Caffenol anyone?

[kossi008]

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Although I like the results, I got some extreme constrast on a Ilford FP4, that made me start experimenting deeper.

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Toe speed is lower, and contrast is excesive, if you want to get midtones to a reasonable density (around 0.7).

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I use Caffenol C-H.

Caffenol-CH has too much KBr for FP4, and this brings down the toe. You should really try -CM, or better yet, -CL and semi-stand. I've had some very nice results with FP4 and my own CL-Variant, but haven't done any densitometry.

 

[elerion]

Yes. FP4 seems better with C-M reduced soda.
Still I had to lower the ISO to somewhere near EI 80, and still got a steep curve.
I'm going to try C-L semi-stand next.

 

[jdriffill]

A roll of Agfa APX400 that I have developed in Caffenol C-H seems to have turned out promisingly. I have yet to scan the negatives, but they look OK. Quite encouraging!

 

[kingjon]

Interesting post. Recently become interested in caffenol.....Going to finish up a couple of rolls I've been working on over the weekend and give it a shot. Will post any decent images.
Jon

 

[rfaspen]

Interesting how folks are getting into the weeds with Caffenol. I've been using it off and on for a couple-few years now and its been quite good for me. I don't really know the version I tend to mix up (CH vs CL or ??) but I use table salt NaCl in substitute for KBr in my recipe.

FP4 has done well, but I noticed that Fomapan Classic 100, shot at 100, gave me surprisingly good results. I've kind of settled on a semi-stand approach to that film-developer combo. About 15 mins at 68F, agitate typically with slow inversions for first 30 seconds, then 1 to 2 very slow inversions every 5 mins after that. I did say "about 15 mins"..... I found that with this developer, film, temperature, and agitation scheme, the length of time is pretty squishy, up to 20 mins and the results look darn similar to 15 mins.

I'll say last that I've been very un-scientific with my Caffenol development. I've just been sloppy with Caffenol which is kind of unusual because I am a scientist in my day job 🙂

 

[Shac]

Um.... I thought HC-110 was one of the Developers that kept well for years and years? I'd also tend to think that rebottling it would possibly oxydate it more than leaving it in the original bottle. Otherwise... it sounds more of a problem than I expected.

I just squeeze the HC-110 bottle until the liquid is almost to the top - then recap it. Works for me

 

[fs999]

I use now Caffenol exclusively since 4 years and I'm very happy with it.

I've tried all the "traditional" recipes out there and my favourite is CLCS (CL variant with Cold Start @15°C-59°F and letting raise to 20°C-68°F room temperature. Very fine grain.
The only film that does make problems is Rollei R80S. I suppose that the anti-halation layer doesn't dissolve entirely @15°C-59°F and leaves small dots over the film. But in conventional CL there is no problem.

Caffenol CL-CN works very well with Adox CMS 200 II, nearly grainless :

Plaubel Makina 67
Adox CMS II 20 ISO film in homemade Caffenol CLCN 16min @ 20°C
Scanned with Plustek OpticFilm 120 at 2400dpi with Silverfast AI Studio



You can click on the photo to zoom in.


Here the most used recipes.

One thought over replacing Kbr with iodized on non-iodized salt on 400 ISO films. Best results are with Kbr as you can see bellow on Reinhold's (www.caffenol.blogspot.com) test stripe :