I love the smell of Caffenol in the morning!

Fernando, beautiful! And very inspiring! Any comments on your process?

I just bought some Nescafé dark roast, going for strength over inexpensiveness. I ordered a new scale to .01g accuracy, a tin of KBr, and some fresh Kodafix. Should be back in the attempted Caffenol business this coming weekend, depending on shipping speed.
 
Hi Jeff!

Since Agfa Copex Rapid is a microfilm ( = ultra-high native contrast), I can't use regular Caffenol recipes: I have to tame contrast.

I've found this "LC+Cnew" variant which works wonders! :)
Formula (in metric system: sorry, I'm at loss trying to convert in US units!):
Washing soda = 10 g/l
Vitamin C = 2 g/l
Coffee = 12 g/l

As you can tell, it's a very "light" Caffenol.

Developing time for Agfa Copex (rated at 40-50 ISO) is 16:30 at 20 Celsius, or 9:30 at 26 Celsius (I use the latter during summer).

I just L-O-V-E the results. Extremely fine grain and amazing sharpness!

Fernando
 
Thank you. And now I have a new film on my list to try! The Copex is pretty pricey per roll ... maybe I will treat myself if the next round of experimentation proves fruitful!
 
A couple tips:
1. Fill the developing tank so that the developer completely covers the spool, plus some more, or else the top edge of the negatives will get bubble spots.
2. When inverting the tank, add a twist on each inversion, otherwise the negatives get streaks across the film.

Here are two shots that did not suffer too badly from the above problems. I cannot get over how grainless the sky turns out, and the excellent tones. These were shot on Efke R100 and developed in Caffenol CM(RS) without bromide or iodide added.

This one has minor streaks on the tree.

Dallas Arboretum #2 by sreed2006, on Flickr


Where clouds come from by sreed2006, on Flickr
 
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Do have in mind Reinhold's recipes, of which znapper posted a table, are designed for a one stop push. I prefer not to push, which is why I develop at a lower pH (less soda (40g/l vs 54g/l), less active). Having based them on Reinhold's well proven recipes I named them Caffenol-C-M(RS) and C-H(RS).

If you perform a search or two you'll find more threads here and in the darkroom forum. Also have a look at:

http://www.caffenol-cookbook.com
http://on-your-kitchen-worktop.blogspot.com
http://caffenol.blogspot.com
 
Ezzie, I have read a good number of your posts here and elsewhere and I certainly appreciate all of your experience and efforts. That had a lot to do with my venturing into this!

I just finished scanning and I am uploading the entire roll as I type this. I can say that I am immensely satisfied with the results, but for one minor problem. That was the presence of minute white specks (not spots) present. They were much more pronounced on the last frames reeled, or nearest the inner surface of the tank. The first frames reeled in and near the center of the reel were quite clean and nearly speck free.

My first thought was that it may have been some residue from the mix, though I felt as though I had screened it fairly thoroughly. I also felt that my washing was thorough. I have since read that this may be a result of the fixer (which is fresh in my case). Any thoughts?

I will post some results shortly.
 
Details... The roll was shot with an M6TTL, Amedeo adapter and Zeiss 50/1.5 Sonnar (Contax). The film was Arista Premium 100 (Plus-X). I used the stock C-L stand formula with 1.2g/l KBr. Presoak for 5 minutes. I poured at 19C in 21C ambient. 10 light inversions to start, 3 light at 1, 5, 15, 30, and dumped at 45 minutes. Water stop, Kodafix fix, water wash finished with a drop of Photo-Flo.
 
Hi all,

I have read further about the white specks and there also seems to be some mention of bad quality film, but I am not so sure. I think it has something to do with the location during processing, specifically the proximity of the outer frames to the tank. Maybe not being washed as well?

I am going to try and run another roll this evening, any suggestions or recommendations (white specks or otherwise) before I proceed? Anything to adjust, change, etc.?

And -thanks again to everyone for all of the encouragement, I am very pleased and very grateful!
 
Using filtered water and making sure the film dries as protected from dust as possible, and then making sure to get the film into sleeves as soon as possible, is key to avoid specks.

I dry my films inside the shower cabinet, after running hot water to steam up the room, the I cut and sleeve the negs, before further examination and scanning.

Rinse well, use photoflo in the last wash if you have.

Be careful when you are loading and handling the film, the specks you have, reminds me of dust or contamination + insufficient washing.
 
burancap said:
Hi all,

I have read further about the white specks and there also seems to be some mention of bad quality film, but I am not so sure. I think it has something to do with the location during processing
Click to expand...

With Caffenol, it may happen that the various powders (exp. soda and coffee) won't dissolve completely, leaving some suspension.

Use only demineralized water to prepare the developer; rise the temperature to help dissolving as much powder as possible (I prepare the bath at 40 C, should be like 100 F?) and filter before use. I use a throw-away paper cloth.

Fernando
 
Thanks guys. I have never seen the specks before, before Caffenol, that is. I agree that it has to be something in the mix, so based on your comments (I already premix the coffee and the chems separate ahead of time), I will try raising the temperature at mix a bit. I will also concentrate on better straining. How about coffee filters? Lastly, I will increase wash time and volume.
 
Well, I've seen specks like that with other developers as well, so I suppose it's not unique for caffenol per-se. I never actually filtered my caffenol myself when I was doing it, but I made very sure that all the ingredients were fully dissolved before using it (stirring long and well). raising temp will help dissolve things indeed.

I once had issues with flakes of old fixer coming loose in my (old) fixer-bottle, but those specks seem to be much sharper and also with a greater variance in size than what you are experiencing.

I am not sure if you know, but from what I can remember, it is recommended that the caffenol sits around for 5 minutes or so, before using it, to let the solution settle and mix properly. (and also to stabilize the temp).

Would be interesting to see how one can "debug" speck-issues, IE. determine when in the process the specs came on, to be able to rule out the fixer, washing or other things. ^^
 
Jeff,

Great shots, and you obviously nailed the dev process - well done!

I also read somewhere that white spots could be a fixer issue, but I think it depends on the nature of the spots - are they round? If so, it could be silver coming out of solution, which seems to be more of a problem with lower ASA films (higher silver content, with smaller garin size?) and ammonium thio fixer (i.e. rapid fixer) than it is with faster films and sodium (i.e. old fashioned) fixer.

People say reusing rapid fixer is not a good idea, as it promotes spots, but I have to say that I have not had any problems with Ilford rapid fix when reused a few times. I guess filtering your working solutions is one way to go, but it's interesting that you get this nearer the centre of the spool. My old tanks have the swizzle-rod for agitation rather than allowing me to invert the tank. Don't know if that could be an issue?

Look forward to seeing more of your experiments, definitely worth persevering ;)
 
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Thanks John! I am very pleased. Quick comment: the "specking" was more prominent on the outside of the spiral.

I have read about both low quality film and the fixer as contenders. While the film may be of argauble quality, the fixer (Kodafix) was absolutely brand new. I am no chemist, so I can not comment on a bad interaction, but one would think that there should be none with a solid stop in between.

Looking back at the link and the first image that was the worst specked, it sure looks like dried "crud" rather than a reaction. Especially so, as it gradually dissipated through the roll. Interestingly, the worst frames were at the top of the hanging roll, for what that is worth. As the specks are white in reversal, the crud would be dark, leaving the source to be the coffee and not the chems.
 
We are having one of those warm, blue sky, puffy cloud kinda' days here, so I took out the cliched red (R25 090) filter and ran another roll of the same Arista 100 earlier this afternoon. The filter is a 3 stop, but I the ran the film at box speed through my R8, which TTL metered within about 1/2 stop of the filter rating. Is there any reason to adjust my current functioning stand recipe for this? Thanks, stand is as new to me as Caffenol!
 
Jeff,

If the spots are dark on the neg, it sounds like the coffee - precipitated silver would be white. Maybe some tighter screening of the soup is called for.

On dev time, I have found that stand is good for a spread of exposures - have processed film at nominal ISO and -1 in the same tub with reasonable results. If you have metered TTL with the filter in place my guess is that the body adjusted for the loss of speed and you should be OK as before.
 
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