caffenol vs commercial developer

MattKing

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mehguy

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MattKing said:
The Arista Premium films were manufactured by Kodak. The Arista Premium 100 was Plus-X, and the Arista Premium 400 was Tri-X.
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So... i guess they're discounted... i wish it was still in production because it was like 4.50 compared to the hp5 which was 6.50.
 

MattKing

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mehguy said:
So... i guess they're discounted... i wish it was still in production because it was like 4.50 compared to the hp5 which was 6.50.
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The Tri-X is still in "production". It is just that Kodak are now out of bankruptcy, so they will only sell it with their name on it, rather than in bulk, at a discount to Freestyle.

The Kentmere film at Henry's is also of high quality.
 
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mehguy

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MattKing said:
The Tri-X is still in "production". It is just that Kodak are now out of bankruptcy, so they will only sell it with their name on it, rather than in bulk, at a discount to Freestyle.

The Kentmere film at Henry's is also of high quality.
Click to expand...
Lol the closest place that sells kentmere is in winnipeg soo.... also they sell tri-x for like 11 dollars.

kodak's still in business just sayin.
 

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mehguy said:
For the caffenol... how long should I fix for?
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the film leader you clip off before you put the film on the reel ...
take a 1" square of THAT in room light and see how long it takes to turn into clear film
DOUBLE that time and that is how long you fix your film for. it has nothing to do with what developer you use
it has to do with how much film has been put through the fixer ..
the next time you use the fixer it will take a bit longer, and the next time, even longer.
when it takex 2x that original clear time ( lets say it was 30 seconds with fresh fix, you fix for 1 min )
meaning it takes 1 min, total fix time 2 min, the fixer is spent, recycle it, and make a new batch.
if you mix a new batch every time you fix your film, remember how long it took to clear to film base
and double that time every time .. your fix time won't change since the fixer has no film through it ...

good luck !
john
 
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mehguy

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dont you fix for 2 min when you use fresh fix?
 

markbarendt

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mehguy said:
dont you fix for 2 min when you use fresh fix?
Click to expand...

John's suggestion works better.

You may find that with fresh fix that it only takes 30 seconds to clear, if that's true then 1 minute is plenty for that roll of HP5. If the next roll is 35 seconds then use a minute ten. For Delta or TMax films I'd do double, double.
 

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I've never developed any negs in coffee based developer, but I certainly like my coffee in the mornings. There's something I'm wondering though. Apparently you have to use good coffee beans, and good coffee beans are not cheap, so is it actually any less expensive to do this vs conventional film developers?

I've been buying old packets of Microdol-X and D76 for a while now on eBait and Etsy and they're dirt cheap. So far, all the developers have worked great, even though these yellow Kodak packages are very old. I would also think you could mix up some custom developers from scratch for little money once you got your stock of powders bought. So are there other reasons to use coffee beans for developing film?
 
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mehguy

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Dude you use instant coffee. not coffee beans.
 

georg16nik

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mehguy said:
Dude you use instant coffee. not coffee beans.
Click to expand...

You've tried and failed using coffee beans???

Now, if you guys in North America tried the GMO kind and didn't worked great, that's another issue.
Perhaps the GMO coffee beans and some instant kinds are not photo friendly.

IMEE: Just about any cheap robusta works great, same for instant coffee.
 

TheToadMen

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It should work with coffee beans as well. I'v heard of others who roasted their own beans for Caffenol with succes. A good coffee bean for drinking isn't the same as a good coffee beans for developing though. Apparently it's not about the flavour itself, but all about the acids from the coffee - home brew or cheap instant doesn't matter in the end. Most "good coffee" for drinking is from Arabica beans. The common sensus for developing is that you'd better use Robusta beans: as strong and dark as possible. I don't know how much truth is in this. Reinhold's experiment worked with Arabica too. See: http://caffenol.blogspot.nl/search?q=robusta

And as Reinhold said: "... that he only once had a failure with caffenol, and it was a deacidified coffee. Again no big surprise, caffeic acid is regarded as the main developing agent of coffee."

Best way is to experiment yourself and find your own golden combination. Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Some is true, some is guessing and a lot is repeating other's misinformed opinions as truths. Like someone said to me recently: "... but why is it that people with less experience's words have more weight than someone who has continuously been using this developer for about a decade ..." and I think he might be right.

I've only tried the Caffenol-C-M recipe with cheap, extra strong instant coffee and had very good results. Now I got me some really dark coffee beans to grind and try for Caffenol. It's called "Espresso Forza Robusta" and it are dark roasted beans from the Coorg region in Karnataka, India. I'll make an extra strong pot to see if I can get the same results - and maybe try a cup myself to see how it tastes as well.

In the end: images say more than words. So here are some of my results from the instant coffee (Caffenol-C-M recipe, scanned negatives, no PS tinkering):


(Bronica SQ-B, 40 mm lens, Ilford FP4+)


(Bronica SQ-B, 40 mm lens, Ilford FP4+)


(Canon T70, 50 mm, Ilford FP4+)


(Woca 120G with light leak, Fomapan 100)


(Woca 120G with light leak, Fomapan 100)
 

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removed account4

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Greg Heath said:
Instant Coffee. Not coffee beans.
Click to expand...

mehguy said:
Dude you use instant coffee. not coffee beans.
Click to expand...

this is not true.

i have been self-roasting coffee beans
and using them for developer for 4-5 years now, never had a problem ....
but to each their own, instant is easier, no fuss, no having to deal with making a pot of coffee ..


regarding cost:
momus - it depends on the price you pay for your ingredients
and how often you re-use your caffenol. it, so it ends up costing me
about 1¢ / roll ( sheet or print/paper negative ) but i reuse my developer for a long time
probably longer than i should ... ( sometimes 5-6 months )
when i reach the point when i get kind of freaked out it has been " x months "
and it is still "active" i take 1L out and mix 1L to replace what i removed. i don't replenish
( unless you call after 2-6 months replenishment ) ...
i haven't tried this with instant, no idea if it would work .. but it works fine with
the beans i use ..

not only is getting the right ingredients expensive, if you don't trust ebay sellers, don't have
a lead on inexensive and useful washingsoda + vit c, but expensive in ruined materials
if you mix the wrong ingredients and it doesn't work.
it is a foolproof developer ( no matter if one uses beans or instant )
but if you don't have the right stuff it doesn't work ...

the way i do it &c ... it's probably not the best thing for my film or prints but i don't really care to be honest,
it all gets scanned after it is processed and printed and its for me anyways, and i don't really care, its probably all going in the dumpster anyways ...
 

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welcome to APUGI'd recommend to start your own film development with more of a standard film developer such as ID11,D76 or Rodinal and expand to others from there.HP5 will work well with the first two;probanly too grainy for Rodinal.I consider the developer to be 2nd in priority;most film characteristics are inherent to the film not the developer;there is no silver bullet but the above mentioned developers are solid and time-proven standards.Good luck and lots of fun with your own development.You'll never go back to a lab after you've started.nobody can process your film as well as you can.they are all missing key ingredients;'loveand pation'
 

TheToadMen

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RalphLambrecht said:
welcome to APUG I'd recommend to start your own film development with more of a standard film developer such as ID11,D76 or Rodinal and expand to others from there.HP5 will work well with the first two;probably too grainy for Rodinal.
Click to expand...

Good advice as well. My first attempts with powder developers (back in 2001) made me jump to liquid developers. A lot easier and faster to make and use. I used Kodak HC110 and Amaloco AM74 a lot. Later on also Rodinal.

You must try HP5+ in Rodinal at least once - just for fun I mean the learning curve. You might even like the grain (with the right images).
 

Andrew O'Neill

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I used Caffenol quite a few years ago with HP5 sheet film and quite liked it. I recall it was a very simple recipe with instant coffee, washing soda, vitamin C, and a bit of Kbr I think. I always filtered it after freshly mixed. I loved the smell when I slipped the film into the fix. Smelt like tuna sandwiches!
 
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mehguy

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Arrrgggg you guys are confusing me. Im in a world where only vitamin c, washing soda and instant coffee is the ONLY way of making caffenol.

Also should there be any specific brands or types i should get or is it all good?
 

MattKing

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mehguy said:
Arrrgggg you guys are confusing me. Im in a world where only vitamin c, washing soda and instant coffee is the ONLY way of making caffenol.

Also should there be any specific brands or types i should get or is it all good?
Click to expand...

IMHO Caffenol is a developer that one only relies upon after one performs a lot of experiments in order to understand how it will work for you.

Be very careful of brand recommendations for coffee. A lot of food products, including coffee are quite different in different retail markets and in particular are different in the USA and Canada.
 

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Ah, instant coffee. I can buy that for practically nothing at the Sav A Lot grocery store. Those images work for me ToadMen. Great stuff! Surprisingly nice tonality.

I totally agree w/ Ralph. Labs are not the way to go. They have screwed up so many of my shots, and it cost me a lot of money to have them screwed up at that. Besides, until someone develops their your own they don't understand what's going on w/ the photographic process. Some people are more into just getting the image on the neg though. and learning the photographic end isn't a priority. I can understand that. Different strokes for different folks.

If you can buy cheap coffee for this, and if you can reuse the coffee made developer over and over, then it makes sense. It's cost me a lot of time and money to get consistency and a look that I like though, so this might be fun for an experiment. Better to stick w/ what I know for the more important stuff though. You know, the shots of the cat licking her hind end, endless pics of the back of people's heads, etc. I seem to have a lot of those.
 
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Regular Rod

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Caffenol is a first class, versatile developer. The ingredients can be obtained cheaply (in fact the cheapest instant coffee brands seem to be better than expensive ones for making up a good developer). At 14 years old you will be perfectly capable of making up your own developers from ingredients. I was 9 when I made up my first developer in accordance with a recipe from a book. It was not Caffenol, it used some chemicals that today folk would panic at the thought of them being used by a child. That was 57 years ago, long before anyone got hysterical about Health and Safety. Today no one could possibly object to you using instant coffee powder, washing soda and vitamin C powder. Once upon a time photographers had no choice but to make up their own developers and other solutions from raw ingredients to recipes either published or invented themselves. My advice to you would be to take control of as much of the process as you can. Mix your own and be self sufficient. It will save you money and most likely lead to you being happier with the results.

Read this: http://caffenol-cookbook.com/hi-res/hires.php

RR
 

TheToadMen

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mehguy said:
Arrrgggg you guys are confusing me. Im in a world where only vitamin c, washing soda and instant coffee is the ONLY way of making caffenol.

Also should there be any specific brands or types i should get or is it all good?
Click to expand...

Thanks to some useful tips from jnanian I'm gonna experiment a bit beyond using my favorite instant coffee (just for fun)

I want to make 1/2 liter of developer for developing one 120 roll film in my tank (450 cc needed).

I have a french press (like http://www.enjoybettercoffee.com/French-Press-s/183.htm) that I can use for making some stronger coffee for the Caffenol.

Overhere we have special "coffee measure spoons" for making regular filter coffee: one spoon is good for two cups (or one normal mug). I'll have to check how many cups is about 1/2 liter of water. I'm assuming it will be like 4 cups in 1/2 liter. I want to make the coffee stronger, so I'll add an extra scoop for the pot and I'll let it brew longer than usual. If you can use a perculator, you could even brew the coffee twice.

I got me the darkest coffee beans I could find for this experiment. It's called "Espresso Forza Robusta" and it are dark roasted beans from the Coorg region in Karnataka, India. If this experiment works, I'll try it again, but this time with the regular coffee (Arabica) we drink at home to see if I'll get the same results. And another test with the regular instant coffee I use for Caffenol.

And to make it a "decent experiment" ( ) I'll shoot one Fomapan 100 film in one camera at one scene. I might even use my Nikon F5 in high speed mode for this. Then I'll cut the film in 3 parts to test in both coffee brews and my regular instant coffee, using the Caffenol-C-M recipe (without KBr) and developing times I'm used to.

And to make one thing absolutely clear upfront: I have very limited experience with Caffenol-C-M and with conducting this kind of experiments so don't expect a serious lab test or report. Just my biased opinion on what I can see while having fun experimenting.

I'll let you know how it works out, but it may take a few weeks before life will let me find/make the time to do this.

Bert from Holland

 

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