Technical Pan in Caffenol-SMT / Mini Workshop

Published by dirk on

I recently asked in the Caffenol Facebook group how I should shoot a roll of Kodak Technical Pan. Many people suggested I should shoot it at EI 25 or 50, but I also wanted to know if it is possible to get something useful out of it in EI 200. I took a stroll around a small lake near my workplace and fired away.

When the roll was exposed, I wanted to do something crazy, so I asked again on Facebook in which recipe it should be developed. After 9 suggestions and some calculations by averaging ingredients and times, I had my recipe. For the moment it is called Caffenol-SMT (Caffenol-SoMeThing).

I also wanted to do some video again, and as my Wineol Video has just reached about 15.000 views, it was about time to create something fresh. It shows my way of mixing up caffenol and some other things which I do when I develop film. If you have any comments about how I do things, please use the comment section below, or discuss it in the Caffenol Facebook Group. Warning, the video is rather long , so make yourself a nice cup of coffee, lean back and enjoy 22 minutes caffenol-geek-talk.



Techical Pan in Caffenol on Youtube from Dirk Essl

The recipe comes down to:

1 liter water at 21 degrees C
Washing Soda: 24g (multiply by 2.7 if your soda is crystalline)
Vitamin C: 13g
Instant Coffee: 32g
KBr: 0.4 g
Semi Stand with 6 initial inversions and 3 gentle inversions at 15 minutes.

Here are the uncorrected scans (Autolevel from Vuescan). Please be aware that the film seems to be light damaged, so the top and bottom of the frames are completely white. It however gives a very nice panoramic effect.

Here is the EI200 shot again, which was tweaked a bit in Lightroom:

EI 200

EI 200

I think with the right subject, this film is even usable in EI 200, but your mileage may vary.

The recipe is just missing a proper name now, so this your chance to give it one.
There is a lot more to discover on this site, have a look at our recipes or browse other caffenol addicts in our ‘A Coffee with…’ series.

And remember, whatever you do: Have fun!


dirk

Dirk Essl is the founder of caffenol.org And has done a tremendous amount of coffee development in the past.

2 Comments

Robin · September 9, 2014 at 10:42 pm

What is Kbr ? it’s such a small amount , does it matter ? thanks Robin

    Martin Lysdahl · July 15, 2016 at 12:59 pm

    Potassium bromide – it’s to avoid uneven development.

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