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If there is one film that has achieved a little bit of a cult following these days it’s Adox Silvermax. Silvermax was the first true film to come out of the renewed Adox Fotowerks GmbH factory in Bad Sarrow, Germany and its parent company Fotoimpex. Based on a classic Agfa film, which some people think is rebadged Agfa Scala 200 (a legendary B&W reversal film), it has a higher than normal silver content and when paired with Adox Silvermax Developer presents a classic B&W look. If you were a fan of the older Adox and Efke films, then Silvermax will be your jam (I Hope).Read More →

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Let me start this by saying that DD-X and I have not had the best of relationships. The first time I used it I wasn’t happy with my results and decided that I was never going to touch the stuff again. But hey, almost every filmstock and developer are worth a second glance. DD-X, like its Kodak cousin, TMax developer was initially designed for use with the Delta range of films, specifically Delta 3200. Ilford has two versions of this developer, Ilfotec DD which is designed mainly for automated film processors that will use a dedicated replenisher and used in the stock formulation. White DD-XRead More →

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The original slow film offering from Lomography and one with a great name, Fantome! I had initially thought that I wouldn’t jump on these right off the bat. However, after seeing some early results, I decided to give this slow offering a try. And don’t let the slow speed concern you; you can quickly shoot this film handheld on bright sunny days, although unlike last months film, I did shoot a roll on a tripod to see how well it handled long exposure. Fantome 8, like Babylon 13, is a repurposed ORWO film. ORWO DP31 is a positive archival duplication film designed to produce duplicatesRead More →

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You’re probably thinking if I reviewed Kodak HC-110, why am I reviewing Ilford Ilfotec HC? Aren’t they the same thing? Well, the answer is yes and no. While Ilfotec HC is the Ilford version of Kodak HC-110, there are some subtle differences between the two. Here in Canada, the Ilford liquid chemistry is a pricey purchase and can be hard to come by. However, I chanced across a short-dated bottle of Ilfotec HC on a trip to Burlington Camera and decided to take a chance. Now, if you know me and my processing habits, you’ll know that I make a bottle of HC-110 last, soRead More →

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One of the film community’s biggest photography trends is the use of speciality motion picture films for regular photographic applications. You saw the rise in popularity in films such as Eastman 2238 and Fuji 4791. Well, Lomography jumped onto the bandwagon with a pair of releases last year. Both were rerolled films from Filmotec/ORWO. The second release of these films came in Babylon 13, with Lomography publishing times for shooting at ASA-12. Having ordered the traditional five-pack, I found that the film, in reality, if ORWO DN21. As the name suggests, DN21 is a duplicating film, acting as an inter-negative between a master positive andRead More →

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When it comes to fine-grain developing, the developer that most people reach for today is Kodak Xtol. But Xtol is one of the newest developers to come out of Kodak, before Xtol if you wanted to tame that grain, you reached for Microdol-X. While I’m unsure as to when Microdol-X was first released by Kodak, I’ve found images online of the powder coming in cans rather than pouches. The logo style is that of 1935, so I’m guessing it was released at some point in the mid-1930s at the earliest. I stumbled across Microdol-X while visiting Pittsburg back in 2015, while my main goal wasRead More →

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When it comes to films that are not designed for normal pictorial use, I’m not one to shy away from them. That being especially after I went through three of the FilmWashi offerings, one of them being an Optical Audio Recording film. Even before I had loaded up Washi S into a camera, I had been approached by the Film Photography Project to beta test a new film they had acquired and were planned to release after collecting some developing times for the film. The name was FPP Super Sonic, and like Washi S, is an optical audio recording film. The idea of recording audioRead More →

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Over the previous year, I worked hard to expand my knowledge of black & white film developers and find myself down a deep rabbit hole. Some good, some meh. Some I didn’t care for or I found them to be too specialised for average use. And while I have several up for review later this year and you can check those out later, here are seven that have stood out in my head as worthy of using again and of getting you out of the rut of using the more vanilla developers like D-76/ID-11, HC-110/Ilfotec HC, and Rodinal. 1 – Adox FX-39 II Based onRead More →

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Several years ago, when I was starting to branch out in my home film developing, I would try a lot of different, strange, and odd-ball developers. Sure I went with the basics, D-76, HC-110, Rodinal. But as I continued to listen to the Film Photography Podcast, I started to get my hands on stranger items, PMK Pyro being the first speciality developer and from there Pyrocat-HD which has become a fast favourite. But then I heard Matt talk about a developer call FA-1027. The next trip I made to New York City, I popped into B&H and got myself a bottle. Sadly I have onlyRead More →

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It feels good to get back to your roots. When I first started my exploration in photography, I shot mainly consumer colour films, Fuji Superia and Kodak Gold and Ultramax. Kodak Gold is a wonderful film with a rich history going back to the first Kodacolor film released in 1940, and it was improved version Kodacolor-X in 1963. Both of these films used the C-22 process. In 1973 the new C-41 process introduced Kodacolor II. In 1982 the three flavours of Kodacolor-VR came out with 100, 200, and 400 films. Kodak Gold 200, the film I’m reviewing t,oday is the modern version of Kodacolor VR-GRead More →