By:
On:
In: The Canal
With: 0 Comments

I have this memory that recently floated up to the surface of a camping trip I took many years ago with my dad and brother. We were camping at Sherkston Shores a camping resort half-way between Fort Erie and Port Colborne. While I have excellent memories of swimming in the old quarry and the three waterslides, but less clear is a visit we made one trip to the Welland Canal. We’re all unclear as to what lock we visited. My brother remembers stores. And there was also the stranger who gave us chocolate bars (through our dad) on that same trip. I’m sure buried inRead More →

By:
On:
In: Photography
With: 0 Comments

Back in the Summer of 2013 when APUG was the place to get your online fix of the analogue photography community, I noticed a post in the Toronto local board that there weren’t enough meetups for the film photography community. Which was at the time partly true, sure there had been a couple of FPP/APUG meetups in the area in the past, I had even helped coordinate one in 2011. But there had not been anything since. So I took it upon myself to plan these events, at least four, in a year. The first one dropped in July 2013, had a decent turnout andRead More →

By:
On:
In: Developer Review Blogs
With: 0 Comments

These days I will rarely work with Ilfosol 3, but it remains a developer that I always keep in the back of my mind. After learning how to develop my own black & white film from my good friend Julie using Kodak D-76, it would be a few more years before I started taking on the process full time. When I went into Burlington Camera to get all the equipment I needed to take on the daunting task some eight years ago, Joan pointed me towards Ilfosol 3 as a good starting point when you didn’t want to keep a large quantity of developer mixedRead More →

By:
On:
In: Developer Review Blogs
With: 1 Comment

When I first started with film development, my world consisted of Kodak products, D-76 and HC-110. The only other developer I used outside of Kodak was Rodinal and Ilfosol 3 (at least at first). Then in 2015, I started reviewing cameras and decided at the same time to explore Ilford more both in film stocks and developers. I stumbled upon two developers that soon became favourites, one of them is Perceptol (which I will review next month) the second is Microphen. While not a developer I use often, it offers fine grain, neutral contrast, and works for both push and pull processing. Technical Details Manufacturer:Read More →

By:
On:
In: Developer Review Blogs
With: 4 Comments

If there is one developer that is the closest thing to a magic bullet in my chemistry set, that developer is Pyrocat-HD. While Rodinal is the oldest commercial developer, Pyro based developers pre-date Rodinal into the early days of photography, being used back in the days when plate-based photographic media were the norm. And while the developers changed overtime, Pyrocat-HD is among the newest in the category being developed by Sandy King as an improvement over PMK Pyro. Sandy promotes the developer as giving 1/3rd of a stop in film speed with about 10-15% less developing time. Along with consistent staining action and lower toxicity.Read More →

By:
On:
In: Developer Review Blogs
With: 4 Comments

Do you know that Kodak D-76 has a cousin? Although in the grand timeline of things, I can’t place exactly when the stuff was first released. But if I had to hazard a guess it was sometime in the 1920s. It proved to be a favourite of Ansel Adams along with HC-110. Today Kodak no longer produces D-23 in favourite of the far more shelf-stable D-76, but you can still mix it up from raw chemistry if you know the formula (I’ll be sharing that later) or you can purchase pre-made kits. Personally, I enjoy working with D-23 when I need some compensating capabilities andRead More →

By:
On:
In: Developer Review Blogs
With: 0 Comments

There are new developers, there are old developers, and then there is Rodinal. First released in 1891 by Agfa, Rodinal is the brainchild of the Doctor, not that Doctor, but Dr Momme Anderesen who disliked the reliance on hydroquinone in the traditional film developers of the day. Instead, he began work on using Aromatic Amines in 1880 before settling on p-aminophenol. The result is the developer we call today Rodinal. And for much of its life was a closely guarded secret by Agfa, at least until the patent expired. And while today Agfa exists, Rodinal has taken on many different forms, but the same formula.Read More →

By:
On:
In: Developer Review Blogs
With: 0 Comments

While today it’s been several years since its introduction, Xtol marks the last developer to come out of Kodak. And as developers go, it is the least toxic of all the ones available on the general market. The reason is that it uses Ascorbic Acid as one of the active ingredients. It not only allows for sharpness but also reducing visible grain in the process. But Xtol is also a developer with a flawed history; you need to mix up a lot to maintain its stability. And while I no longer keep Xtol in my toolkit, it remains a beautiful developer that is perfect ifRead More →

By:
On:
In: Project:1867
With: 0 Comments

There are many figured in our history that changed the course of Canadian History, think Sir John A. MacDonald, William Lyon MacKenzie, Robert Baldwin, Louis LaFontaine. However, all these men owe their contributions to a single person, Robert Gourlay. Gourlay’s presence in Upper Canada would ignite the spark of reform here in Upper Canada. Upper Canada in the early 19th-Century was a vast rural backwater. Urban centres were few and far between cities that we know today were little more than muddy villages in the middle of the vast forest. The undeveloped nature of the Province gave those in control, the colonial elite, access toRead More →

By:
On:
In: Film Review Blogs
With: 1 Comment

For a mid-speed film, Superpan 200 is fairly grainy, so grainy that it surprised me until I learned of the original basis of the film. Superpan 200 is a former surveillance film sharp, but relatively grainy with an extended red sensitivity. It looks terrific behind a red filter. The heavier grain lends itself well to rough urban decay situations for that added grunge effect without pulling it. While not a film I use that often, I can see a use for it for a street photography film or architecture. Film Specs Type: Panchromatic B&W Film Base: Polyester Film Speed: ASA-200, Latitude: 100-1600 Formats Available: 35mm,Read More →