I spent the weekend mixing up fresh chemicals and then developed 5 rolls of film. 

A few weeks ago I saw that there is a lab in Ontario that sells pre-made caffenol developer for black and white film. This developing process has intrigued me and since I finished my first bottle of Ilfosol 3 (there will be another post dedicated to that), it was the perfect time to try it out.

Caffenol Lab is a film processing lab in Brantford, Ontario and they also sell film and their Cawanol developer. I went with the 1000ml version and bought some film, including two rolls of expired film:

• Konica SXG 100
• Europrint 100

They also included a BUNCH more Cawanol 1000 packets and Konica’s Baby Film for free <3 Amazing! It was really easy to mix up and is definitely one of the better smelling film chemicals out there (though it’s still not safe to drink!). Another plus is that it’s relatively inexpensive ($8.97 CAD will process about 6 rolls) and it’s environmentally friendly.

Saturday (May 1, 2021)
I developed three rolls of film with Cawanol 1000:

• Fomapan Classic 100
• Fomapan Creative 200
• Street Candy MTN 100

Both of Foma’s developing times were listed on their site but since MTN100 just got released, it wasn’t. I messaged them and they responded back super fast with a developing time - I ended up putting Foma 100 & MTN 100 together for 13:40. 

While I still need to scan the negatives to see the true results, I’m very impressed with how the negatives turned out. It was my first time shooting all three stocks AND using Cawanol 100 developer but so far everything looks great! I’ll share my photos when I get them scanned in and do a full review of the chemistry with my method for developing. 

Sunday (May 2, 2021)

I also had purchased a new C-41 powder chemistry kit from Argentix.ca - an online store out of Quebec that sells a lot of film chemistry, plus film, paper and developing accessories. They also have one of the best prices for the Unicolor C-41 2L developing kit at $65.49 CAD, with low shipping costs. Definitely check them out if you do a lot of developing at home. 

I mixed new Developer, Blix and Stabilizer yesterday and then developed two rolls of colour film, both Kodak Pro Image 100, one of which I got in my April NegativeBox, Canada’s first monthly subscription box for film!

Again, I’ll have to wait until I scan in the negatives but they look great.