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Pyro developers hold a special place in my development tool kit. Despite being one of the oldest developers, being viewed as highly-specialised and highly toxic. I’ve found them to be one of the best developers I’ve used. My journey into Pyro started with PMK Pyro, followed up by Pyrocat-HD. But starting last year, I heard about a new Pyro developer, 510-Pyro. For being an old developer, Pyro developers continued to see advancement and innovation, with Sandy King bringing in Pyrocat-HD in 1999, but 510 is far newer. First released in 2006 and formulated by Jay DeFehr, 510-Pyro took a different approach to Pyro with onlyRead More →

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One of the more exciting aspects of home development is the ability to produce black & white slides. While these days this is more of a novelty, it is something that adds a punch to your black & white negative films. But it’s something that isn’t well known. Sure we had Dr.5 until recently, Foma has a reversal kit (which I hope to find and review), and even Kodak produced a TMax reversal kit. But Kodak no longer makes it there, and Dr.5 is shutting down due to increased costs, but not before letting the world know about their process. And it’s right in Adox’sRead More →

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When keeping things simple, look no further than a monobath. As the name implies, a monobath developer will do all the steps for you, from developing to fixing. All you’ll need to do afterwards is clear and wash the film. It can also act as an almost universal developer being able to develop multiple rolls of film for the same period. Perfect if you need to develop film in the field to avoid it getting cooked in an airport scanner or want to keep your life simple at home for development. Monobaths are nothing new, they’ve been around for a while, and I’ve worked withRead More →

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Once you have it down, one of the most satisfying parts of home development is taking it to the next level is building your B&W developer. And the first developer for many photographers that they brewed up themselves, including me, is Caffenol. As the name implies, it’s a developer with a coffee base. Specifically, the caffeic acid that is found in instant coffee. While it’s easy to buy all the raw material in your average grocery store to build your caffenol, there is something nice about having a ready-made pack. And it should come as no surprise that the fine folks at the Film PhotographyRead More →

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If you’ve followed my photography journey, one of the first developers that became a favourite is Kodak HC-110, which switched to Ilfotec HC last year when I finished off my final bottle of the OG HC-110. But sometimes, you have to send in the clones. I’ve been aware of LegacyPro, and other clones HC-110 developers for some time but have never thought to give them a try. But after learning that Ilfotec LC29 is a variant of Ilfotec HC, I made a point to try L110. L110 is HC-110 but in an easier to pour format. To make the point that it will perform exactlyRead More →

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When it comes to Ilford developers here in North America, we have access to most of their chemical stocks. But there is one that is a bit of a unicorn, and that is Ilfotec LC29, and I can’t see why! This is a developer that, despite being close to Ilfotec HC, does not produce images in line with what Ilfotec HC produces, and it is far easier to pour than Ilfotec HC! I splashed it a little bit at how easily it flowed. Right from the start, I knew I had a winner here in LC29 and feel bad that it isn’t readily available hereRead More →

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You can never have too many D-76/ID-11 clones. And while there are tonnes already on the market, plus the capacity to mix one up yourself at home. I want to introduce the latest clone on the market, Flic Film Classic MQ. Flic Film is a new Canadian film lab based in Alberta, Canada. While they focus on re-rolling motion picture film stock, they have a healthy film chemistry group. In addition to their brilliant Black/White & Green, among their offerings is a D-76 clone, Classic MQ (Metol/Hydroquinone). But it is available in the smaller 1L volume rather than mixing up a whole gallon of stockRead More →

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It’s not often that something new hits the market, especially something that comes out of Canada. If you haven’t heard of Flic Film, that’s okay; I only recently discovered this Canadian film lab out of Alberta in 2021. They mainly focus on selling rebranded motion picture films, the Eastman Vision3 series and Eastman Double-X; they have a chemistry production side. But their chemistry has a twist; they’re working on making it more environmentally safe. And that should come as no surprise given they are based out of Alberta with many rural properties and reliance on septic systems. And that is where Black/White & Green (B/WRead More →

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When it comes to basic bare-bones developers, you can’t get any simpler these days than Metol and Hydroquinone. And there are a lot of these developers out there, my first developer review, Kodak D-76, is one such developer, and there are numerous clones of the developer. Each has its little takes on this foundational developer. So it only makes sense that I review several different options, so today, I will be talking about Ilford ID-11. Often called the British D-76, ID-11, while at its core is the same as D-76, it does have a few things that set it apart from the colonists over inRead More →

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The year was 2013, a new voice had recently joined the Film Photography Podcast, one Mat Marrash. Mat had dived headfirst into the world of film photography and had not looked back and begun speaking about a type of developer I had never heard of before, Pyro developers. Well, I was instantly interested, having myself dived headfirst into the wonderful world of home B&W development. I was also looking for something outside the normal D-76, HC-110, and Rodinal developers. Well, this Pyrocat-HD stuff seemed interesting, but getting it shipped to Canada proved difficult at the time, so with a trip to New York City inRead More →