Efke film, Lucky film, and all dunked in caffenol

R

RML

Guest
Over the past few weeks I've been experimenting with coffee and soda to develop my B&W negs. Caffenol is easy to brew and the results are really dang good.

On my blog I posted several photos. Some were taken with Efke KB100, others with Lucky SHD400. All were dunked in caffenol. I now have ten rolls of Lucky SHD100, which I plan to use (not all of them!) next Wednesday: Spring equinox.

Results from my first roll of Efke KB100 in caffenol are here: http://shardsofphotography.blogspot.com/2007/03/developing-film-in-coffee-1-roll-of_03.html .

Then came a roll of Lucky SHD400. Some results are here: http://shardsofphotography.blogspot.com/2007/03/pass-rf-part-3-update_06.html .

My PAWs of this week and last week are also results from Efke KB100 in caffenol, and you find them here: http://shardsofphotography2.blogspot.com/2007/03/paw-10-2007.html
and here: http://shardsofphotography2.blogspot.com/2007/03/paw-11-2007.html .

If you care to read the whole sordid story, follow this link to see all my posts about my adventures developing in caffenol: http://shardsofphotography.blogspot.com/search?q=caffenol .

I hope these posts will inspire a few people to try out coffee and soda, and see for themselves how good this works. I also hope that those new to self developing B&W film will take heart from my (and my 9 year old daughter's) experiences. :)

Enjoy!
 
RML,
I have been following all your post regarding the caffenol developing. The pictures are absolutely awesome. I am anxiously anticipating the time when I have the time to try it myself. I had heard of this process a couple years ago and "intended" to try it, but had never found anybody that actually tried it or posted their results. Again: Fantastic!!!
Now for some questions.
I am not real sure I follow which combinaton of coffee/soda gave you the best results. The 2.5c to 1.25 soda? Or the 5c to 2s?
AND are the develop times on them all around 30 minutes?
I have a Beseler rotary that I use for large format, but I also have several 35 and 120 reels and tubes for it. I was wondering, in your opinion, would a constant back and forth roll, for say 12-15 minutes (or maybe longer) work as well as the shake/wait/shake method?
I ask all this because I have the coffee waiting for me in the cupboard, the soda in my darkroom, and have been kinda holding off to obtain some bulk Vitamin C to try the Caffenol-C. But with your results, I be thinkin I may go with your Caffenol recipe.
 
Freneticist said:
Now for some questions.
I am not real sure I follow which combinaton of coffee/soda gave you the best results. The 2.5c to 1.25 soda? Or the 5c to 2s?
AND are the develop times on them all around 30 minutes?
Click to expand...

What gave me the best results (meaning results with more acutance) were the big numbers, so either the 5c/2.5s table spoons or the 2.5c/1.25c table spoons. When I tried with 5c/2.5s tea spoons things worked also but I found the results a bit soft in the details. So, because I'm not growing my own coffee, I'm sticking for now with the 2.5 table spoons of coffee + 1.25 table spoons of soda.

Development times were always 30 minutes. First minute continuous agitation, then 4 minutes every 30 seconds, then 25 minutes every minute. I use the Paterson tank's thingy to twirl the spool. I do that 5 times clockwise and 5 times counter clockwise.


I have a Beseler rotary that I use for large format, but I also have several 35 and 120 reels and tubes for it. I was wondering, in your opinion, would a constant back and forth roll, for say 12-15 minutes (or maybe longer) work as well as the shake/wait/shake method?
Click to expand...

I really don't have an answer to that. You may just want to try it out. In my experience, the more I agitate the paler the top and bottom rims of my film fade. So I'm trying to keep agitation to a minimum.


I ask all this because I have the coffee waiting for me in the cupboard, the soda in my darkroom, and have been kinda holding off to obtain some bulk Vitamin C to try the Caffenol-C. But with your results, I be thinkin I may go with your Caffenol recipe.
Click to expand...

Just do it! As the commercials say. :) You can even do it while in the kitchen making coffee for yourself. Just don't drink the caffenol! :p
 
Might give it a try sometime. Nice to see your daughter showing interest. Look forward to a day when I have children to share all this with. They'll learn about film before digital you can be sure of it.
 
This shot is Lucky 400 dev in Rodinal.
Boat1.jpg
 
I think the grain may be exaggerated by the scanning. I've never been able to control it much when scanning; one reason why I usually shot on colour film, and now mostly digital. I've never liked grain much, finding it oddly distracting in many cases. :) That said, the Lucky film is iso400 and that could add to the grain. I now have 10 rolls of Lucky SHD100 that I want to give a shot. I bought it on eBay from Isaac Chen ( http://feedback.ebay.nl/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback&userid=isaac.chen ), who ships extremely fast. BTW, he also sells ERA film and Shanghai film, for those of you wanting to try that stuff. :)
 
Amazing results! I had heard of this from the Shutterbug article some time back, and always wanted to try it but never did. I have to rethink that. I didn't think it would give such good results.

Thanks for sharing.
 
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