Blog – Jim Sollows Photography

New Service Announcement

I’m excited to announce our new Black and White Film Developing service here in Fort Langley

If you have been shooting black and white film in the Fraser Valley, you already know the challenge. Colour film is easy because several local retailers will take it. Black and white is different. Most of the time your roll gets shipped off to a custom lab in Vancouver. It is slow, it is expensive, and your film disappears into a system where you never quite know who is handling it.

I have heard the same story from photographers again and again.

“I love shooting B/W, but getting it developed is such a hassle.”

So I decided to do something about it.

I am excited to offer black and white film developing right here in Fort Langley. Everything is done by hand in a professional darkroom with the same care and attention I have brought to film for more than fifty years.

Every roll is processed individually by hand, no shortcuts. Just traditional darkroom technique, controlled chemistry, and the kind of consistency that comes from experience.

Whether you shoot 35mm, 120, or 4×5 large format, I can process it. I also handle vintage, expired, and unusual film sizes using tray or dip and dunk methods. These are the same techniques photographers used long before minilabs existed.

Fast Turnaround and High Quality Scans

Unless you request develop only service, your film is scanned and delivered electronically in JPEG or TIFF format. Standard scans are 4000×3000. High resolution and wet scanning options are available for photographers who want every last bit of detail.

Negatives are sleeved and ready for pickup. I aim for a 24 to 48 hour turnaround depending on workload.

Why I Am Offering This

Film photography is alive and well in our community. I see it every day. People walking around Fort Langley with old Nikons, Hasselblads, and Pentaxes. Students discovering film for the first time. Parents dusting off cameras they inherited. Artists returning to the slower and more deliberate pace of analog.

But the infrastructure has not kept up. Black and white film deserves better than being shipped across the region for processing.

This service is my way of keeping the craft alive locally. It makes film developing easier, more accessible, and more personal for anyone who loves the look and feel of traditional photography.

How to Submit Your Film

If you would like to have film processed, contact me directly. I will provide the drop off location, the current turnaround time, and a simple order form to include with your rolls.

Mail in service is also available for photographers across Canada.

A Final Thought

Black and white film has a magic all its own. It is timeless, expressive, and honest. It rewards patience and intention. And it deserves to be handled with care.

I am looking forward to working with local photographers whether you are shooting your first roll or your thousandth. Keeping this beautiful medium alive in our corner of the Fraser Valley is something I am proud to support.

If you have questions or want to talk film, feel free to reach out. I am always happy to chat photography.

You can find more details on the Film Development section of our website.

1909 Kodak 3A a Second Chance

A 117 Year Old Camera, a Roll of Expired Film, and a Second Chance

Every now and then an email lands in your inbox that makes you stop what you are doing. A few months back, a family reached out after cleaning out their attic. They had found an old camera, and not the charming kind of old. This one looked like it was destined for the local landfill. It was a mildew covered box that creaked when they tried to open it. They were ready to throw it out but hesitated. Maybe someone might want it. They did some digging online and found a few news stories and articles that led to me. They reached out, and eventually the camera ended up on my workbench.

It turned out to be a Kodak 3A from around 1909, but it had seen better days. In fact, I regretfully did not even bother to take before photos because everything about it suggested a lost cause.

A Camera Built for Postcards

The Kodak 3A is a funny piece of history. Kodak introduced it in 1903 and kept it around until the early 1910s. Its whole purpose was simple and clever. It was designed to make postcard sized negatives. Kodak sold paper that was light sensitive on one side and pre printed as a postcard on the other. You could shoot, develop, contact print, and mail your own postcards. No enlarger needed and no complicated darkroom work.

It was not a camera for photographers. It was a camera for people. Travellers, explorers, business folks on the road. A close cousin of this model even made it to the South Pole with the Scott Amundsen expeditions.

This one carries patent dates up to 1909, so that is what I am calling it. A 1909 survivor.

The Restoration

When it arrived on my bench, it looked tired, and that is being kind. The leather case was covered in green mildew. The aperture blades were stuck. The shutter barely moved. The leather bellows was black with dirt and felt like old cardboard that might break if you breathed on it. Everything needed attention.

The first question with any folding camera is the bellows. If they are full of pinholes, you are in for a long week. Despite the grime, I could not see anything obvious, so I brought it into the darkroom, put a light inside, closed it up, and checked. It was actually light tight. That was the moment I knew this camera was not done yet.

From there it was a full teardown. The shutter came apart. The ancient oil, now closer to glue, was cleaned out. The bellows got a careful treatment with saddle soap, conditioner, and many hours of work. The brass came back to life. The lens cleared beautifully. Even the tiny viewfinder cleaned up.

When I put the shutter on the tester afterward, it ran at 1/25 of a second. Exactly the way it left the assembly line in 1909.

The Film Problem

There was still one problem to solve. The Kodak 3A was built for 122 film, a format that has not existed for decades. Modern 120 film is easy to get, but it is too small. The spools do not fit and the film will not sit flat.

I designed and 3D printed spool reducers and a set of guide rails to keep the film aligned. With 120 loaded, the camera shoots a panoramic 6 by 14 centimetre frame. It is a monster of a negative.

Loading the Most Interesting Film I Could Find

Fresh film would have been the sensible choice. Sensible is not always fun. Instead, I loaded a roll of Ilford Pan F that expired in 1985. It had definitely not been refrigerated for most of its life. Pan F is gorgeous when fresh, but at nearly forty years past its date, I rated it at ISO 20 to give it a fighting chance.

Whether it would give me images or heartbreak, I had no idea.

Out to Pitt Lake

Pitt Lake is one of my favourite places to shoot. Over one thousand square kilometres of pure wilderness and only minutes from my door. It was the perfect place for a panoramic camera, even one that is more than a century old.

I set up the camera on a tripod and metered the scene. Aperture at f/11. Fire the shutter. Five half turns of the crank. Bracket at f/16. Repeat.

Five exposures per roll. That is all you get.

Back in the Darkroom

With expired film, especially film this expired, development becomes a negotiation. I went with semi stand development in Rodinal 1 to 100. A little agitation at the start, then let the chemistry do what it wants. Come back at 30 minutes, agitate again, leave it another 30.

It is a forgiving process. Perfect for film that has had a rough life.

Then the lights went out, the film went into the tank, and I waited.

The Results

The negatives are enormous, and honestly, they are beautiful.

The lens has that early twentieth century look. Sharp in the centre, gentle at the edges. The expired Pan F gave a soft, luminous contrast that suits Pitt Lake perfectly. For a camera that was almost thrown away, the images feel like a small miracle.

20260522 Kodak 3a Ilford FP4 1985 1 RestoreAI

There was one issue. Frame spacing. Because 120 is smaller than 122, the red window on the back is useless. I counted crank turns instead. It worked for the first couple of frames, then drifted. Images on one end overlapped. Without frame numbers on the old film it was hard to tell whether the frames at the beginning or the end were off.

In hindsight, it is obvious. As the take up spool grows, each turn moves more film than when the spool is small. Next time, and there will be a next time, I will adjust the turn count as I go. More experimentation will help to nail that down, but at least I know the camera works beautifully.

117 Years

This camera was built around 1909. It made postcards for travellers and families, then vanished into storage, then into an attic, and nearly into the landfill.

But it survived. It came back to life on my bench. It made new photographs at Pitt Lake. It proved it still had something left to give.

Not many things last 117 years. Even fewer get a second chance. This one did, and I am glad I was there when it asked for it.

Bringing it back reminded me why I love this work. Old cameras are more than tools. They are stories waiting for someone to turn the page.

If you want to see the full restoration, the field test, and the darkroom results, the video is up on The Film Experience on YouTube, and more is at sollows.ca.

New 7Artisans 35mm LTM lens

A Brand New Lens for a Very Old Mount: The 7Artisans 35mm f/2.8 LTM

(This post is not sponsored in any way the lens was purchased with our own money and 7Artisans is not even aware I am writing this review)

I was sitting at my desk looking at my vintage Leica IIIf when it occurred to me that the lens sitting on it was made sometime in the 1950s. Problem is that my iiiF has been fully restored but the lens has not. It got me thinking about how nobody makes new glass for this mount anymore. Or rather, nobody did.

7Artisans apparently didn’t get that memo.

They’ve just released a brand new 35mm f/2.8 in LTM (Leica Thread Mount) … the old Leica screw mount that’s been around since the early days of 35mm photography. The kind of mount that makes certain photographers go misty-eyed and others go “the what?” I’m firmly in the first camp, which is apparently well known to my wife, because it was our 39th anniversary and with a big smile she handed me this beautiful box.

The next day I loaded up the Leica IIIf with a roll of Ilford FP4 and went out to see what this thing could do.

The Lens Itself

This lens is beautiful! It’s all metal and glass. No plastic, no rubber grip zones, nothing that feels cheap. The aperture ring clicks positively and the focus is buttery smooth. It’s a small, dense little thing at 88 grams and only about 20mm thick. Mount it on a Barnack body and the combination slips effortlessly into a jacket pocket. This is not a minor point if you actually travel light.

It looks the part too. Engraved, paint-filled markings. Classic Elmar-inspired proportions. Sitting on a IIIf it looks like it’s always been there, which I consider a design success.

The lens even comes packaged with a choice of metal lens hoods. a matching UV filter and a couple metal lens caps. Even the magnetic closing box is premium!

How It Shoots

The double Gauss optical design… seven elements in five groups… is the same basic approach that defined a lot of the beloved compact primes from the mid-20th century. 7Artisans has modernised the coatings and manufacturing tolerances, which in plain terms means you get the rendering character of that era without as much of the flare and corner softness that comes with the genuine vintage article.

On FP4, the results are clean and contrasty with plenty of sharpness where you need it. Wide open at f/2.8 the centre is solid and the corners are slightly softer, which is exactly what you’d expect. Stop down to f/4 or f/5.6 and it all tightens up nicely. FP4 and this lens seem to suit each other… the film’s smooth tonal range and fine grain complement the lens’s rendering rather than fighting it.

A couple of things worth knowing: the focus scale runs in the opposite direction from what modern photographers are used to. Also, just like many of the original Leica lenses from this era, there’s an infinity lock on the focus lever. Some people may find that mildly annoying but I like it. I can lock the lens at infinity and not worry about it getting knocked out of position. You can instantly release the lock without removing your eye from the finder just by pressing down on the focus tab. If you’ve been shooting a vintage Leica for any length of time you will be right at home. If you haven’t, you’ll quickly get used to it.

20260513 Leica iiiF 7Artisans 35 14 Export

Worth It?

For LTM shooters who want a compact, well-made, genuinely capable modern lens that doesn’t cost as much as a decent used car… this lens delivers. It does what it promises, it feels good in the hand, and the results speak for themselves. I’ve been using a vintage 35mm on my iiiF for some time and it’s a bit hazy and lacking contrast. This new 7Artisans 35mm will definitely be my go-to 35mm for the iiiF.

Here are a few additional images taken with this lens.

20260513 Leica iiiF 7Artisans 35 3 Export

20260513 Leica iiiF 7Artisans 35 19 Export

20260513 Leica iiiF 7Artisans 35 10 Export

20260513 Leica iiiF 7Artisans 35 5 Export

The linear distortion on this image isn’t the lens … it’s the old building.

The Scene Beneath the Colour

Black and white image of Golden Ears on Mount Blanshard with the peaks illuminated in early morning light.

I’ve been shooting a lot of colour lately, but my heart always comes back to black and white. In landscapes, colour can be beautiful, yet at times it feels like noise, pulling attention away from shape, form, and contrast.

What held me here was the light catching the twin peaks known as the Golden Ears on Mount Blanshard. Light and shadow revealing structure, giving the massif its weight. When I first saw the scene, it felt almost complete, but something was missing. Through the viewfinder, stripped of colour, the image finally settled into the version I’d been waiting for.

This image was captured at Pitt Lake in British Columbia, Canada

on my new Fujifilm X-E5 using Fuji Acros simulation.

I hope you will consider visiting my website at www.sollows.ca for galleries of my past images and posts related to a range of subjects especially restoration of vintage cameras rescue of long lost films and photographic plates.

Escape from Adobe!

For a decade, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop were simply part of my photographic life. I didn’t choose them so much as end up with them. When Apple ended Aperture in 2014, I had no real alternative. Adobe was really the only option and they made the transition easy, even offering a smooth import path from Aperture. I followed the crowd and settled into the Adobe ecosystem.

Over time, though, that ecosystem began to feel less like a choice and more like something I was stuck with.

The Slow Squeeze

As the years went by, Adobe’s subscription costs crept upward. New AI features kept appearing, but they weren’t things I personally needed or asked for. I’m a hobbyist. My needs are modest. What I wanted was stability, affordability, and tools that supported the way I work.

Instead, I found myself paying more each year for features I didn’t use.

Support also became increasingly frustrating for me. Whenever I needed help, I ended up in long queues, bouncing between automated systems and support tiers. The people I eventually reached were polite, but often unable to resolve the issue without escalating it further. Days or weeks would pass before anything was sorted out. It left me feeling like I was on my own.

When the Catalogue Crashed

At some point, I also learned just how fragile the Lightroom catalogue can be. It’s essentially a database, and like any database, it can become corrupted. In my case, it did. My entire library suddenly became inaccessible.

I reached out to Adobe support, but in my experience, the process didn’t lead to a solution. If I hadn’t kept good backups, I would have lost decades of work. That incident shook my confidence in relying on Lightroom as the central hub for my photographic history.

For me, that was the moment I realized I needed to look for a way out.

Looking for the Exit

When I started exploring alternatives, Capture One was the name that came up most often. But the last thing I wanted was to move from one expensive system to an even more expensive one. I wasn’t looking for a professional studio solution with a price tag to match. I just wanted something practical and affordable. That ruled Capture One out for me.

Then I tried ON1 Photo RAW.

Discovering ON1

ON1 immediately stood out because I could buy it outright. A subscription is available if you want cloud storage or extra features, but the core application is a one‑time purchase at a reasonable price. I downloaded the demo and quickly realized that most of what I did in Lightroom translated directly into ON1.

The big question, of course, was my Lightroom library—forty years of photography, edits, metadata, and organization. Losing that wasn’t an option.

To my relief, ON1 had already thought about this.

How the Migration Worked for Me

Adobe and ON1 interpret RAW files differently, so ON1 takes a clever approach. It links to Lightroom and instructs it to export each RAW file as a JPEG with all edits baked in. Then ON1 imports both the RAW and the JPEG. If the RAW looks different in ON1, the JPEG serves as a faithful reference to the original edit.

It took a while, but it worked.

Two years later, I haven’t run into a single situation where the migration caused a problem for me.

What I Gained

One Application Instead of Two

Everything I used to do across Lightroom and Photoshop now happens inside a single application. No more switching back and forth.

A Simpler Workflow

I found ON1 easier to use. Anything I used to do in Adobe, I can now do in ON1 with less effort.

A Sense of Control Again

No subscriptions. No creeping price increases. No feeling of being locked into a system that wasn’t working for me anymore.

A More Stable Environment

With Lightroom, manipulating the file structure outside the application could cause serious problems. The catalogue always felt like a house of cards — one wrong move and everything could collapse. Not so with ON1. If I want to move files or entire folders outside of ON1, even to a new drive, I can. ON1 doesn’t even blink.

Any Problems?

When I migrated, I enabled ON1’s Keyword AI, which automatically assigns keywords based on what it sees in your photos. In my case, it generated hundreds of irrelevant keywords—man, woman, wheel, foot, arm—cluttering my library. I eventually turned it off and began the long process of deleting the junk keywords. If I could do it again, I’d leave that feature disabled from the start.

I initially found that ON1 is very processor‑ and memory‑intensive in catalogue mode, as it’s running indexing and other background tasks. If you run it in browse mode it turns off most of that backend processing which is much less demanding. In fact I don’t really see a difference aside from the fact that Keyword AI requires catalogue mode but as I said above, I’ve turned that off.

Not Sponsored — Just My Experience

Before I wrap up, I want to be clear that this post isn’t sponsored by anyone. I’m not affiliated with ON1 or any other company. I’m simply sharing my own experience after feeling stuck in a system that no longer worked for me.

ON1 has been a great fit for my needs, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for everyone. If you’re feeling boxed in by Lightroom, there are several alternatives worth exploring. Each has its own strengths, pricing models, and workflows.

Lightroom Alternatives to Explore

ON1 Photo RAW – My personal choice; one‑time purchase available. This ticked all the boxes for me, but be aware of its system requirements.

Capture One – Powerful, professional‑grade tool; excellent product, but even more expensive than Adobe and with no cloud functionality.

Affinity – Now completely free; a strong Photoshop‑style editor, though not a catalog system — you would need another app for that. It works nicely with Photomator, which does have a catalogue.

Pixelmator / Photomator – Now owned by Apple; modern, fast, inexpensive, and tightly integrated with macOS and iOS. Nice catalogue and editing, but oddly no keywording functionality.

DxO PhotoLab – Excellent RAW processing and noise reduction.

Luminar Neo – AI‑driven editing with a simpler interface.

Darktable – Open‑source and free; more technical but very capable.

RawTherapee – Another free, open‑source RAW editor with deep controls.

If you’re feeling trapped, it’s worth trying a few demos. The right tool is the one that supports your workflow, your budget, and your creative goals.

Bringing a Baby Graflex Back to Life

Some repairs feel purely mechanical. Others feel like opening a small door into the past. Replacing the ground glass on a Baby Graflex press camera — a compact little workhorse from the 1930s — sits squarely in the second category. These cameras were built for speed and clarity in an era when photography was still equal parts craft and improvisation, and their focusing screens were the quiet heart of that workflow. When the glass breaks, the camera doesn’t just stop functioning; it loses its voice.

In this story, I walk through the process of fitting a new ground glass into a camera that has already lived several lifetimes. It’s a simple repair on paper, but one that rewards patience, precision, and a bit of reverence for the people who once relied on this machine.

The focus screen on these old cameras is a special piece of ground glass that sits the same distance from the lens as the film. The photographer can use the ground glass to focus the camera and when it’s ready the film sheet is slid into position to capture the image.

In this camera, somewhere over the past 90 or so years, the ground glass became damaged.

Today we will fix that! We start by cutting a new piece of glass to size and shape.

Of course, a plain piece of glass won’t work — light would simply pass straight through. The side facing the lens needs to be etched so it can act as a surface for the image to form. I start with an extremely fine diamond grit.

A bit of water turns the grit into a slurry.

The slurry is then sandwiched between the new glass and another plate of glass attached to a handle. With steady pressure and a circular motion, the grit slowly grinds the surface. Over time, the new glass takes on an even, matte texture.

The grinding continues until the surface is perfectly even and the new glass takes on a translucency that matches the original.

Now lets try it out

Yes — the image is supposed to be inverted. This is how photographers see the world on these vintage cameras: upside down and reversed. What matters is that the new glass is bright, and the focus snaps in cleanly.

With that, the 1939 Baby Graflex can go back to doing what it was made to do: making beautifully sharp images.

And if you’re wondering about the name, “Baby Graflex” refers to the film size — 5×7 cm — compared to its big brother, the Graflex Speed Graphic, which shoots 10×12 cm film.

69967020136 0CE1657D 6A1E 4E72 B3FF BD93629EDB50

If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to keep these old cameras working, or you just enjoy seeing the inner life of a tool restored to purpose, this is a satisfying little journey.

Oskar Barnack:

A Tribute from the Workbench

Oscar Barnack Workbench with Leica 0 Still Life

In the early years of photography, cameras were heavy, slow, and difficult to carry into the real world. For Oskar Barnack, an avid traveler whose health made carrying massive gear increasingly difficult, there had to be a better way.

As a precision engineer at Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar, Barnack spent his days perfecting microscopes, but his side project was far more radical. He looked at 35mm movie film and had a stroke of genius: he turned the film on its side. By running it horizontally, he doubled the frame size to 24×36mm, creating the still-photo frame size that remains a standard to this day.

Barnack approached photography with the mind of a problem solver and the hands of a craftsman. In 1913, he built his first working prototype. He nicknamed it “Lilliput,” a nod to the tiny people of Gulliver’s Travels, because compared to the giant plate cameras of the era, his invention seemed impossibly small. He worked closely with Max Berek, Leitz’s lens expert, to ensure that the tiny negatives could be enlarged into sharp prints. This was the birth of modern handheld photography.

The true test came not in a laboratory, but in disaster. In 1913, severe flooding struck Wetzlar, and Barnack used his small prototype to document the devastation. While others struggled with bulky equipment, he was able to move freely through the streets, capturing scenes that would have been nearly impossible with the cameras of the day. Those images proved that his little camera was not just clever engineering, but a practical tool for real life.

Flood in Wetzlar teaser 1200x800 1 1024x681 — Wetzlar floods 1913 captured by Barnack with his early prototype

However, an invention needs a champion. His boss, Ernst Leitz, was a visionary who recognized the potential of the “Lilliput” and even took a prototype to New York in 1914 to test it himself, photographing the city’s skyscraper canyons.

The First World War delayed production for a decade, and by 1924, Germany was in economic ruin. Most of Leitz’s advisors told him to kill the project, fearing it was too risky to launch a new camera format during a depression. But Leitz saw a way to keep his factory workers employed and change the world. In a legendary board meeting, he ended the debate with one sentence:

“Ich entscheide hiermit: Es wird riskiert.”
(“I hereby decide: the risk will be taken.”)

With the decision made to go to market, the “Lilliput” needed a professional name. They combined the first three letters of the owner’s name (Leitz) with the first two letters of the word camera. And just like that, the Leica was born.

When the Leica I finally reached the public in 1925, it changed the direction of photography forever. Photojournalists and everyday storytellers finally had the freedom Barnack had imagined at his workbench.

The image above is my tribute to that moment. The Leica 0 sits on a blueprint that echoes the engineering sketches of the prototype camera design. The tools surrounding it reflect the world Barnack and Leitz inhabited—a world where precision and imagination worked side by side.

Barnack didn’t just design a camera, and Leitz wasn’t merely a businessman. Together, they created a tool that sparked a revolution in photography. Every shutter click carries a trace of their original vision.

In the beginning

… the Leica 0

1923 Leica 0 a surprise Christmas gift from Shari

In the early 1920s, photography was slow and cumbersome. Most cameras were big, heavy wooden boxes mounted on tripods. Film handling was awkward, exposures were deliberate, and spontaneity was rare. Making a photograph required planning and patience.

DSCF9797 — Watson & Sons is an example of a camera prior to the Leica 0

Then in 1923 a small experimental camera quietly changed everything. The Leica 0 began as a personal solution. Oskar Barnack was an engineer at the optical instruments company owned by Ernst Leitz. He struggled with asthma and found the heavy cameras of the day difficult to carry. A traveler and outdoorsman, he wanted a camera that could move with him rather than slow him down. His idea was radical for its time: use 35mm motion picture film horizontally to create a 24×36mm negative with excellent image quality in a compact body. Leitz supported the concept by helping finance the research and development of both the camera and a new type of film and canister to support it. That is the same 35mm film format and canister still in use today.

Many doubted that photographers would accept such a small negative. Large formats were considered essential for quality. But Ernst Leitz trusted Barnack’s engineering instincts and supported years of testing and refinement. The Leica 0 was built to answer a simple question: could this new approach work outside the workshop?

The answer reshaped photography. The Leica was born, cameras became portable, photographers became mobile, and images became more immediate. Candid moments, street work, travel photography, and modern visual storytelling all grew from this shift.

Look at the camera you use today, film or digital. Its lineage traces back to this quiet experiment — the Leica 0, where modern photography truly began.

The Leica 0 in this photo was an unexpected gift from my wife this Christmas. It’s far more than a collector’s piece. It’s a piece of photographic history that changed how we see the world. My Leica 0 won’t be sitting on a shelf; it’s loaded with 35mm film. I’ve included a couple of the first frames I made in my eagerness to get out and shoot with this lovely, and very challenging, piece of history.

Test roll through the new Leica 0 with Ilford HP5 — In the Village – Leica 0 on Ilford HP5

Sample photo shot with the Leica 0 on Ilford HP5 — Bike rack on a wet day – Leica 0 on Ilford HP5

DSCF5765.RAF Export — Pedestrian bridge in the fog – Leica 0 on Ilford HP5

DSCF5769.RAF Export — Foggy Morning Bedford Channel – Leica 0 with Ilford HP5

Leica re‑issued this Leica 0 in 2000 as a fully functional tribute to the 1923 prototypes, marking the 75th anniversary of the company’s first production camera. Limited to just 2,000 units, the camera was hand built from the original design to faithfully recreate the look and operation of the original Leica 0, of which only 25 were ever built and just a handful survive today. Those surviving originals routinely sell for many million dollars at auction, underscoring their status as some of the rarest and most historically important cameras ever made. The 2000 re‑issue offered photographers and collectors a way to experience Oskar Barnack’s pioneering history making design.

Rescued From a 65-Year Sleep

Recently I received a message from a friend at Switzers Vintage in Chilliwack British Columbia. He showed me a photo of an old roll of 120 film that had come into his possession. Knowing that I develop a lot of vintage film, he asked if I wanted to try and develop it. Of course, I said yes.

Several days later, I made the trip to Chilliwack to retrieve the film. Looking at the roll in my hands, my heart sank. It appeared the Kodak Panatomic film hadn’t been exposed. If it had been rolled through a camera, I’d be seeing the opposite end of the backing paper with the word Exposed. Instead, I was looking at the start of the roll, suggesting it hadn’t made a trip through a camera.

Back in my studio, I examined it more closely and noticed faint writing on the paper: 2 Exp Left. Could it be that the film was partially shot and then re-rolled onto the original spool to save the remaining frames for later? Not a simple process with many cameras, but fairly common among pros and serious photographers of the era. It was worth a try.

I then set about estimating the film’s age, which would help determine optimal development times. Panatomic was introduced around 1933 and remained popular into the early ’90s. This roll had a metal spool, not plastic, and the distinctive yellow-orange backing paper with simple text and no graphics. Most likely, it was manufactured in the mid-1950s, making it somewhere between 65 and 75 years old.

Next, I had to choose a development method. I immediately ruled out stand development, which tends to produce faint images on vintage film. These latent photos had been sitting for nearly 70 years, and they’d need a little extra kick. My developer of choice for very old film is Rodinal. It might introduce some fogging, but it excels at pulling out detail, which is more important. I used a longer fix time and a slightly cooler development temperature to help minimize fog.

I mixed the chemicals and set the timers. Eventually, the film sat in the final rinse stage, and I prepared myself for disappointment: a blank, unexposed roll. The darkroom timer buzzed. I pulled the film out… and there were images. Only three, but they were there. I hung the film to dry.

The last frame was a double exposure, but the first two were clear. One was a portrait of a young woman in front of a Christmas tree. The third image, however, was particularly intriguing.

From a roll of kodak panatomic film dating to the mid to late 1950's — From a roll of Kodak Panatomic Film dating to the mid to late 1950’s

It appeared to be a public event. A man in a dark hat stood on the right, holding what looked like an 8mm movie camera, possibly a reporter? A couple of other photographers were visible in the crowd. The attire matched Vancouver in the 1950s, which aligned with where the film was found. But where was this scene, and what was happening?

I shared the image on social media and received a flood of responses. Many identified the location as the Vancouver English Bay Bathhouse. Comparing archival photos confirmed the match. But what was the event?

Some suggested the annual English Bay Polar Bear Swim, held every New Year’s Day since the 1920s. But the mood was off. There were no smiles, no shivering swimmers wrapped in towels. The crowd looked solemn.

Then came a breakthrough. A few followers proposed it might be the demolition of the English Bay Pier, which was dismantled in 1958 due to decay and redevelopment plans. In January of that year, crowds gathered to witness its final moments.

English bay showing the Pier and behind it, the Bathhouse
Photo Source – Vancouver Archives CVA 677-95

I suspect that’s what we’re seeing. While the crowd watched the pier come down, the photographer turned their lens toward the onlookers, capturing not the spectacle, but the people witnessing it. A quiet inversion. A frozen moment of collective memory.

A few days later, I received a message from a follower. His father, now 91, had worked for Vancouver’s Public Works Department for over 40 years. He showed him the photo. Without hesitation, he said:

“Oh yes, I remember it. That was the day the pier came down.”

The CLA

“Clean, Lubricate, Adjust” Should Actually Mean Something

Written By: Jim Sollows
Date: October 17 2025

In the world of vintage cameras, three little letters, C-L-A, get tossed around more than a film canister at a camera swap. “Clean, Lubricate, Adjust” refers to a full mechanical and optical service meant to bring a camera back to near factory-spec performance. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, the term has started to lose its meaning and become a marketing buzzword.

Scroll through any online marketplace and you’ll see it everywhere: “Recently CLA’d!” or “Just CLA’d and ready to shoot!” But more often than not, that so-called CLA is little more than a wiped-down exterior and a few shutter clicks to show it still makes noise. That is not a real CLA, and the kind of work that actually counts is not cheap, so you will not find it on bargain-bin cameras.

Screenshot 2025 10 17 at 11.32.39 pm — Fresh CLA !!! Canon Film Camera $20.00

Not long ago, I opened a camera belonging to one of my students. He had purchased it after being told it was “recently CLA’d,”. He contacted me because he was having trouble with a rough film advance. The exterior looked clean, but once I removed the top plate, I found dust, grime, and even a spider web. It was very clear evidence that the camera had not been opened in decades, if ever.

A true CLA is a meticulous process. It means fully disassembling the camera to clean away old, hardened lubricants and applying the correct modern equivalents in just the right places and nowhere else. It also involves calibrating shutter speeds, replacing light seals, aligning rangefinders, and ensuring every moving part behaves the way the original engineers intended. It’s not a five-minute job; it’s a skilled task that takes experience, knowledge, and often specialized tools.

When sending a camera or lens for a CLA, it’s essential to choose a reputable professional who specializes in vintage cameras. The best technicians document their work, sometimes providing test data, photos of the process, or calibration notes. Just as importantly, they stand behind their work, offering a warranty or follow-up support if something isn’t quite right. This all comes at a price, a CLA is an investment, giving new life to your vintage gear.

LensMedicYYC servicing a 90 yr old lens — Photo provided by LensMedicYYC showing his progress servicing my 90 yr old lens

People often ask me to do a CLA on their camera. I can handle some basic service work, but I don’t have the skills needed for a full CLA. Many of my own cameras have been professionally serviced by my go-to technician, Gary at LensMedic YYC in Calgary. Gary has the skills, tools, and experience to do it right, and he’s never let me down. He recently CLA’d a very rare Kalimar Six Sixty medium-format camera. Even Gary admitted he had never seen one in person, yet his work was impeccable.

One of my most prized cameras, a 75-year-old Leica IIIF, recently went for a CLA. When it came back, it included a list of work that filled more than three pages. Every gear, spring, and screw had been inspected, cleaned, and adjusted. The shutter curtains were replaced, and all components that were out of spec were either restored to factory standards or replaced entirely. Because of the extent of the work and the need for camera-specific parts, I chose to have it serviced directly through Leica. The result was remarkable. The camera now looks and performs exactly as it did when it left the factory 75 years ago. Holding it, winding it, seeing the crisp clear viewfinder and rangefinder plus hearing that shutter snap feels like stepping back in time.

When a camera truly receives a proper CLA, it shows. The shutter feels crisp, the advance is smooth, and the meter (if it has one) is accurate. Everything works as it should, often better than it has in decades.

The next time you see someone proudly claim their camera has been CLA’d, take it with a grain of salt unless there’s proof. In the world of vintage mechanical cameras, a true CLA isn’t just a marketing phrase. It is a way to roll back the clock, restoring a fine camera’s performance, preserving its craftsmanship, and keeping it shooting beautifully for decades to come.