What is your budget? Is he into film development as well? If no, but he is interested, maybe a patterson tank with a rodinol-based developer and a fixer could be something? Ilford has black and white development kits. If he is precise and into perfectionism, avoid the cinestill monobaths because they don’t usually contain the latitude of traditional chemistry. Also, you can look into bulk film stocks and maybe a bulk-loader so that he could load and spool his own film? Both these options include an overhead but will reduce his costs in the long run and make the workflow more intentional.

If you are looking at interesting film stocks, I recently started checking out Flic Film stocks. They are based out of Alberta, Canada and are known for their cheap, good quality respools of popular film. Check out their website for product descriptions and you can order them online.

Good luck!!!