Equipment on caffenol.org

Hot Coffee

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Someone in the caffenol Facebook group asked if there is a faster development process then caffenol, and I referred him to Diafine, a quite fast 2 step developer. (3+3 minutes for most films.) At the same time I thought that this should allbe possible with normal caffenol, as it is possible with all film developers: You increase temperature, you reduce time. Normally, higher temperature adds contrast, but if you develop for too short (temperature too high), you may get uneven development.

Wineol – Red Wine developer

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Niklas Rühl posted a picture in our Facebook Group of a negative developed in Wineol, an alternate devolper that is made out of Red Wine, Washing Soda and Vitamin C. The whole process and some really nice pictures can be seen on his website. The site is in German,so here is a google translation. I knew already that it is possible to mix up other developers which are based on Washing Soda and Vitamin C, but never really had the interest to try it. But as I did some enlargements recently, why don’t try it as a paper developer. That said I took the cheapest Red Wine I have and mixed up some developer. As I always use plenty of Vitamin C in my recipes, I used the following formula:

Fomapan 400 in Caffenol-STD – Experiments and Results. And Large Format

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is an article of fine art figure photographer Scott Nichol from Allentown, PA, USA. You can visit his blog at http://www.silverystars.com/somanystars/. The Original article can be found here.

I wanted to experiment with the recipe for a coffee-based film developer commonly called Caffenol. Dirk Essl at caffenol.org does an excellent job of keeping track of development times for lots of different films that can be developed with Caffenol. However, most of the films that have been developed using this unique developer were films like Ilford HP5+ and Delta 400, neither of which I had any 4×5 stock at the moment. I did, however, have a good supply of Fomapan 400 and seeing as how development times for Fomapan and the Ilford films were similar, I decided to have a go at it. Initially, I decided just to follow the recommendation for Ilford Delta 400 of 9 minutes at 68°F.

Pictures from the sea (literally, as far as fixer concerns)

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Today I will post some pictures, that show how much fun experimenting with Caffenol can be.

Igor says:

“These pictures were taken about 3 years ago and were developed without any professional equipment in a pan. we were sitting in a dark bathroom stiring the film in caffenol with a spoon:) that is why those pictures are not so technically perfect. But it was all about fun. Also I should add that sea water was used as a fixer here.”

The Delta Recipe Goes Standard.

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

We have received several comments, that teaspoon measuring is not the preferred way in mixing up your caffenol brew, as it is very inaccurate and ‘1 teaspoon’ can mean from 1 to 5 grams, depending how big your teaspoon is.

Reinhold from caffenol.blogspot.com has developed some very good base recipes, using only litres and grams, and especially his chart at http://caffenol.blogspot.com/2010/08/recipes.html can be extremely useful, I just find it irritating that coffee is not on top of the list of ingredients 🙂

Caffenol as paper developer

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Caffenol-C in all variants makes a wonderful developer for negative film and if used carefully, it can be used for nearly any film speed and a lot of different films. So far I have found one (1) film, that fails in Caffenol: Rollei Retro 400. But this might have been just my fault, so I have just bought a few rolls of this film to make further experiments.

There are not so many examples about using caffenol as a per developer, so I had to try it. Mainly because I had no print developer to hand when my darkroom was built. And as I had no film to develop and I was sorting my negatives, I thought I give it a try.

Action!

Sun, 28 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I cleaned up my camera cabinet yesterday and stumbled upon my Action sampler camera where I remembered I shot some film with already. My Action sampler is a no name model, but is better than the one from Lomography in so many ways: It has a proper viewfinder, it is not as ugly and it was only 2 EUROS, new. Not in a nice box as from Lomography, but hey it’s not the boxing that takes pictures.

Density

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

If you read a bit about caffenol development or development in general, you will quickly learn phrases like “my negatives came out very dense” or “negatives where thin, but scanned fine”. So what does all that mean?

If you develop color films in caffenol, most likely you will get dense negatives (dense meaning you cannot see through the film in this case), positive films and High ISO films will be denser then low ISO films. These negatives are not very good to produce prints on paper, as contrast is quite low and they have an orange mask. High ISO B&W Films will most likely come out very thin and will look like underdeveloped negatives. Both types will scan fine and with a small amount of Post Processing (Level adjustments) they will look good on a screen.

Caffeafine (Using Caffenol-C as 2 step developer)

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

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.

ISO 50

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

When I started analogue photography, I wanted to shoot on grainy high speed films primarily, preferable at night. So far I have not managed to do a grainy night shooting, but did buy a lot of different films just to see, how they look in caffenol. So this week I tried Ilford Pan F 50, a panchromatic ISO 50 film. And as I currently have an Olympus OM4-Ti, it was just perfect to try out the spot metering features of it.

The Espresso Camera

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Small, black, fast. This is how you can describe the Revue 35CC. The camera was also sold as Chinon Bellami and has a very unique opening mechanism using the advance lever. Some people call it a ‘barn door’ camera, as the lever opens two doors and extends the Lens.

Features are minimalistic: 35mm f2.8 Lens, Program AE, Scale Focus.
A dedicated (automatic) Flash can be added to the camera, which makes the camera perfect as pocketable party cam.

Smena Symbol – The other LOMO

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I just love going on a flea market and buying any camera that the owner is willing to give away for under 5 EURO. Just like this wonderful Smena Symbol. A plastic camera from Russia, made in the LOMO factory. It features a 40mm f4 lens and weather symbols as additional shutter speed scale. The lens has a stepless aperture, which doubles as ISO setting. You can read more about this camera on Camerapdia.

Goodbye Leica

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I had a Leica M6 for loan for quite some time, but gave it back recently. What can I say about this camera? It’s beautiful, gorgeous and so unobtrusive at the same time. Paired wit the 35mm f2 this is an ideal street shooter. Here are the last shots I took with the M6. All on Kodak Porta 160 NC, developed in Caffenol-C. This film looks stunning in Caffenol. If you are in the need for a low speed film with some very nice film grain, you really should consider this type, even if it is a color film.

Stars galore!

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

So we finally found a day, where there are clear skies and packed our car with some Equipment. As Wolfgang bought a new 200mm Newton Telescope, we didn’t take too much Photography Equipment as we would be really busy enjoying the view of Saturn through a 8mm Ocular. But I left the shutter open for 4 hours on my Zorki 4. I think I can be proud of a shot of startrails, that is not boring 🙂 Ilford HP5 Plus Developed in Caffenol-C+ (3x Vitamin-C to decrease grain).

Caffenol goes Astrophotography

Wed, 05 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

There is not so much happening here at the moment, because I have bought too many cameras in the last weeks and need to finish all the films.

But I am quite excited about one event that will take place next week. We will head towards Sudelfeld and shoot at about 1700 meters height. And will shoot the stars. Mostly digital Cameras will be used, but I will take some analog equipment with me to shoot star trails throough the whole night. And to add some crazyness, I will of course then develop the whole lot of films in caffenol.

Got Film?

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

As I am pretty confident with Ilford Delta Professional 400 now, let’s switch to another Film, which is quite popular in the B&W scene as well: Ilford HP5 Plus 400

Ilford HP5 Plus

As I want to ensure to have correct exposure on my first Roll, I decided to use my Canon EOS 3000N.
But to add some fun value to it, I mount the Hartblei Super-Rotator 65/f3.5 onto the Camera: