Herb developer

It's been a long time since that Fomapan 100 (2003-2004), but pretty sure I agitated just like regular developer -- 5 inversions at the top of each minute after continuous the first minute. Do invert gently, as the mixed developer is slightly prone to foaming.

Don Heisz said:

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.

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That's why the left side was developed in sodium carbonate by itself

NedL said:

That's why the left side was developed in sodium carbonate by itself

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I must be developing selective vision or something, since I clearly didn't see it the first two times.

NedL said:

That's why the left side was developed in sodium carbonate by itself

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You're right, the pics in post #10 of the other thread do show more density in the coffee developed paper. I had earlier missed seeing this post and stand corrected.

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

Where is the confusion when I said your Thyme based developer will work without Thyme? Take your favourite Thyme (or any herb) based developer formula. Call it A. Now remove Thyme from it. Call it B. Go shoot two strips of film, preferably identical scenes. Prepare two sets of working solutions one as per formula A and the other as per formula B. Adjust pH of the working solutions using additional Sodium carbonate to bring pH of both to the same level. Develop one strip of exposed film using the first working solution and the other using the second working solution for the same amount of time. Compare the results.

As far as my experiments are concerned, they proved two things to me: a) herbs won't develop film in the absence of Ascorbic acid implying that they have very weak or no developing power on their own b) herbs don't increase the developing power of Ascorbic acid i.e. they are not super-additive or even additive with Ascorbic acid. In summary, it is the Ascorbic acid in herb developers that is doing all the development. So there is no good reason for me to use herbs.

Cheers and have a great week (whatever is remaining) ahead.

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maybe it is spelled wrong and it is its homophone time, and the person who typed thyme was a joker. the goopy juice of a raw tomato will develop paper and film, like the developer paste from the 1940s or so I read. smells nicer than coffee with soda ash too

shuddered said:

the goopy juice of a raw tomato will develop paper and film, like the developer paste from the 1940s or so I read.

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Do you have a source for that?

Worth noting that tomato has significant vitamin C (ascorbate) content, as well as another antioxidant, lycopene, that might also be a developing agent.

Don Heisz said:

Perhaps a thyme infusion is alkaline (I have no idea).

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Here is a table of alkalinity of various edible stuff:

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/food-ph-d_403.html

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

Here is a table of alkalinity of various edible stuff:

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/food-ph-d_403.html

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Thyme isn't on the list though.

Don Heisz said:

Perhaps a thyme infusion is alkaline (I have no idea).

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Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

Here is a table of alkalinity of various edible stuff:

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/food-ph-d_403.html

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I'm pretty confident that a thyme infusion isn't alkaline, else thyme would taste bitter (and we wouldn't use it in cooking for the things we do).

shuddered said:

maybe it is spelled wrong and it is its homophone time, and the person who typed thyme was a joker. the goopy juice of a raw tomato will develop paper and film, like the developer paste from the 1940s or so I read. smells nicer than coffee with soda ash too

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Nope, thyme see page 3 where I posted results. But all this definitely takes time ^^
Then someone later removed the thyme from the recipe and ended up with developped but thin negatives.

So, I shot several exposures of the same scene, with the same light, at the same time, and did some development tests.

The film was 35mm AgfaPhoto "new emulsion" APX 100, fresh. My camera (Mamiya NC 1000s) was set at ISO 80. It has a shutter speed priority mode, so I moved the speed until the TTL reflective metering chose an aperture of f/16. Lens : mamiya-sekor f1.7 50mm, no filter.

The following was kept constant :

• No prewash
• Temperature : 20°c
• Agitation method : continuous for the first 30s, then 10s at the start of every minutes
• Water stop bath
• PH measurement : paper test strips, 0.5 precision according to the box. It's not ideal, but I didn't want to invest in a PH meter. The biggest issue was reading the result with the caffenol solutions, because of the brown stain.
• Pictures of the negative : APS-C Canon EOS M100 mirroless camera, 50mm M42 fujinon f/1.8, no filter. Without and with extension tube for the close up shot. ISO 100, f/11, aperture priority mode. Light source was a phone. No edit on the first picture except rotation. The positive was done with the following method : 1) jpeg opened in GIMP 2) rotation/crop 3) colors->invert 4) colors->levels->auto 5) mode->grayscale 6) export.

Note : I couldn't upload the full resolution images, theses are resized to 1080 px. if anyone's interested, I can see how to share them in full size.

1. "Rodinal 1:50 control strip" : 500ml, 10ml rodinal (Adox Adonal). PH : n/a. Dev time: 10min

Just a control strip with a regular commercial developer, following the manufacturer times, to compare to the others.



=> As APX 100 is my main film and i've done rodinal 1:50 10min @ 80 several times, both for scan and prints, I'm confident that the dense highlight is the result of the metering and not overdevelopment.

2. "Caffenol CM" : 500ml, 27g sodium carbonate, 8g ascorbic acid, 20g instant coffee. PH : ~9.5. Dev time : 12min

Regular CCM Recipe.



=> Quite dense ... I was excepting less development : the recipe starting point is 15min so I thought 12min would be OK. Either this film need less time in CCM, or I screwed up somewhere (I think it's the second option .. most likely the temperature).

3. "Caffenol CM but with thyme" : 500ml, 27g sodium carbonate, 8g ascorbic acid, 3g dried thyme. PH : n/a. Dev time : 12min

Still the regular CCM recipe, but with 3g dried thyme instead of instant coffee. The thyme was boiled for 15min. I forgot to test the PH ..



=> I think it's OK. Less development happened.

4. "Vitamin C and washing soda only : round 1" : 500ml, 10g sodium carbonate, 8g ascorbic acid. PH : ~9.5/10. Dev time : 12min

So, do we really need coffee, or thyme, or whatever ? I diluted the 8g of ascorbic acid of the CCM recipe, and got a PH of 2. Then, 10g of sodium carbonate put it close to the CCM value. Same dev time, same agitation method :



=> thin, underdeveloped negative.

5. "Vitamin C and washing soda only : round 2" : 500ml, 27g sodium carbonate, 20g ascorbic acid. PH : ~10. Dev time : 12min

How much more vitamin C do we need to get a "good" negative ? for no particular reason, I chose 20g of ascorbic acid and 27g of sodium carbonate. Same dev time, same agitation method :



=> It's ... not bad at all, I think ? slightly more contrast than the rodinal strip.

6. "Raw caffenol" : 500ml, 12g sodium carbonate, 10g iodised salt, 18g coffee. PH : ~ 10/11. Dev time : 30min

Apologies to Donal Qualls, I didn't used the recipe he kindly provided because I found this one. It was easier for my european brain as it was already in grams, and the fp4+ was closer to the APX 100.



=> development did happen, but not enough. I don't know if it needs more coffee and/or less restrainer (and I'm of course interested in advices). PH was higher than CCM, might be a factor ?

7. "Raw caffenol but with thyme" : 400ml, 10.8g sodium carbonate, 9g iodised salt, 4g thyme. PH : ~ 11. Dev time : 30min

Same thing but with 4g of dried thyme boiled for 15min instead of coffee. I used a second single reel tank, that's why the solution is 400ml.



=> nothing. Nothing at all.

Grain / sharpness comparaison : rodinal and Caffenol CM with thyme



My personnal interpretation, which of course you may or may not agree with : I havent't discovered anything, but merely confirmed what I read in several articles and forum posts. Caffenol is nice because the development time and each composants are kept low by using two developing agent : vitamin C and coffee. At least thyme can be that second developing agent instead of coffee, but peoples have been reporting success with a wide variety of other plants. Coffee alone can develop film, but thyme cannot. Vitamin C alone can develop film, but you need a lot more than what is used in the caffenol C* recipes. My preference would be toward a home-made developer that don't cost much and use everyday products that you can find in your garden or at the next store, but to each their own .. some won't mind the cost of ascorbic acid, and I'm sure great result can be achieved with vitamin C and washing soda only.

Sorry for the long post and approximate English. Thank you for your advices and i'd be happy to discuss the results.

npl said:

My personnal interpretation, which of course you may or may not agree with : I havent't discovered anything, but merely confirmed what I read in several articles and forum posts.

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Very interesting work. There's lots to think about with what you've shown.
Your formula 4 states 10 g of carbonate - is that correct? That should make formula 4 much less alkaline than the others (with 27g of carbonate).
10g of salt in formula 6 seems high. Extended development time would normally increase contrast but that much salt may eat the shadows out of the emulsion.
Metol still seems to be the cheapest developing agent. 2 g in 1 litre of D76 is hard to beat, cost-wise. Now, if something equally cheap could be used for superadditivity instead of hydroquinone, that might be advantageous. But does thyme increase density because it's a developing agent or does it do that by increasing the alkalinity of the formula? To check developing agents against one another, all formulas should have the same degree of alkalinity, as higher alkalinity generally indicates higher activity. Does the thyme increase the alkalinity?

npl said:

7. "Raw caffenol but with thyme" : 400ml, 10.8g sodium carbonate, 9g iodised salt, 4g thyme. PH : ~ 11. Dev time : 30min

Same thing but with 4g of dried thyme boiled for 15min instead of coffee. I used a second single reel tank, that's why the solution is 400ml.

=> nothing. Nothing at all.

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A clip test would have saved you film, time and effort in this particular case , but it is good to confirm that Thyme produces the same result as several other polyphenol-rich herbs.

Don Heisz said:

Your formula 4 states 10 g of carbonate - is that correct?

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I believe so. I had this quick snapshot on my phone :

Don Heisz said:

10g of salt in formula 6 seems high. Extended development time would normally increase contrast but that much salt may eat the shadows out of the emulsion

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Noted, I might try again with 5g salt and 23g coffee, or something close.

Don Heisz said:

To check developing agents against one another, all formulas should have the same degree of alkalinity, as higher alkalinity generally indicates higher activity. Does the thyme increase the alkalinity?

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Interesting. I think one can find similar cheap paper strip to test the alkalinity in swimming pool stores.

I also have some dried mint that i'd like to try... but moving away from herbs developers, I kinda want to find a recipe close to n°5 that use less vit. C and work in semi-stand development ..

npl said:

I kinda want to find a recipe close to n°5 that use less vit. C and work in semi-stand development ..

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Try half the vitamin c and 1 g metol. I may try that to see what happens, since it has no sodium sulphite in it. Can't hurt to try. Then maybe try adding a gram of salt.

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

Where is the confusion when I said your Thyme based developer will work without Thyme? Take your favourite Thyme (or any herb) based developer formula. Call it A. Now remove Thyme from it. Call it B. Go shoot two strips of film, preferably identical scenes. Prepare two sets of working solutions one as per formula A and the other as per formula B. Adjust pH of the working solutions using additional Sodium carbonate to bring pH of both to the same level. Develop one strip of exposed film using the first working solution and the other using the second working solution for the same amount of time. Compare the results.

As far as my experiments are concerned, they proved two things to me: a) herbs won't develop film in the absence of Ascorbic acid implying that they have very weak or no developing power on their own b) herbs don't increase the developing power of Ascorbic acid i.e. they are not super-additive or even additive with Ascorbic acid. In summary, it is the Ascorbic acid in herb developers that is doing all the development. So there is no good reason for me to use herbs.

Cheers and have a great week (whatever is remaining) ahead.

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Greetings Rahu. In your experiment which raises the pH to make the herbal tea to that of the carbonate/ascorbate what do you think would happen if done the other way round? i.e lower the ascorbate bath to that of the tea? Reading between the lines I'd bet the AA wouldn't work at all. A conundrum for me.
Cheers.

Murray Kelly said:

Greetings Rahu. In your experiment which raises the pH to make the herbal tea to that of the carbonate/ascorbate what do you think would happen if done the other way round? i.e lower the ascorbate bath to that of the tea? Reading between the lines I'd bet the AA wouldn't work at all. A conundrum for me.
Cheers.

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Hello Murray, if the pH is brought to a level below the threshold pH of Ascorbic acid, it is unlikely that there will be any development. I doubt addition of Thyme is doing that.

Don Heisz said:

Try half the vitamin c and 1 g metol. I may try that to see what happens, since it has no sodium sulphite in it. Can't hurt to try. Then maybe try adding a gram of salt.

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Why Metol? Why not PC-TEA?

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

Why not PC-TEA?

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Well, I don't have any. And TEA not a developing agent (or did you mean why should he not just make PC-TEA). And I was responding to npl when he said "moving away from herbs developers". And I was interested in something you could stir up just before you use it.

npl said:

Caffenol CM but with thyme

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The result from 3 and 5 are very similar. It would have been good to try the exact mixture from 3 but omitting the thyme. As it stands, the greater density in 5 is probably due to the greater amount of ascorbic acid. I thought I was seeing that thyme added density there but now I don't think that's it.

Don Heisz said:

did you mean why should he not just make PC-TEA

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Yes as that would save him all the tinkering needed to arrive at a reasonable Ascorbic acid based developer sans Sulphite.

Raghu Kuvempunagar said:

Yes as that would save him all the tinkering needed to arrive at a reasonable Ascorbic acid based developer sans Sulphite.

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Where's the fun in that?

I tried dried mint (#3) and a few other things. My method was the same as my earlier post (https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/herb-developer.188968/page-4#post-2526887), apart from :

* film : Fomapan 100 shot at EI 80
* Agitation : still continuous for the first 30s then 10s agitation at the start of every minutes, but with the twirling stick which came with my paterson tank. The reason is that it's starting to leak, and I got tired of spilling chemicals on my hands...

Part 1/2 (upload limit)

1. HC-110 (h) 1:63, 500ml, 8.5min



=> theses first frames were taken on a bright sunny day, the rest was the same overcast afternoon.

2. Caffenol CM, 500ml, 27g sodium carbonate, 8g ascorbic acid, 20g instant coffee, 12min


=> (very) dense and punchy, like the AgfaPhoto APX 100.

3. Caffenol CM with dried mint, 500m, 27g sodium carbonate, 8g ascorbic acid, 2.5g dried mint, 12min

15min decoction like I did with thyme.



=> quite the opposite with thin negatives.

Part 2/2

4. Caffenol CM with sodium carbonate and vitamin C only, 500ml, 27g sodium carbonate, 8g ascorbic acid, 12min

I already did this last time, but lowered the sodium carbonate to get roughly the same PH as caffenol CM. This test is Caffenol CM with coffee removed


=> severe underdevelopment, but i'm always amazed at how you can still get at least something

5. Vitamin C and sodium carbonate only, standard development, 500ml, 23g sodium carbonate, 25g ascorbic acid, 12min, PH ~ 9.5 (I think, didn't write it down but it was close)


=> close to my previous experiment, i wanted to see what would be the result with casual photos. It's still in the thin side, a little better than caffenol with dried mint

6. Vitamin C and sodium carbonate only, semi stand-developement, 500ml, 15g sodium carbonate, 15g ascorbic acid, 0.5g iodized salt, 60min semi stand-development, PH 9.5

What the hell let's try this. Continuous agitation for the first 30s then two gentle twirls at the 30min mark



=> density is better than #5, but it's easier to see it with the actual negatives side by side. I expected nothing, It's not good, but not that bad either.

I like the idea of herbs developers. You can get most of the ingredients easily, it's relatively environmentally friendly, and you remove the coffee which is frankly a pain in the ass : the smell, the mess, the brown stain on everything ...
2.5g/3g of dried thyme or mint with a 12min dev wasn't enough. I'll try to stick to thyme (cheaper than mint) and increasing theses two factors to see if I can get negatives I like with fomapan 100 or APX 100.
I'm sure you can get good result using vitamin C and sodium carbonate only, it was fun to try that, but you need quite a lot of ascorbic acid, which is not that cheap nor easily found in your next store. I took note of Don Heisz's advice to use metol, might try that in the future, thanks !