Category Archives: history

another inexpensive German made camera

Posted on October 13, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. Post war, the photographic industry was awash with inexpensive cameras made in Europe or Japan and sold by North American distributors. An example is the Iloca line made in Hamburg, Germany. In the April 1951 issue of Popular Photography … Continue reading →

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tiny, I can see you

Posted on October 12, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. The makers of rangefinder cameras such as the Leica went to great lengths with accessories to allow the cameras to be used for any photographic project. On page 85 of the April 1951 Popular Photography magazine, Leitz NY ran … Continue reading →

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another one bites the dust

Posted on October 10, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. We were sorry to hear that we lost another magazine recently. PetaPixel carried an article on February 12, 2021 by Jaron Schneider titled, “Canadian Magazine Photo Life Has Shipped its Final Issue“. Photo Life was around for many years … Continue reading →

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Canadian Photography magazine

Posted on October 9, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. Do you remember Canadian Photography magazine? It was a skinny magazine that survived for a few years around the 1970s against the thick American magazines which had a far greater range of advertisers available plus lots of writing talent. … Continue reading →

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aunt Tilly’s camera collection

Posted on October 7, 2021 by Robert

  Toronto. Back in the 1980s, Don Douglas and I put on a dog and pony show to represent the PHSC. I did a slide show on milestones in the history of B&W photography up to the roll film era, … Continue reading →

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how to make good pictures in 1936

Posted on October 6, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. 1936, what a great year! Mind you, I wasn’t around back then, but my dad upgraded his picture taking skills to a Kodak Junior Six-20. Kodak had reached the pinnacle of the photographic industry by mid last century – … Continue reading →

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something else we no longer need …

Posted on October 5, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. Photographs taken with any metal/glass/film based positive process have to be retaken or duplicated to make an added copies. Those of us who embraced the digital era have no need for such things – the digital process creates a … Continue reading →

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through the wet-plate camera

Posted on October 4, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. Being a photographer – and a good one – in the mid 1800s took exceptional skill and a fine, artistic eye. Author Lewis Carroll (A.K.A. the reverend Chas. Dodgson) was one such person. In Bruce Downes’s column (Let’s Talk … Continue reading →

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introducing a photographer to minicams in 1938

Posted on October 2, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. When Leitz announced the Leica mid 1920s, most photographers used larger cameras and rarely needed to enlarge their negatives. In 1926, the German government arranged for Zeiss to form the mighty Zeiss-Ikon conglomerate in Dresden to rationalize the German … Continue reading →

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vive la France!

Posted on September 25, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. The title of this post is a French patriotic expression. When Charlie De Gaulle visited Quebec in 1967, He used a similar expression on the Montreal City Hall balcony (the slogan of the Quebec independence movement) irritating the hell … Continue reading →

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