My Favourite B&W Film is Ilford Professional Delta 400 for the moment. I really like the grain shape of this film: soft and round.
Whenever I plan to do Caffenol Development, I overexpose the Film by 1/2 or stop, but that’s just me. As usual on negative film: Expose for the shadows. I will not go too deep into Zone Metering, but maybe it is worth mentioning it from time to time.
The things you need, supposing you have developed film before, are:
- Instant coffee with caffein
- washing soda
- Vitamin C powder, or tablets
I mix Coffee and Soda seperate, as it makes it easier to see if the Soda is completely dispersed.
150ml Water, 6 rounded Teaspoons Instant Coffee (15 grams)
200ml Water, 4 leveled Teaspoons Washing Soda (8 grams)
Mix all together, add 1 Teaspoon of Vitamin C (7 grams)
Let solution stand for about 5 minutes to clear microbubbles.
9:00 minutes at 20 degrees, fix and rinse as usual.
"Balconies" Leica M6, 35mm f2, Ilford Delta 400
The result after applying my Lightroom Preset:
No related posts.
Nice.
Here you talk about Vitamin C tablets. is ther any commercial brand I should search for ?
What is the Vitamin C content in these ?
Thanks a lot for sharing you knowledge !
The vitamine content is stated on the bottle. Usually it will state 0.200 or 200mg which is the same thing or 0.500 that will be 0.2 and 0.5 gram respectively.
I have tried this with a local brand bought in my local foodstore. 0.500g type.
Contrary to reports, that have stated that this is a disaster, it worked, but the developing action was less than ascorbic acid powder.
One thing to look out for: tablets designed to be eaten contains several things besides vitamin C. First it needs something to hold it togther as a tablet, then its usually FLAVORED or COLORED.
Now this stuff can be nasty. The stuff that hold the tablet together also might be designed to faciliate a controlled release in the intestine tract.
This will show like a sludge, something you don’t want in a developer. It needs to be filtered out, totally unprepared for this, I filtered it out with a simple coffee filter.
Next time I will crush the tablets separately, dissolve in a small amount of water and then filter this into the larger developer solution.
The flavors and colors are suspect to make the vitamin C less active, I think that was what happened to me.
I needed to have 10 gram in my solution, and had to count up 20 tablets, 0,5g each. Still the developing action was considerabley less than the powdered vitamine.
Therefore, in my book, its less hassle to get the right stuff!
Erik
Very nice guide and keep up on your works with caffenol, im also experimenting with other brands usually color films and some black&white too like Agfa or Kentmere brand.
Here are some images of my work using caffenol
http://a.imageshack.us/img267/181/62595031.png
http://a.imageshack.us/img832/7758/scan00021.jpg
Hi, this caffenol blog it’s very intresting.
I try to develop kodak gold 200 in this recipes and I follow the film chart but it dont’t work.
Explain better. I use ascorbic acid that it can be the same of vitamin C, 6 Tsp of coffee and 4Tsp Washing Soda. In the film chart kodak gold 200 call 11 min in 20 C° and i do it.
I wash and fix with Ilford Rapid Fixer, but the film como out undevelop. I have the coat too delicate and it come away with nail scrape but don’t develop. Where is mistake? It can be possible that the film it was expired and dont develop?
Thanks to all
Mauro
First, I love this site and the other links related to Caffenol. I am new to film and developing and can’t wait to try this out. My main question is the total quantity of fluid to be used. I see a lot of varying volumes, probably due to developing tank size. My question is how much of the tank should be filled with the solution? I just bought a used stainless steel tank with two reels. I measured the water level so that both reels were just covered in water, @ 450ml. If I am developing just one reel, do I fill the entire container (450ml) and base my measurements on that? Or I’ve seen some recipes for a 350ml solution, which would cover one reel for sure in my tank. I’ve never developed before and will be trying this with some old Fred Meyer brand color neg, 200 asa film I just shot as well as some Tmax 400 and tri x 400. I would love some advice and or direction please.
Chris,
That’s a very good question, that I never asked my self as I have a tank for one film and several for two films. You for sure have to put in both reels to prevent the lower one from moving and not getting stuck when you agitate. I would then fill the tank so the lower reel is fully covered in developer and add a bit more just to be safe.
Of course if you are planning to develop single films more often I would advice you to buy a single film tank.
Thanks Dirk,
I think I’ll try it both ways at first and see which works best. Hopefully with practice I’ll feel confident developing two rolls at once, possibly get a one reel tank as well.