonely camera band.

Here at the Classic Camera Revival, we are big fans of getting things done ourselves! We love to process our own film, but today we're talking about two different things the first is creating your own photo 'zine or book and we have our special guest Matt who takes things a lot further and builds his own cameras.

We're here to take that leap from the lion's mouth and seek out that camera that we've been wanting. So today the gang discusses the cameras that they had been lusting after and either got, still looking for, or accidentally sold off. 

While we could do an entire episode on one of the world's most under-rated, hidden gem cameras out there, the Nikon F90(x). It's a camera we've talked about so much before we just had to take out several other cameras that need a little more limelight. On today's episode, we'll be covering the Zenit E, Pentax Espio 115m, Canon EF, Voigtlander Vito, and the Yashica T4!

We all need that little bit extra, that extra stop, that extra degree. For that, we pick up the heavy hitters, the big glass in our camera kits. If you're someone who is an ultra-wide junky (Lens 24mm or wider) or wants only a sliver of your frame in focus (Lenses with apertures at f/1.4 or faster), this episode is for you!