My first caffenol attempt....

[ChristopherCoy]

Heat won't kill it - just make it old (go grey) before its time.

All developers need all of their component parts to work properly. In some cases, if you miss something, it won't work at all.

If the job of the baking soda/washing soda was to change the pH to a range that permits all the rest of the components to work (i.e. to reduce the exposed silver halides), and the soda doesn't do its job, the rest of the components may not have been able to do their jobs.

If the exposed silver halides aren't reduced by the developer, then the fixer will just remove them from the film.

So the consensus is that it was a baking soda/washing soda thing?

 

[NedL]

I'm no expert on cafenol but that's what I think. If the pH was high enough, the vitamin C alone should have produced at least a weak image. And I know for sure that if you use baking soda you can reduce the pH enough to produce no development on paper with cafenol, I tried that one time. So it makes sense the same thing would happen for film. I think what you saw could happen if some but not enough of your baking soda was converted to washing soda in the oven.

 

[ChristopherCoy]

How does pushing film work in caffenol? I want to shoot some Tri-X at ASA800. Since the starting point is 15 mins, should I just add 25% since its only one stop? So go for 18.75 or 19 mins?

 

[ChristopherCoy]

I'm doing my second roll.... and I think its safe to say that I'm hooked.

Its WAY to convenient to mix your own developer one batch at a time and not have to worry about chemicals loosing their ability over time.

 

[goros]

Kodak trix.

The same has happened to two frinds of mine using standard developers, D-76 and HC-110, and with Tri X.

 

[TheToadMen]

I'm doing my second roll.... and I think its safe to say that I'm hooked.

Its WAY to convenient to mix your own developer one batch at a time and not have to worry about chemicals loosing their ability over time.

Hi Christopher,
I was wondering what recipe for Caffenol you're mixing now? And how long did you develop and agitate?
I'm going to try my first roll in Caffenol next week.
Bert