Photographer makes world’s first cannabis-based film developer

You can develop film at home with different homemade concoctions, but Dmitri Tcherbadji really intrigued me. He made a cannabis-based film developer and processed over a hundred test exposures with it! He named it “Sativa Cannanol”, and he kindly shared the process and results with DIYP.

But wait, there’s more! He also tested his “Sativa Cannanol” to see how it stacks up against not only commercial developer, but also stuff like coffee, moss, fir, cedar, blood, pond water, EpiPen, and pee!

Choosing the right cannabis as film developer

“Factory-made chemicals are often the easiest, fastest, cheapest, and best-resolving solution for developing black and white film”, Dmitri writes. He came up with the idea after finishing a bottle of Ilford Ilfosol 3

Developing black and white film at home is possible using simple recipes that are easily found online. One of the most famous and straightforward recipes is Caffenol, which only requires a mixture of instant coffee, vitamin C, and washing soda. Other recipes that incorporate beer, wine, garlic, and other organic compounds are also available.

Dmitri notes that no one seems to have attempted to develop film in weed. So, his Sativa Cannanol is probably the world’s first. He notes that Cannabis is legal in Canada and relatively cheap: you can buy plants and seeds at nurseries and grow them at home, yielding over 100g of dried flower for less than $100.

Dmitri tested two different strains of cannabis in this experiment. “It turns out that Cannabis sativa strains are rich in phenols (>1800mg/100g by some measurements ),” says Dmitri. In other words, it makes them ideal to make film developer. In simpler terms, it only takes 1.5g of marijuana to create a 300ml solution that can develop a single roll of film. This is less than one-eighth of the amount of cannabis needed compared to coffee for equivalent potency by weight.

In the end, Dmitri developed several rolls of Ilford HP5+ in different cannabis-based recipes. What’s more, he even reused the same developer multiple times. There was some loss of quality, but still! He worked alongside Daren and Yvonne, developing film with the cannabis-based developer. But it was only one of the ingredients – they also used blood, pond water, pee, wood, and flowers.

Dmitri, Daren, and Yvonne tested over 200 35mm film exposures on 20 bulk-loaded short rolls of HP5+. In the end, each canister contained eight bracketed exposures of Lily and a stationary object with consistent studio lighting.

“During this experiment, we determined optimal extraction methods, which have significantly improved our results with all types of developers,” Dmitri writes.” I’ve also added a final bath specifically for the cannabis developer to prevent a very real problem of intense, unfixable clouds of debris.”

Sativa Cannanol recipe

You will need:

• 1.5g of cannabis flower (Sativa) soaked in 30ml of isopropyl 99% rubbing alcohol (C₃H₈O) for 3 days.
• 20g washing soda.
• 5g vitamin C.
• Top up with water to 300ml and mix well.

Start by mixing washing soda, then vitamin C in 200g of water first. then add the cannabis/alcohol mix, then the rest of water. Dmitri notes that you’ll need to start three days in advance as it takes time to extract the phenol compounds from cannabis flowers.

For Ilford HP5+ (EI 25), it takes 420s of development (7min) at 69℉, agitating every 30 seconds. Any fixer will do for the fixing. For the final wash, Dmitri suggests putting 3-5 drops of hand soap into your tank. Swish it around and then wash with clean water until no bubbles appear. “This helps to get rid of microscopic debris and plant hairs”, he notes.

The results

Darren summed it all up in a video you can watch below:

Yvonne focused on developing film in blood, and here’s her video:

And here are some of Dmitri’s test scans and comparative scans with different times and different developers:

Make sure to follow Dmitri Tcherbadji on Analog.Cafe, and Instagram. You’ll find the complete article about developing film with cannabis here, with lots more examples and explanations. And let us know if you decide to try it out for yourself!

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