Caffenol-C-H works

I may have found the ASA 400 film for use in Caffenol. Delta 400 proved to be very smooth and fine grained when stand developed in low pH Caffenol. It shone especially when conditions were contrasty.

Pushed one stop. My estimate is that this works fine for contrasty conditions, but for grey and hazy conditions it should be exposed at box speed.

C-C-L mixed accordingly:
16g/l Sodium carbonate
10g/l Ascorbic acid
40g/l Instant coffee
1.25g/l Potassium Bromide

5 minute tempered presoak. Semi stand @20C for 60 minutes. 12 inversions initially, 2 inversions at the 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 minute markers. Let stand for the duration.


Moss Docks by Eirik0304, on Flickr
 
Nice Results Eirik. Ive been trying caffenol on my 35mm, i need some bromide to further experiment. Thanks for sharing
 
I just saw this thread now, but i was "i"ng long time ago on Caffenol, so i asked friends who are working on labs equipments sales and they are alchemists to provide me with the chemicals, so they brought me the NaCO3 and Ascorbic Acid [all crystals] and i will buy the coffee, they didn't find PB but i don't care, they may find it but i told them never mind, in fact i found it online and i may order it later, but once i get the chemicals soon [i told them i will take it when they will bring a better scale than what i can find markets] all together with coffee then i will give that a try.
 
This is most interesting and thanks to all who have shared their findings about Caffenol. I see that the emphasis is on negatives for scanning and the images here are exceptional. Has anyone tried developing in caffenol and printing the resulting negs in the darkroom on conventional papers?

Regards
John.
 
I've done some printing, all with caffenol developed film. I've only done a few prints with film developed in something else, so I can't really compare it - but it seems to work great. I've got some rolls of 400 film (TMax and Tri-X) that was developed without the potassium bromide and those negs are a bit hard to work with, but far from impossible.

Some scanned prints: (from a cheap scanner)

TMax 400:




Lucky 100: (cheap and bad film...)
 
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pobe said:
I've done some printing, all with caffenol developed film. I've only done a few prints with film developed in something else, so I can't really compare it - but it seems to work great. I've got some rolls of 400 film (TMax and Tri-X) that was developed without the potassium bromide and those negs are a bit hard to work with, but far from impossible.

Some scanned prints: (from a cheap scanner)

TMax 400:




Lucky 100: (cheap and bad film...)
Click to expand...

These look pretty good to me, may certainly be worth a try.
Thanks for posting.
Regards,
John
 
Fruktansvärt vackert Pontus!

I too hope to be able to wet print sometime during the winter, it will be interesting to compare the results to the scans.
 
Stunning shots Eirik. I just began shooting film this fall and soon afterwards learned to develop my own film using caffenol. I still have so much to learn, but your shots are inspiring. I've seen some of them before on Flickr. Thanks for sharing and posting your experiments. I'll be experimenting mostly with HP5+ because I can get it cheaper than anything else now. I imagine Caffenol C-L will be best.
 
Chrisrw said:
Stunning shots Eirik. I just began shooting film this fall and soon afterwards learned to develop my own film using caffenol. I still have so much to learn, but your shots are inspiring. I've seen some of them before on Flickr. Thanks for sharing and posting your experiments. I'll be experimenting mostly with HP5+ because I can get it cheaper than anything else now. I imagine Caffenol C-L will be best.
Click to expand...

Hi Chris

HP5+ is a very nice film, and works well in Caffenol. With respects to Caffenol-C-L, as you say it will most likely yield the best results, but it is also the most fickle of the solutions. You need to be painfully exact in measuring it up, not to mention you have to be 100% sure the ingredients are pure. Commercial soda (sodium carbonate) products can contain a lot of water, up to 50% and you wouldn't know (if the packaging doesn't state the purity). Vitamin C in tablet form will not work well with Caffenol-C-L for the aforementioned reasons, you would need powdered ascorbic acid for that (and I recommend it for all versions really). Instant coffee however is more or less the same no matter what. The cheaper and more cheerful the better.

In short, I would recommend you try out Caffenol-C-H first - its much more robust to any inaccuracies. Mix it according to Reinhold (imagesfrugales on flickr, and Caffenol.blogspot.com owner) recipe, and use 1.2g/l of Potassium Bromide (KBr). Expose film at EI 400 (box speed) and 800 (underexpose one stop), one frame of each for each scene. Then develop in said mix for 13 minutes at 20C/68F. Agitate 12-15 inversions initially (take 2 seconds to invert tank and back - not too quickly in other words), which takes up the first minute. Then invert 3 times every top of the minute. A couple good knocks to the base after each cycle to let loose any bubbles sticking to the emulsion. I use a water stop bath (tempered to 20C too), fill and empty 6 times in one minute should do it. Then fix as pr manufaturer's recommendations. When dry, make a note of which of the 400 vs 800 EI frames works best. Adjust your exposure, or your development times according to your taste.

A note on amount of developer. In a Patterson tank I use 350ml for a 35ml film. No less. Reason being coffee will froth. it forms a thin layer at the top of the solution in the tank. If not enough developer you get one edge of the film unevenly developed. For 120 films I use 600ml in the same tank.

Good luck, and feel free to send me a PM or two if you do get stuck.
 
maddoc said:
My favorite from this series. Stunning !! 😎
Click to expand...
Thank you Gabor. I got lucky with this one, I've walked across this plaza several times every weekday for ten years, and only ever seen it like this once. Pays to carry a camera at all times. 😉
 
I've stopped using a restrainer (KBr) for all my films. Also have stopped using Caffenol-C-L as I never got very good results with it (the reason being probably the fact that I don't have a pH meter). I now develop everything in Caffenol-C-M (which is the same as Caffenol-C-H, just without restrainer), according to Reinhold's recipe and get very good results. Have not used commercial developers (aside from C41 process obviously!) for well over a year now.

Films that I've found that work very well with Caffenol-C-M:

HP5+
Ultrafine Extreme 400 (which I very much think is rebadged HP5+)
APX100
Fomapan 200
Fomapan 400

And not:

Kentmere 400 / RPX 400.

TMY is a so-so, only one to exhibit somewhat heavy fogging, need to test still, but have not shot any for a while.

I get about a stop (or slightly more) over box speed by developing 20 minutes at 20 degrees, 30 second initial agitation and two agitations every two minutes. Results can be seen in my flickr stream.

ps. I have a google docs spreadsheet of my results, which I can share with anyone interested. PM me if you're interested.
 
Good news Jani. Potassium bromide is not impossible to get hold of, but certainly more difficult than the other ingredients. I found that Neopan 400 didn't need a restrainer either (by mistake).

A bit of base fog is not so much of a problem, at least not if you plan on scanning only. The main problem with lack of a restrainer can be uneven development. Depends on the film though, especially with C-C-L, and how much bromide is released from the emulsion, and how.
 
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