My First Caffenol Experience

I have heard for years about using Instant Coffee, Vitamin C Tablets, and Washing Soda as a film developer but never tried it until last night. I had some expired film, and a lot of time on my hands, so I went to the discount grocery store then CVS and got all I needed. Next I ground all my “chemicals” to a fine powder in a mortar and pestle, added water, stirred, and I had a very smelly dark as night chemical sitting there. I developed for 12 minutes and low and behold when all was fixed and done I had printable negs! Not that I’d use this for any thing important but that was sure fun! Now dose any one have a paper developer I can make after a stop at my grocery store?

Dave M.

That's a cool experiment. I always wanted to try it, I think I will!
As far as the paper goes, it stands to reason that you would get an image to come up on paper with this combo as well. Of course, coffee stains - I assume the prints, aside from quality, would be rather specific in their tones
I am however far from being an expert on photo chemistry, so don't take my word for it!

Peter.

I'd suggest (not having tried it myself) you could try doubling all the dry ingredients in Caffenol C; you *might* get a developer with enough "kick" to bring up a print in under five minutes. Alternately, you could try a stronger alkali -- the next easy one to get a the grocery is sodium hydroxide, aka lye. The Red Devil brand seems the purest, but any kind will work (and there are liquid drain openers that are simply lye solutions if you can't get the dry variety locally -- I've been told Roebic drain opener is straight 29% lye solution). The higher pH will result in more rapid working, as would increasing the concentration of developing agents. Some combination there will surely work for prints.

Personally, I like my prints with neutral tones, so I'll stick with Dektol (at least until I use up the rest of the 5 gallon pack I bought a while back).

Something like Parodinal ought to work as a print developer at somewhat reduced dilutions compared to what you use for film. You'll need acetaminophen (Tylenol) tablets, lye, and sodium sulfite. I've seen claims that sodium sulfite is sold by some pool-supply stores as a way to reduce chlorine levels, but other products can do so, too, so be sure to check the labels.

Caffenol certainly works as a print developer. I used it a while back when trying out Parodinal. The Parodinal works fine, by the way, and also works as a print developer. As I recall, I used 1+10 dilution for Parodinal for prints. I used the regular mix for Caffenol - just Arm and Hammer and coffee crystals (Maxwell House Rich Dark Roast - that's what was available). It may have taken somewhat longer than Dektol or the Agfa Multicontrast (I was using the latter during the same printing session), but I don't recall it being excessively long. At any rate, I was mucking about and doing a number of other tests at the same time, so it may have been longer than I remember. I was using Kodak Polycontrast III RC which was at least 15 years old and Agfa Multicontrast RC (quite recent). Also, some of the prints were from old colour negatives with an orange colour cast, which made for long exposures and development more or less to completion. I never got around to using the Caffenol for film.

For the RC paper I used, the Caffenol stained/toned it a brownish/sepiaish colour – not unpleasant, and possibly quite nice for the right print.

Since I have 7 litres of Rodinal set down, I haven’t bothered with more Parodinal, but as far as I could see it was pretty much equivalent.

Give the Caffenol a try – what have you got to loose – a few sheets of paper? I can’t comment on fibre based papers, and perhaps you will want to give it a bit more zip, as Donald suggests.

Cheers,
Clarence