Edible Film Developers

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

However, if they need additional Ascorbic acid and/or Phenidone for proper development of film, I think it defeats the purpose.

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Rather a minority opinion, can you name any apart from coffee that meet the condition of working with alkali alone?
With added phenidone or ascorbate the edible foodstuff may act as a secondary developer , regenerating phenidone, or as a primary developer ,apparently being regenerated by ascorbate. The edible foodstuff surely complies with what is commonly called a developer in these cases too.

Alan Johnson said:

Rather a minority opinion, can you name any apart from coffee that meet these conditions?

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It doesn't matter if any one herb/fruit/vegetable is a good source of both Ascorbic acid and Polyphenols or not. You can use a mixture where one herb/fruit/vegetable is rich in Ascorbic acid and the other is in Polyphenols. E.g. Amla or Broccoli with Thyme or Rosemary.

Alan Johnson said:

With added phenidone or ascorbate the edible foodstuff may act as a secondary developer , regenerating phenidone, or as a primary developer ,apparently being regenerated by ascorbate. The edible foodstuff surely complies with what is commonly called a developer in these cases too.

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Perhaps I wasn't clear. If the edible stuff is able to develop film satisfactorily on its own without needing an additional developing agent, then there is nothing to argue against it. But it appears that, with the possible exception of instant coffee, no other edible stuff can develop film satisfactorily.

Now, some edible stuff do have Ascorbic acid and can work as a weak developer. Such a food stuff can plausibly make a potent developer when used with additional Ascorbic acid. In such a scenario I can simply use the requisite amount of Ascorbic acid instead of attempting to supplement the natural Ascorbic acid in the edible stuff with the synthetic one.

It is also plausible that a food stuff rich in Ascorbic acid can also work in conjunction with Phenidone. If this pairing works well without needing additional Ascorbic acid then fine. But if it needs additional Ascorbic acid despite the use of Phenidone, then again I can simply use requisite amount of Ascorbic acid and Phenidone instead of trying to supplement.

Now, consider edible stuff that are rich in Polyphenols. They seem to invariably need Ascorbic acid to get going. It is not clear how much of developing is due to Polyphenols vs Ascorbic acid. Hence I suggested the Thyme proponents to do a simple test in the other thread.

Hope this is more clear.

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

with the possible exception of instant coffee, no other edible stuff can develop film satisfactorily.

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Just to be clear, it does not have to be instant, never mind cheap-cheap instant. I've seen multiple reports of making successful Caffenol with espresso brewed from Arabica beans as well as drip brewed coffee of various sorts. Seems the main feature is it has to be strong enough -- well above the usual drip or instant drinking strength before adding the alkali, in my experience. Instant is used a lot because it's inexpensive (especially in the USA) and convenient, and you can start with room temperature water so don't have to wait for your coffee to cool before you can proceed. Seems to me the tannins in wine and tea have also been noted as able to develop exposed silver halides (tannic acid is more or less just a polymer of gallic acid, which is a know developing agent, precursor of pyrogallol).

Donald Qualls said:

I've seen multiple reports of making successful Caffenol with espresso brewed from Arabica beans as well as drip brewed coffee of various sorts.

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Do these espresso developers work well without Ascorbic acid? Plausibly they will but is there any firsthand report?

removed account4 said:

isn't red wine supposed to be a good developer ?
i have been meaning to get some gut-rot and processing some film in it ..
but the problem is i keep drinking it instead ...

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Well it would be a staining developer, and you could use it to get redscale shots with B&W film!

I'm sure we'd have to ask the people who posted their images and reports. I'm pretty confident, however, that there's nothing of consequence in high-robusta instant that isn't in 100% Arabica brewed or espresso -- the proportions will differ, but that just means you may need more (or less) time if you start with espresso vs. instant.

I'd check myself -- I have an espresso machine that I haven't used in years due to lack of counter space -- but it'll probably be after I retire (three years or so) before I have time.

markjwyatt said:

Well it would be a staining developer, and you could use it to get redscale shots with B&W film!

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so that is the lomo redscale secret ? the film is made with cheep red wine?[/QUOTE]

I wonder if next formula would be working developer

Roseglow 7

12g Cloves (ground and then mixed with low polaric index solvent, example 120ml everclear and steeping mixture about 4h in 40 degree Celsius water bath. Maybe ad 1g sodium sulfite)
40g rosehip powder (steeped in 40 degree water 4h and then filtered)
60g sodium carbonate
And maybe 66g sodium sulfite
And maybe 8g ascorbic acid
Strong roobois tea to 1000ml

I think it can work based on what I have read about chemical properties of these ingredients.

Pentacon_777 said:

I wonder if next formula would be working developer

Roseglow 7

12g Cloves (ground and then mixed with low polaric index solvent, example 120ml everclear and steeping mixture about 4h in 40 degree Celsius water bath. Maybe ad 1g sodium sulfite)
40g rosehip powder (steeped in 40 degree water 4h and then filtered)
60g sodium carbonate
And maybe 66g sodium sulfite
And maybe 8g ascorbic acid
Strong roobois tea to 1000ml

I think it can work based on what I have read about chemical properties of these ingredients.

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Anything that contains enough quercetin or chlorogenic acids to be a saturated solution, combined with enough ascorbic acid, at ph above 9.7, will be a capable developer comparable to caffenol-C. Tannic acid is one of the very first developing agents. If rooibos has a notable tannic acid component then it might help with development a little bit. That would be quite a weak concentration of it.

relistan said:

Anything that contains enough quercetin or chlorogenic acids to be a saturated solution, combined with enough ascorbic acid, at ph above 9.7, will be a capable developer comparable to caffenol-C. Tannic acid is one of the very first developing agents. If rooibos has a notable tannic acid component then it might help with development a little bit. That would be quite a weak concentration of it.

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This should contain about these amounts of possible developing agents and antioxidants
12g cloves
1-1.6g eugenol
0.09g Gallic acid
0.2-0.3g hidrolizable tannins
0.2g quercetin
0.08g catechol
0.06g protocatechuic acid

10g roobois tea
0.01g Orientin
0.008g Isoorientin
0.012g Aspalathin
0.012g Rutin
0.001g quercetin

40g rosehip powder
0.002g Gallic acid
0.002g Procyanidin B2
0.004g Chlorogenic (trans-5-O-caffeoylquinic) acid

And probably there are more compounds also but these amounts I found from different articles

Pentacon_777 said:

This should contain about these amounts of possible developing agents and antioxidants
12g cloves
1-1.6g eugenol

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This is not likely a developing agent AFAICT

Pentacon_777 said:

0.09g Gallic acid

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This is a very weak developing agent

Pentacon_777 said:

0.2-0.3g hidrolizable tannins

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Probably a very weak developing agent

Pentacon_777 said:

0.2g quercetin
0.08g catechol
0.06g protocatechuic acid

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Are you able to get all of that into solution? I would doubt it for the quercetin unless one of these other ingredients makes it more soluble (this is possible). But I know from testing that 0.02g of quercetin with 15g of ascorbic acid is a pretty good developer. Quercetin acts pretty much just like catechol. If there is indeed plain catechol here I would expect that this plus the quercetin plus about 15g of ascorbic acid in a carbonate solution is going to work.

relistan said:

This is not likely a developing agent AFAICT


This is a very weak developing agent


Probably a very weak developing agent


Are you able to get all of that into solution? I would doubt it for the quercetin unless one of these other ingredients makes it more soluble (this is possible). But I know from testing that 0.02g of quercetin with 15g of ascorbic acid is a pretty good developer. Quercetin acts pretty much just like catechol. If there is indeed plain catechol here I would expect that this plus the quercetin plus about 15g of ascorbic acid in a carbonate solution is going to work.

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I doubt quercetin solubility too with minimum of 100ml ethanol should be possible but then mixed with water it will probably precipitate. Unless we find some common type emulsifier agent that disperses it into micro emulsion not to make dotted negatives. I became thinking maybe lecithin can work.

Pentacon_777 said:

I doubt quercetin solubility too with minimum of 100ml ethanol should be possible but then mixed with water it will probably precipitate. Unless we find some common type emulsifier agent that disperses it into micro emulsion not to make dotted negatives. I became thinking maybe lecithin can work.

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One early result from testing with just quercetin and ascorbic acid is here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...ops-like-pyrogallol.82705/page-4#post-2635606

Water by itself will develop a useable amount of quercetin for a single roll. But you need it to be saturated.

relistan said:

One early result from testing with just quercetin and ascorbic acid is here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threa...ops-like-pyrogallol.82705/page-4#post-2635606

Water by itself will develop a useable amount of quercetin for a single roll. But you need it to be saturated.

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Thanks for the link. Picture looks surprisingly good as reading your specs of that particular test frame

Pentacon_777 said:

Thanks for the link. Picture looks surprisingly good as reading your specs of that particular test frame

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Thanks, earlier tests showed that a saturated solution of quercetin with 15g/L of ascorbic acid is an effective developer with ~15 mins dev times for Fomapan 400.