Herb developer

Donald Qualls · Feb 16, 2022

What I've read says caffeic acid is not responsible for development in Caffenol -- in fact, someone here on Photrio got some pure caffeic acid and found it wouldn't develop film at all.

If you remove the sodium carbonate from either version of Caffenol, you'll get no development, because organic developing agents only work at alkaline pH. This is an ingredient that should be in all test formulations of this category.

When I'm at home, I can post the Caffenol recipe (sans ascorbate) that I used on Tri-X in 2003.

NedL · Feb 16, 2022

FWIW a while ago I tried green coffee + sodium carbonate for developing paper. I compared with sodium carbonate by itself and the version w/ green coffee beans was more active. Never did anything more with it...

The thread is here, no idea what happened to the attachments... got lost in transition to photrio probably.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Feb 17, 2022

NedL said:
FWIW a while ago I tried green coffee + sodium carbonate for developing paper. I compared with sodium carbonate by itself and the version w/ green coffee beans was more active. Never did anything more with it...

The thread is here, no idea what happened to the attachments... got lost in transition to photrio probably.

Coffee stains the paper and hence gives the impression of more activity though in your specific case only you can tell for sure whether there was a true increase in activity.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Feb 17, 2022

Andrew O'Neill said:
Catnip toners... wonder if that would work.

That might actually work well.

Andrew O'Neill · Feb 17, 2022

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
That might actually work well.

I think my cats will give it a thumbs down

Donald Qualls · Feb 17, 2022

Heh. I was thinking the issue might be how to deal with all that cat hair on your negatives...

npl · Feb 17, 2022

I mentioned earlier how I developed the end of a Fomapan 400 in Caffenol CH (15min), but with 3g dried thyme instead of coffee (500ml : 27g sodium carbonate, 8g ascorbic acid, 5g iodized salt, 3g of dried thyme in infusion). I couldn't post pictures then, but here they are.
The "scan" was done with a mirroless camera, an extension tube on a M42 Helios 44-2 58mm lense, a plastic negative holder and a phone as the light source.

For comparison, here is Fomapan 400 in regular caffenol CH. The same vitamin C, washing soda and salt were used, as well as the same scanning rig, but not the same camera (a very cheap point & shoot with plastic lens, while the pictures above were taken with a SLR and a decent 50mm lens). Of course this is in no way a proper "scientific" comparison, as it never was the intention here (there's 7 months between them).

NedL · Feb 17, 2022

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:
Coffee stains the paper and hence gives the impression of more activity though in your specific case only you can tell for sure whether there was a true increase in activity.

Have a look at the "coin test" in that thread. Post #10, 3rd attachment. On the left side, the paper was developed in sodium carbonate by itself. On the right side it was the same amount of sodium carbonate in the "green coffee tea". On both sides, the part of the paper that had a coin blocking light exposure came out pure white. I guess if the coffee stains the developed silver black, then that could explain the difference, but it would be pretty weird given that the liquid was orange to start with!

markjwyatt · Feb 17, 2022

Donald Qualls said:
I saw the title, and thought someone had found a way to develop film with marijuana...
...

That may good for high key photography. The tonality may tend towards psychedelic.

Don_ih · Feb 18, 2022

NedL said:
Have a look at the "coin test" in that thread. Post #10, 3rd attachment. On the left side, the paper was developed in sodium carbonate by itself. On the right side it was the same amount of sodium carbonate in the "green coffee tea". On both sides, the part of the paper that had a coin blocking light exposure came out pure white. I guess if the coffee stains the developed silver black, then that could explain the difference, but it would be pretty weird given that the liquid was orange to start with!

The problem is using paper to test, due to the presence of developing agents in the emulsion. Any test needs an alkaline solution as a control, to see if any development will occur without developing agents.

gone · Feb 18, 2022

The big problem w/ the catnip toner is in getting it away from the cat w/o causing a 2 year grudge and various other cat related anger issues. When the cat's happy, everyone is happy, but when the cat's mad......... They have firmly held beliefs on ownership. Basically, they figure that what's yours is theirs, and what's theirs is theirs.

Donald Qualls · Feb 18, 2022

momus said:
They have firmly held beliefs on ownership. Basically, they figure that what's yours is theirs, and what's theirs is theirs.

And what's the dog's is theirs, and what's the other cat's is theirs (unless the other cat has beaten them within the past half hour), and what's unclaimed on the floor, counter, etc. is theirs (at least to knock off onto the floor).

The issue is that the Egyptians worshipped cats as gods (reasonable mistake, cats were killing and eating the mice and rats that otherwise threatened to starve the people by eating their stored grain) -- and cats have never forgotten it, even though most of them have never actually caught a rodent, much less eaten one.

Don_ih · Feb 18, 2022

Red Dwarf, for those who might not know.....

Donald Qualls · Feb 18, 2022

Don Heisz said:
Red Dwarf, for those who might not know.....

I'd almost forgotten that.

"Fisssh."

"The fish of the day is trout almondine."

"Fisssh."

"The fish of the day is trout almondine."

[repeat three or four more times]

Don_ih · Feb 18, 2022

npl said:
(500ml : 27g sodium carbonate, 8g ascorbic acid, 5g iodized salt, 3g of dried thyme in infusion

So I just mixed up exactly the above without the thyme. However, I don't have any Fomapan and had to use HP5+.

The negatives are thin. Not impossibly thin but still thinner than I'd want to use. This was a picture of a little statue in full sunlight.
The negatives would not have been so thin if the salt had been omitted. Also, they likely would have had more density if the amount of sodium carbonate had been increased. Perhaps a thyme infusion is alkaline (I have no idea).

Donald Qualls · Feb 18, 2022

Now try the same thing without the ascorbate. Start with a clip test to see if it does anything at all.

Don_ih · Feb 18, 2022

Donald Qualls said:
Now try the same thing without the ascorbate. Start with a clip test to see if it does anything at all.

Sodium carbonate and table salt won't develop film at all.

Donald Qualls · Feb 18, 2022

Don Heisz said:
Sodium carbonate and table salt won't develop film at all.

Woops, missed that you mixed the developer without the thyme. Tried it the other way, with thyme and without ascorbate?

Don_ih · Feb 18, 2022

Donald Qualls said:
Tried it the other way, with thyme and without ascorbate?

No, since I have no thyme. I've already mixed a concoction of mint and rosemary and cloves and sodium carbonate that did no developing at all (I ended up letting it go over an hour). Someone else with thyme can try it - or wait until I get some - which might be years.

Donald Qualls · Feb 18, 2022

So mint and (probably) thyme do nothing on their own. That eliminates thymol as a developing agent, I guess (mint contains a lot of thymol, as I understand it). Tannins probably do work -- gallic acid does, and tannin is effectively polymerized gallic acid.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Feb 18, 2022

@Donald Qualls: Today I tried on Kodak Double X the Ascorbate less Caffenol formula you shared. Shot at EI:200 and developed for 90 minutes @20C. The negatives turned out to be rather thin. Might be able to save some through digital postprocessing.

Donald Qualls · Feb 18, 2022

What sort of coffee did you use, Raghu? Consumer products in India might well be very different from their counterparts in the USA. I pasted in from my notes made when actually using this version of Caffenol, and my negatives with Tri-X and Fomapan 100 were definitely not thin.

Raghu Kuvempunagar · Feb 18, 2022

Donald Qualls said:
What sort of coffee did you use, Raghu? Consumer products in India might well be very different from their counterparts in the USA. I pasted in from my notes made when actually using this version of Caffenol, and my negatives with Tri-X and Fomapan 100 were definitely not thin.

Nescafe Sunrise. I used 11g of it and 15g of Sodium carbonate in 400 ml water.

Will take a pic of the negatives tomorrow and post here.

Donald Qualls · Feb 18, 2022

How does that coffee amount compare with your usual drinking strength? As I recall, the original recipe I used called for about 4x the amount you'd put in the same water for drinking. That formula (and some images) were posted in the other coffee developer thread yesterday or day before (images a couple posts below the forumlae). FWIW, I had teaspoon measure and your coffee amount looks close to correct, but for more like 250 ml of water.

npl · Feb 18, 2022

Don Heisz said:
So I just mixed up exactly the above without the thyme. However, I don't have any Fomapan and had to use HP5+.
[...]

The negatives are thin. Not impossibly thin but still thinner than I'd want to use. This was a picture of a little statue in full sunlight.
The negatives would not have been so thin if the salt had been omitted. Also, they likely would have had more density if the amount of sodium carbonate had been increased. Perhaps a thyme infusion is alkaline (I have no idea).

Interesting ! thanks for sharing I was expecting even less development without the third component of the recipe (being coffee or thyme) to be fair.

Donald Qualls said:
[...] the original recipe I used called for about 4x the amount you'd put in the same water for drinking. That formula (and some images) were posted in the other coffee developer thread yesterday [...]

I'll try that, first with coffee and fomapan 100, then if it works, with thyme. You say that your dev time was 30min, did you agitate every minutes (or every 30 seconds) ?

Herb developer

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency