A friend of mine recently told me about Diafine, a quite famous dual solution developer that is said to push mid tones by 1 stop. Diafine is a compensating developer, meaning you put in Solution A, let the film rest for 4 minutes with maybe 1 slow agitation per minute, pour out Solution A (both solutions can be reused) and then put in Solution B and let it develop further 4 minutes with agitation that is specific to the used film.
I was amazed about the tonality that the developer brings, and because I like experimenting, I thought why not try out something like that with Caffenol. Of course I knew that it will most probably not push the mids, and I cannot reuse the Caffenol mix, but it was fun for the experiment.
This is the procedure, that I used:
- Mix 240ml water with 7 Teaspoons of Instant Coffee
- Mix 100ml water with 4 Teaspoons of Washing Soda and add 2 Teaspoons of Vitamin C
- Put the Coffee mix into the developing tank, agitate once per second for the first minute
- leave it for another 2 minutes, agitate for 10 seconds every minute.
- Pour out 100ml of Water and add the Washing Soda mix.
- Agitate once per second for the first minute
- Agitate for 10 seconds every minute for 9 miutes
- Stand development for another 4 minutes.
I don’t think that the Coffee pre-wash did anything to the negatives, but this has to be proven.
So the plan is another experiment by comparing 2 same films in different developers. So stay tuned and meanwhile have a look ath the Caffeafine pictures, exposed in the range from 400 – 3200 EI:
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![[/\/]](http://www.caffenol.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/5-150x150.jpg "[/\/]")
- Ilford HP5 Plus
![[/\/]](http://www.caffenol.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/5.jpg "[/\/]")
![^[] []](http://www.caffenol.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/7.jpg "^[] []")
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I only have one argument against this : You give the recipes in teapoonfuls.
This is sort of counterproductive, since there are no standard of what this IS. I did use volumetric measures for more than 20 years when reloading ammuntition for firearms, so my criticism is not directed at the method, volumetric measures of powders are – or can be – as accurate as weight measures, and in many cases even better.
But the measures themselves needs to be standardized, and the specific weight of the powder(s) needs to be well defined and well known and closely controlled.
In powders and firearms these factors are both at hand, the manufacturers of the measuring devices put in a lot of effort to control their quality, and the powder manufacturers put in an even higher effort to control their product. From time to time the powder manufacturers offers new data, this reflect that their product have changed.
Here, we are measuring out unknown powders, with spoons that are bought haphazardly, and made for entirely other purposed – without any reasonable quality control, and where there exist no international standards for what a “teaspoonful” IS, this means that it might be hard, or even impossible to duplicate results from one place to another.
This to a large extent negates the value of a blog like this, since the idea is to share experience.
Therfore, going metric and investing in a simple and cheap electronic weight would be welcome! A weight like that now are offered for 7 – 10$, has a prescision to 0,01gram and will weigh up to 200 grams with great repeatability.
Transforming all formulas to metric measures would increase the value of this blog!
Other than that, the spirit here, welcoming all kinds of experiments, seem to be absolutely tops!
EP
The general idea of a two-step developer is to put all the developing agents in the first solution, together with stabilisling agents and other stuff, like restrainers.
The second solution is simple, just some sort of soda that starts and brings development to its end. Before the second solution is introduced, no developing action takes place in the film, or very, very little.
A warning here, all kinds of prewash will most likely bring about a catastrophe, either no development at all or a reduced developing action and very thin negatives. This because a pre-soak willø hinder absorption into the film layers.
Because the principle is very simple: in the first step all the developing agents are quickly absorbed into the dry film, when the excess fluid is drained, these developing agents remain inside the film, exactly enough to develop the exposed silver halides.
This process starts immediately as soon as the soda or equivalent gets in touch with the saturated film layer.
And the very idea is for this to be self regulating. No need to time this very exactly, you just needs to make sure that the film gets in touch with the film long enough in both baths. No need to worry over time in the first bath, just make sure it gets longe enough, so the developer is aborbed.
No need to time the next bath either, just make sure that the first bath is well drained, as soon as development start in the second bath, it will take care of itself, and stop by itself, because the developing agents in the film will be spent and the action stops all by itself.
This developer outlined here does not seem to share these charcteristics, therefore it cannot truly be a two-bath developer.
I could well have been, if the ascorbic acid was changed out for sodium ascorbate, which is the net result in the reaction between soda and ascorbic acid in your proposed 2. bath. This sodium ascorbate woul go into the first bath of course.
However ascorbates have a reputation for detoriating in solution, in contact with atmospheric oxygen, so that they loose their strength over time. And that is a serious argument against this.
Succesful 2-bath formulas let you mix two 1-litre stock solutions, and use those until the first bottle is empty (you loose about 50ml for each film, for 1 litre and a 400 ml tank this means you have a stock solution that will last until 600 ml have been used up : 600/50 = ca 12 films.
Two-bath developers are a good idea, and well known fram back to the 1930′s and used quite a lot before WW2. But I’m uncertain if this procedure outlined here really brings anything to the table. It seems to be just an excercise, no real solution over traditional mix and develop Caffein C.
Erik,
Thank you very much for your explanation of traditional two bath developers. I know, that caffeafine is not a real two bath developer as some amount of solution A stays in the Tank when adding solution B. I just wanted to show, that experimenting with caffenol can be a lot of fun, and even with teaspoon measuring can deliver usable results.
Agreed Dirk, experimentation is fun!
My concern over measurements are only this: we are to a certain extent evangelistas, we are spreading the gospel of coffee! Then if a startup on the other side of the globe gets it all wrong, wrong measurements, due to local fluke of excessively large or small spoons, wrong coffee (decaf simply will give blank negs!) wrong soda and wrong vitamin C (orange juice will NOT cut it!), then the results will be disappointing, and we have lost another soul for good!
Therefore I prefer to be very particular, establish a good base first (as you certainly have) get good & predictable results, THEN experiment.
My experiments have largely centered around developing outdated film, outdated, exposed & loing forgotten films – I have dark secrets of neglect from the 1980′s that have now met their destiny in the black soup any yelded good negatives. I get more films from old and forgotten cameras – last week I was given a Gevapan 120 film, that had been exposed probably before 1965, I now have negatives to show.
Simply put Caffenol have rescued old films that would otherwise have been unsalveable.
I rescue them with Caffenol CC-M and develop at 15min @ 20 C. Can’t be simpler than that!
PS in the future I will give my recipes in both grams and teaspoonfuls, its dead easy for me to count the teaspoons as I weigh out to the nearest 0.1 gram.
Erik
I was curious simply if this developing method requires a fixer.
I’ve been on a mission the last several months to get all the right ingredients and find the right methods for caffenol developing.
I’ve tried a few times already, And my negatives came out to thick.
That was fist trial run. And I don’t think I agitated correctly and I didn’t use a fixer or the (I’ve seen a couple places mention) a liquid dish soap and water mixture.
So I’m just curious if I use this mixture and method mentioned above, will it develop my negatives so I can make prints. Will it require a fixer?
Thanks!
Aurora
Aurora,
yes, even this method requires fixer. All of the ‘normal’ processes require fixing the negatives. Fixing will wash out the undeveloped parts of the film and preserve the developed so the film will last.
I also add a drop of liquid dish soap to my final wash (after I fixed the negatives) to make the film dry without drops.
I use Ilford Rapid fix, diluted 1+4 as it says on the packaging. You can fix many, many films with it. I always test the fixer with the end of the Film. If it clears within 1 minute, I use it. If not, I mix up fresh fixer. Please beware that fixer has to be disposed as special waste.
cheers,
dirk
Thank you so much for the info! This totally helped me out.
I was just hoping fixer wasn’t required because I just wanted to start developing now and moneys tight as hell. But no worries, I shall be developing in the correct manner soon!
Thanks again