Tag Archives: Agfa

trying to climb aboard the amateur photo express

Posted on April 23, 2022 by Robert

Toronto. Talk about bad timing! This ad for a cheap Agfa camera “made in U.S.A.” appears in the July 1941 issue of Popular Mechanics. A few months later in December of that year, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and the … Continue reading →

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lousy timing

Posted on December 22, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. Ansco and its predecessors and future companies tried hard as number two to be better than Kodak in films, papers, cameras etc. In the 1920s, known as Agfa-Ansco, the company built a massive factory which went into production the … Continue reading →

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it’s home to print we go …

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. For about the last half of the last century I enjoyed doing darkroom work and processing of both negatives and prints. In the 1960s and 70s, this included colour processing using paper and chemistry of the day. And beginning … Continue reading →

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a loopy idea

Posted on January 4, 2021 by Robert

Toronto. I show three magnifier loupes at the left. The first is a Taylor, Taylor, Hobson brass loupe used in the late 1800s to focus a lens on the massive old field/studio cameras so that the subject was sharp on … Continue reading →

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more than one way …

Posted on June 19, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. … to skin a cat, as the old saying goes. Film was no different. Kodak touted its 126 film size (35mm sans traditional sprocket holes and paper backed) Kodapak for its instamatic cameras eliminating the “klutzy” confusion of loading and … Continue reading →

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tanks for de memories …

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Robert

Toronto. In the days of film, exposure created a latent image, invisible to the eye. A chemical reaction to a hand full of chemicals, including at least one which converted and clumped silver halide molecules exposed to light into metallic … Continue reading →

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let’s see what develops

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Robert

Toronto, Ahaaa! Those were the days! You guarded your paltry few shots as if your life depended on them. Why take a dozen and choose the best one when with care and framing you could take and use a single … Continue reading →

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sliding into focus

Posted on January 29, 2019 by Robert

Toronto. As we casually view the colour images on front of our smartphones, we may forget the long torturous route taken from crude monochrome glass slides projected on a sheet or screen in a darkened room to 35mm or 2×2 … Continue reading →

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Ansco color ad 1947

Posted on February 22, 2018 by Robert

Toronto. George Dunbar sent me this November 10th, 1947 LIFE magazine ad on Ansco Color. In the late 1950s I chose Ansco (called Anscochrome by then) transparencies for the colour photographs I would take while on assignment in Labrador since … Continue reading →

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A drum you can’t beat

Posted on August 7, 2017 by Robert

Toronto. Yesterday I mentioned some darkroom stuff being auctioned this November. One of the items is a dark plastic tube with odd end caps. In the 1970s, colour chemistry was both expensive and short lived. The amateur photographer of the … Continue reading →

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