One of the more interesting parts of B&W film photography is the ablity to adjust how the film behaves. There are many different ways of adjusting how the film looks, you can over or under expose the film, or push/pull the film in development. You also have various different developers to adjust how the film looks and different dilutions. But there is also the ideas of adding coloured filters to your lens to change what light and how much light hits your film. Now it might seem weird to put coloured glass over black & white film, but it can adjust and change how differentRead More →

Regarding films and photography, you encounter polarisation daily—your choice of film, camera, developer, and even how you shoot or your subject matter. But among the more divisive film stocks, one brand stands out: Foma. Now I’m a reborn fan of Foma films. Initially, I was unhappy with the results, but I soon learned to like them once I learned how to develop them. While I’m still on the fence about Fomapan 200, I’m a big fan of Fomapan 100 and Fomapan 400. And back in 2019, on a trip to Chicago, I grabbed a couple of rolls of Foma Retropan 320, hoping to find somethingRead More →

What Was I Thinking… In the world of film developers, there are many options for almost any film type and situation, and then there are the weird ones associated with closed imaging systems. And then there are developers like Formulary FX-2. I enjoy working with the strange, trying to use them to crack a tough film stock or figure out where a developer will fit within my film-developing kit. And through these reviews, I have found several that will be useful going forward. Developers like FX-39 II, Atomal 49, and R09 Spezial have now found spots in my kit as excellent film development tools. AndRead More →

This is only the second time I’ve reached a significant milestone in my ongoing reviews, the magic number of one hundred. And to be clear, I’ve done one hundred film reviews, not reviewed one hundred separate film stocks. And that’s because I’ve reviewed some rebadged films; sometimes, I knew it was a rebadge and then made a point not to go after that film stock again, notability ORWO films. I reviewed the four motion picture-specific films from ORWO as their Lomography rebadge. But in the case of Fomapan 100, I reviewed that first as KosmoFoto Mono 100 and then again as Fomapan 100. Agfa AviFotoRead More →

I had a lot of fun looking at the dedicated line of Foma developers this year. Yes, they produce a couple of clones but have three developers unique only to their company. LQN crossed my desk after someone suggested that it is the dedicated developer for Fomapan 200. And having struggled with Fomapan 200, I wanted to give this one a shot. I initially thought I would have to get it shipped by the slow European route. I soon discovered that my local source of rare developers had some in stock, so I got a bottle. LQN is the sibling to Fomadon LQR. But unlikeRead More →

There’s always another developer out there to try out, and every time I start to wonder when I’ll need to wind down these reviews, another one pops up. In the case of Fotospeed FD10, I saw it on an Instagram story from a fellow film photographer and started to hunt it down. There are two versions of FD10 out there, Fotospeed and Berspeed; I’m not sure which company made the developer originally or what the developer was made for. But from what I’ve seen online, this is an excellent general-purpose developer for small-scale to large-volume processing. Technical Details Manufacturer: Fotospeed Name: Film Developer FD10 PrimaryRead More →

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 →

Earlier this year I completed the second major historical photographic project on the Confederation of Canada and the events and places that lead up to the joining of four British Provinces in British North America into the Dominion of Canada in 1867. Over the course of that project, I came across many events and locations that inspired me to try and tell the deeper story. Of course, I couldn’t tell every story so instead, I selected two that I felt I couldn’t tell the whole story due to the timeline for the project ending in 1867. One of these is the railroad through Ontario theRead More →

One of the first History courses I took in High School was Canada in the 20th Century. Most Canadian history texts that are used in schools start at this point. And there’s no surprise. As a nation, Canada came into its own in the 20th Century. Many point the crucible of World War One as the focal point. Others state the post World War Two era leading up to the 100th Anniversary of Confederation. But everything that happened in the 20th Century built on what happened before and the sins of the past were going to come back to haunt. As Canada emerged from theRead More →

In the grander scheme, the Battle of Ridgeway gets all the glory when it comes to the limited history of the Fenian Raids of 1866. And yet a second skirmish took place almost instantly after the one at Ridgeway. The sad fact is that both battles could have been avoided and maybe the whole matter could have been better remembered. But to understand where the Battle of Fort Erie came from, we must first go back to Port Colborne, where we split off last week on the 1st of June 1866. Lieutenant-Colonel John Stoughton Dennis felt left out, a blow to his fragile ego. DespiteRead More →