A good use for coffee

Joel_L · Dec 14, 2022

I finally found a good use for coffee. I've read about Caffenol in the past and finally decided to give it a try. I used FP4+ and the Caffenol delta standard blend. I processed this with a 3 minute pre soak, 10 minute development 20C, 3 quick washes to get most the Caffenol out, stop, fix. a little Coffee staining of the stop, less so in the fix.

Surprised that the actually came out. I also found that my Olympus 35RC has a slight light leak. The first 10 frames I took about two weeks ago, then I snapped off the rest of the roll today. The shots taken today look fine, the ones that sat in the camera for two weeks I can see were impacted. So I will re-seal the RC.

In any case, the Caffenol seems to work well, so Coffee is good for something. I used Nescafe Clasico dark roast.

Dusty Negative · Dec 15, 2022

I can think of a very good use of coffee outside of film development.

That said, good job on your discovery. I've never tried this.

fs999 · Dec 15, 2022

Welcome to the club ! The best coffee is the cheapest. They are made with robusta beans which have more caffeic acid the development agent.
Here you find most recipes :

gone · Dec 15, 2022

Oh yes, coffee is certainly good for something, a lot of things actually. You can actually drink the stuff! W/o it, I would be a zombie in the mornings.

Joel_L · Dec 15, 2022

fs999 said:
Welcome to the club ! The best coffee is the cheapest. They are made with robusta beans which have more caffeic acid the development agent.
Here you find most recipes :
View attachment 324161

Thanks, this table pulls this together nicely.

jay moussy · Dec 15, 2022

momus said:
Oh yes, coffee is certainly good for something, a lot of things actually. You can actually drink the stuff! W/o it, I would be a zombie in the mornings.

Agitation schedule?

Joel_L · Dec 15, 2022

momus said:
Oh yes, coffee is certainly good for something, a lot of things actually. You can actually drink the stuff! W/o it, I would be a zombie in the mornings.

I never developed the taste for coffee, have known many people that certainly act like they would die without it, but then most of those used a healthy dose of sugar, vanilla or chocolate, bailys...... So I question if they really liked coffee.

I will try this with some other films I use ( caffenol that is ).

Joel_L · Dec 15, 2022

jay moussy said:
Agitation schedule?

I used my Jobo, so continuous. I did adjust the time per the digital truth calculator.

mtnbkr · Dec 15, 2022

When I got back into analog photography with a Crown Graphic 4x5 and Harmon DPP or "paper negatives", I used Caffenol to develop. Other than the "sepia-like" staining, it worked well.

Chris

npl · Dec 15, 2022

fs999 said:
Welcome to the club ! The best coffee is the cheapest. They are made with robusta beans which have more caffeic acid the development agent.
Here you find most recipes :
View attachment 324161

This chart sure got fat since the "original"...

To be honest I'm sratching my head at the relevance of most of this "new" recipes.. they are just slight variation of CL/CM/CH, with more or less activity and by way of consequence slightly different times as a starting point. But essentially, the same thing. They are not recipes but what one individual found worked for him with a particular set of conditions (film, enlarger, agitation method...).

CM as the base, CH if you experience fogging, CL if you want to experiment with stand developement, is all is needed to start. Now, if you want to get longer or shorter development time, or want to increase or decrease one of the three component for whatever reason, is when you start tweaking the recipe. But that doesn't make it a new one, just a tailored one for your particular needs. When experimenting with that, a way of measuring the PH is paramount.

fs999 · Dec 16, 2022

npl said:
To be honest I'm sratching my head at the relevance of most of this "new" recipes.. they are just slight variation of CL/CM/CH, with more or less activity and by way of consequence slightly different times as a starting point. But essentially, the same thing. They are not recipes but what one individual found worked for him with a particular set of conditions (film, enlarger, agitation method...).

They are only in the table because they have proven to work well with most films. CL-CN (or CLCN as I call it) and Delta-micro are new recipes for microfilms. The reduced Soda or Ascorbic acid have been discussed in the Caffenol Cookbook and Bible. And CLCS (Cold Start variant) brings less apparent grain.

Some people even use CL totally cold for hours but I haven't seen the results and timings.

snusmumriken · Dec 16, 2022

Joel_L said:
I finally found a good use for coffee. I've read about Caffenol in the past and finally decided to give it a try. I used FP4+ and the Caffenol delta standard blend. I processed this with a 3 minute pre soak, 10 minute development 20C, 3 quick washes to get most the Caffenol out, stop, fix. a little Coffee staining of the stop, less so in the fix.

Surprised that the actually came out. I also found that my Olympus 35RC has a slight light leak. The first 10 frames I took about two weeks ago, then I snapped off the rest of the roll today. The shots taken today look fine, the ones that sat in the camera for two weeks I can see were impacted. So I will re-seal the RC.

In any case, the Caffenol seems to work well, so Coffee is good for something. I used Nescafe Clasico dark roast.

View attachment 324149

Those shadows look rather blank. Have you lost some speed?

VinceInMT · Dec 16, 2022

I’ve been playing with Caffenol for a while and find it rather fun. I’ve used it for current film and some out of date stuff. More recently I’ve been experimenting with it as a paper developer which I discuss on this thread:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/caffenol-for-printing.195750/#post-2619496

BTW, I used to be a coffee drinker, for decades, but it started disagreeing with me so I gave it up.

Joel_L · Dec 16, 2022

snusmumriken said:
Those shadows look rather blank. Have you lost some speed?

I don't think so, she skies were pretty clear in most shots. A few of the pics you can see some cloud detail where it existed. I did scan some of these and they looked OK, not to say my first try had perfect results, but still very pleased.

Joel_L · Dec 16, 2022

VinceInMT said:
I’ve been playing with Caffenol for a while and find it rather fun. I’ve used it for current film and some out of date stuff. More recently I’ve been experimenting with it as a paper developer which I discuss on this thread:

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/caffenol-for-printing.195750/#post-2619496

BTW, I used to be a coffee drinker, for decades, but it started disagreeing with me so I gave it up.

I also looked at Caffenol for paper. I think I would like the staining for some things and not for others.

A good use for coffee

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