One of the best parts about working at a college is that we have a Christmas shutdown, which gives me some extra time off at the end of the year, which usually starts the day before Christmas Eve. But this year, with Christmas taking place in an awkward spot, the shutdown began on the 20th, which landed me an extra full day off on Monday. I decided to head into Toronto for photography, filming, and meet up with my good friend Bill! I also took the chance to film a POV-style On-the-Road video that will hit the YouTube channel in February. I wanted to keepRead More →

Back in 2023, I came across an exciting developer, Compard R09 Spezial, after some digging I discovered that R09 Spezial had nothing to do with Rodinal despite the name. It was Agfa Studionol, and when I wrote that review, it was mentioned to me in a comment that Bellini Foto produces a version of Studionol, Hydrofen. It took a bit of work, but I got a couple of small bottles of Hydrofen to write a review of the currently produced version of Studional. And true to my word in my review of R09 Spezial I made the point to do the majority of rolls usingRead More →

Well, here we are at the end of another year, and you know in the rearview, 2024 was a good year. I felt that I was putting out posts and content at a more sustainable rate. I also felt that I was not always pressed for time each month in producing reviews. I got to check out some new film stocks, add some new favourite cameras, and explore some familiar and new places. The Best of 2024 This year, I consciously chose to reduce the number of reviews I did over the year. It was starting to get challenging to keep everything moving and outputRead More →

Developing your film at home is both rewarding and frustrating at the same time and to add on an extra layer of complexity there is a lot of developers out there that you can use, especially in the black & white field. While certainly not as much as there used to be, there is still an excellent selection of developers to suit almost every person’s need, without having to dive deep into building your developers from base chemicals. Ultimately every photographer has a different taste but if you’re starting out with home development the choices may seem a little overwhelming so I’ll be breaking downRead More →

I’m coming back for more, especially after being pleased with the results I got from the Formulary version of Kodak D-19. Like Formulary, Flic Film’s MQ-19 is a perfect clone of the classic high-contrast, fast-acting developer D-19, and while I am limited by what film stocks can be developed I did manage to find a few more options to run through the developer this time around include a few classic films that I did not include in the first time around. Like any good review, having a second chance with a developer gives a better chance to explore other options and get a better pictureRead More →

Like many film photographers we have a tendency to collect not only cameras, lenses, and accessories but also film. And recently I was looking at the massive collection of film sitting in my storage area and thinking that I should shoot this all now before it all gets so expired it is no longer useful to anyone. In this post I’ll be sharing my selection of black & white films that I had laying around in my collection although one C-41 roll did get included but because I decided to develop it in a traditional B&W developer it got stuck into this post. The firstRead More →

While writing camera reviews remain a favourite of mine, second favourite is developers. Despite the challenges, it does allow me a bit more latitude in choices of films and gear. And while there are only a limited number of developers out there and some that are highly specialised or have limited film stocks that are available. But despite the limited numbers, there are in many cases a tonne of clones out there that allow me to fully explore these developers. I’ll be walking through how I write and work through reviewing film developers as I write my review of Flic Film MQ-19. The main reasonRead More →

I have far surpassed one hundred and fifty camera reviews and one hundred film reviews, my other two reviews being lenses and developers have only made it to the big fifty this year. If you read my previous post on lens reviews these are my least favourite. And while I rather enjoy creating film and camera reviews the most, developer reviews come in as the third favourite. The reason being is that I have the most amount of freedom connected to their creation. And while I’m working on a full post on how I write developer reviews, this post is about looking back at theRead More →

Shooting X-ray films has been relatively niche in the still photography field, but it can often be a lower cost per shot when shooting sheet film. This isn’t the first time I’ve reviewed or used a former medical X-ray film stock; the first was Washi F, which produced some magical results. The second was a non-medical X-Ray film, Washi I. So when I was offered a chance to try out the FPP X-ray film in 35mm, I wasn’t about to say no. This is a reasonably fast film for what it is, rated at ASA-200 but can be shot up to ASA-400. It is uniqueRead More →

It has been some time since I wrote a verse post, so it’s time I tried this again. But rather than pitting cameras against each other, I will be pitting developers against each other. The idea behind this came from my good friend James Lee, who loves to show off the power of the Fuji Acros 100 when it is slightly overexposed and developed in Ilford Perceptol. I’ve worked with this combination, and it is impressive. Recently, James has also been working with 510-Pyro. I asked myself which is better, namely when put head-to-head, Perceptol and 510-Pyro? The setup is a simple one, I haveRead More →