Cafenol; What Went Wrong, Part Deux

titrisol said:
No idea really.....
How do the negs look like? yellowish only or stil black portions
have you scanned them as transparency or as negatives?
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Dark...really dark...all the way to the edges. They look almost like I just pulled the film from the can and did nothing with them. Put them up to a strong light and you can just make out images.
Bleach was an act of desperation. I didn't really think I was doing anything but ruining the negatives, but I was at the point of throwing them away anyway.
Nothing important on the film, just some snaps meant to use up the roll so I could try cafenol.
I think I've learned my lesson...don't use efke.
 
My Caffenol weekend

My Caffenol weekend

All this talk of Caffenol made me want to try it, too. So, I did, with good results on Tri-X. A little grainy, but I think that's the Tri-X.

I used the recipe from Digital Truth, but doubled it to fit my two-reel tank. Temp was around 70 degrees, time was 12 minutes (Caffenol C), agitating every 30 seconds for the first two minutes and every minute after that. Water stop bath, fixed with Kodafix, regular tap water wash (I will use Photoflo next time!). The results looked fine, the biggest problem was my bad film loading, which was understandable since I hadn't loaded film on a reel in about two decades.

The attachment doesn't seem to work for me, so pix are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettdavis/2956225779/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettdavis/2956208965/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettdavis/2957016614/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettdavis/2957035120/
 
Nice pics there and pretty good range with the caffenol-c. I suggested the vit. c in a post above a while back, but I was ignored. Adding the vit. c seems to be the big stain remover in the recipe. My negs were too dark to scan with regular caffenol at 68 and 30 minutes. I read in a few places online that the vitamin c could both cut development time and reduce the fog potential so I tried it. It worked for me too.
 
Those are really good, but I think that’s the problem I have with Caffenol C it’s missing that X factor that home-brewed look it’s the chance thing a suck-it-and-see method that I’ve found very liberating,

I’ve scanned Caffenol negs to good effect that would have just gone in the bin if I’d processed them any other way
 
ah! I love photography..
My mother once cleaned a teapot owned by a workman who was doing something or other on our street, when he got it back he was very unhappy because he'd spent years layering the thing with tannin. Ever since Ive resisted cleaning my coffee pot for the same reason. Anyway sorry for getting mostly off topic.
 
So you tried both separetely or at the same time?
or is nseries?

The paracetamol developer is a great rodinal substitute as the acetaminophenol in the presence of NaOH and Sulfite converts into p-amino-phenol which is rodinal

Sparrow said:
in the centre is the fixer test, to either side is hp5+ and fuji 400 Superia, first in coffenol and then in paracetamol 😱
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titrisol said:
So you tried both separetely or at the same time?
or is nseries?

The paracetamol developer is a great rodinal substitute as the acetaminophenol in the presence of NaOH and Sulfite converts into p-amino-phenol which is rodinal
Click to expand...

I put test strips in the working solution to keep track of the reaction, but I had 100ml of the buffer solution left in a measuring jug so I put 500mg of paracetamol in that and cut the test strips in half, so the mix would be 100ml water 4gm washing soda 500mg paracetamol.

I’m going the try with alcohol next, red wine probably; I may even put some in the tank
🙂
 
I see paracetamol needs some extra time to convert, about overnight before you put film in it.
I find your results interesintg however 😉

Sparrow said:
I put test strips in the working solution to keep track of the reaction, but I had 100ml of the buffer solution left in a measuring jug so I put 500mg of paracetamol in that and cut the test strips in half, so the mix would be 100ml water 4gm washing soda 500mg paracetamol.

I’m going the try with alcohol next, red wine probably; I may even put some in the tank
🙂
Click to expand...
 
titrisol said:
I see paracetamol needs some extra time to convert, about overnight before you put film in it.
I find your results interesintg however 😉
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Convert? I crushed it in a pestle and mortar first, the mix still had some solids in it and went a pale pink/lilac colour, then it had a 45-50min stand dev although I may have swilled it round a few times
 
Keith said:
Stand developing ... I'm positive that makes the difference. I agitated very gently initially for thirty seconds and that was it. I've noticed that if you agitate to vigorously it really aerates the solution and I think the drag marks are being caused by the micro bubbles moving throught the solution between agitation cycles!

I've noticed that the colour cast tends to happen with images that are quite underexposed. That third image with the reddish/yellow cast was very light on!
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I stood the last one, 60min agitated 1st and 31st min, I possibly didn’t leave the solution long enough after mixing, what are you rating hp5 at, I’ve stuck to 400 so far, but I’m thinking of dropping back to 200

PS

this is the one I had printed, a 18x12 gloss

 
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Stop this nonsense, I am just about ready to go burn a roll of film and make some coffee!

My oldest son was reading over my shoulder, seen that you can develop film in coffee, now he wants to have a go! So he is off with a Nikkormat FTn / Nikkor 50mm f2.0 and a roll of Plus-X.
 
Yes I the only reason I have Nescafe is to make frappé so I’ve been careful not to froth it up when mixing. I’ve been using 300ml (11oz) in a twin tank, so that could be part of the problem.

Alice, is pretty indifferent to her role as subject these days; it has to be spectacularly good to get a reaction, she came to me to do her ID photos so I suppose that’s a vote of confidence
 
YES convert from paracetamol to paraminophenol is a quite slow reaction
The pinkish color is agood sign though, and the fact that you got something is also a good indication
However, if you leave the paracetamol overnight in the NaOH solution you'll get a more active developer.

Sparrow said:
Convert? I crushed it in a pestle and mortar first, the mix still had some solids in it and went a pale pink/lilac colour, then it had a 45-50min stand dev although I may have swilled it round a few times
Click to expand...
 
2962401082_40f9174b4c_b.jpg


2962364170_bf07b6a65a_b.jpg



http://www.flickr.com/photos/19217760@N05/

not sure why they are different colours
 
Caffenol at last

Caffenol at last

I finally got hold of some washing soda at a local Mollie Stones. I used Keith's volumes of 4 tbsp. of coffee (filtered dark italian espresso), and same of washing soda dissolved in hot water - about 12 oz total for my 2 reel tank. I was using C41 films, and got some color tints, not as many blues and greens ans Keith, but some magenta and varying brown casts.

The usable images I like were mainly ones I converted to b/w. One thing is that I didn't mix my solution up well enough, and while developing for 35 min. with an agitation halfway through, the top roll got a little bit thinner solution.

I'm going to reduce the coffee and washing soda a bit next time, and agitate every few minutes to continue testing this. I have an image on my blog from this process.
 
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