Pictures on caffenol.org

A Coffee with…No. 4 – Christian Walch

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Today I share an Interview with a colleague of mine that works with me on the dark side of IT. (Windows) I am guilty of infecting him with the caffenol virus and to buy himself into the Pentax and Micro Four Thirds system 🙂 He is also a Hair Model.

Caffenol: Good Morning, Chris! Grab yourself some tea and: please introduce yourself.

Chris: Hi Dirk, it’s me, your colleague Chris. I’m raised and born in Munich and always looking for the opinion to do things differently.

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.

We are still here!

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

just a quick post to tell everyone of our readers that we are still alive and keep experimenting with caffenol in all variants. I recently got an email about developing glas negatives in caffenol, so interesting times are coming. For the moment I will leave you with a picture one of our readers sent me. Maybe you want to guess what it is and how the picture was made.

Merry Christmas!

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I would like to wish everyone of you a Merry, Merry Christmas. Thanks for all the comments, lovely pictures and ideas that you sent me in the last year. I hope I will have some more time next year to fill this blog with new recipes and experiments around caffenol.

See you next year,
Dirk

Kodak Portra 100T

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

While sorting out my Camera Cabinet I found a Roll of exposed Kodak Portra 100T (Tungsten). This film is not available new anymore, used prices of expired film go from 6 to 20 EUROs.

I had no clue when, what and with which camera I shot it. That’s one of the things I like with analog film: You never really know what you get until you develop the roll. I developed it in Delta-STD for 14 minutes and it came out quite nicely, but most of the pictures where badly composed, under or overexposed, so I can only show 3 examples. From seeing the pictures I could identify the camera: My lovely Russian Rangefinder Zorki 4. I had no Lightmeter at the time, so exposure was off on most shots. Auto Levels in Photoshop gives a nice brownish toning, but that doesn’t work on all pictures, so I converted one of them to ‘real’ B&W.

Caffenol for paper prints

Tue, 24 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a long time since there was an article here on caffenol.org and I know that some of you are really looking forward to see more pictures of prints developed in Caffenol. I have received very nice results from József, a Hungarian mechanical engineer, coffee addict and lover of analogue b&w photography and good wines.

József writes:

Caffenol came to my life as a crazy idea. Some months ago I found a short description of Caffenol in a Hungarian photography forum. It was enough to wake up the curiosity in me so I began to search for additional info about it. Then I decided to try… The first attempt was an expired (and forgot in the camera) Fuji Superia 400 colour negative. It worked, I had very promising result so I knew that I must go on with this coffee soup. But I found the paper development more exciting.

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.”

Rollei Retro 100 Tonal

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I wrote an article about an extremely cheap film, the wonderful Lucky SHD 100. Today I will post some images from a film that is on the more expensive side: Rollei Retro 100 Tonal. With EURO 5.36 It’s still cheaper then Ilford HP5, but more expensive then Ilford Delta 100 which is EURO 4.99 and shares the same boxspeed.

1 year caffenol.org – a flashback

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Back in October 2009 I read some crazy stuff about developing expired color film in Coffee and Washing Soda, and was blown away about the results you could get with cheap instant coffee and cheap washing soda. So I thought I’ll give it a try. During Summer I was hunting for old cameras on several flea markets and already had done some shootings with them, but giving the films to the lab and letting them scan them. After I read about this ‘caffenol’ thing, I bought a daylight Developing Tank from ebay, an Agfa Rondinax 35, some coffee and some soda. I loaded some Fujicolor 1600 into my Zorki 4and walked around through my flat. I don’t remember exactly which recipe I used and had no idea if it would work at all. This is one of the first pictures I ever did in caffenol:

Rollei RPX 400 (was:Retro 400S)

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Correction! I mixed up negatives while scanning, And just found out that This Film is NOT Rollei Retro 400S, but Rollei RPX 400 instead.

Apologies from my side, for the moment, I do not recommend using Rollei Retro 400S for caffenol, because my results are somewhat inconsistent with this film. One came out totally black, and one came out totally underdeveloped. I have just loaded another 400S into my trusty Olympus XA and will try again.

Lucky SHD 100 – film can not be cheaper

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I got a testbatch from MACO of Lucky SHD 100, a very popular Film used by Photography students in the UK. No wonder, this film is almost cheaper then bread. If it could be eaten, I would. If you buy a set of 10 Films, you pay about EURO 1,62 per film.

“Lucky New SHD 100, with high clarity, wide exposure latitude, and good physical characteristics, can meet various requirements such as high-temperature and high-humidity. It features processed functions of resisting adhesion and scratch, and widely used in portrait, adv, landscape, journey and art photography etc.”

Agfa Copex Rapid in Delta-MICRO

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

If you are looking for a (very) high resolution and (very) contrasty Black and white film, you have probably looked at Agfa Copex Rapid film already, but have not ordered it because it’s high price (about EURO 6,– per Roll). I got some testrolls recently from Maco Direct to try how it behaves in caffenol. This film is not so easy to handle and there is not so much information about it, as it is specified as microfilm and can be used in x-ray cameras. Resolution is about 600 lines/mm (Fuji Velvia 50 is rated to resolve 160 lines per millimeter) so the film will outperform any Lens you have, easily. It complies to ISO 10602 and has a life expectance of 500 years. The Film base is made of PET and curls like Hell, even if you hang it with film weights. The emulsion scratches easily when wet, so please give this film a good wash before you wipe it, or don’t wipe it at all.

Matchbox Pinhole & Caffenol

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Caffenol Reader and Lomography member Hana (http://www.lomography.com/homes/hilarion) sent us her results of a matchbox pinhole camera. Instructions how to build one can be found at http://www.matchboxpinhole.com.

Hanas Matchboxpinhole camera

Hana is from Slovakia and uses vitamin c from DM drogeri, an unknown coffee brand and “kalcinovaná sóda na pranie”, a local soda product.

Below is a selection of her pinhole photos, all wonderful examples how beautiful pinhole photography can be:

Happy New Year!

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been a busy year for caffenol, and 2011 will not calm down, that’s for sure.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support, your comments and critics about this blog. I wish you and your families a very happy year 2011.

I didn’t take any fireworks pictures this year, but hope a fire engine is close enough 🙂 Film used here is Rollei RPX 400, developed for 11min. in Caffenol Delta-STD. What Delta-STD exactly is, will follow…

caffenomatography

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

If you are new to film developing, or just new to caffenol developing you can find plenty of ressources on the internet and read your way through. But sometimes it’s nice to lean back and watch something beautiful, and while watching it, learn from it. When I started with caffenol, I watched a whole lot of videos about developing, discovering different techniques. There are a lot of videos, this I can tell. And I can tell you, that this one is the most beautiful video about developing film in caffenol. Punkt.

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.

more Kodak Porta 160 NC

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I went to a Photo fair the other weekend and bought another, small camera that I always had an eye on: The Olympus XA. It is in excellent condition, came with the A11 Flash and a small bag. It had already batteries installed and as I always carry a Film canister with some film with me, it was obvious to put it in: 36 Exposures of 2007 expired Kodak Porta 160 NC. A wonderful color film, that comes out great in caffenol. The XA has only full ISO stops, so I dialed in ISO 200 and began shooting. I immediately fell in love with the little rangefinder. the aperture setting is in a bit weird place, but very nice to operate. Maximum shutter speed is 1/500s. so medium speed Film is ideal for this camera. So lean back and have a look on the 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.

Kodak T-MAX – from T-Grain to Coffee granules

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Some may be surprised that it took me so long to try out Kodak TMAX 400 in caffenol, but that’s how I am, always wanting to try out something new, something different.

A friend of mine gave me a roll of TMAX 400 because he said he really likes it. It’s a Tabular-grain-film like the Delta films from Ilford where the silver halide crystals are more flat and tabular.

Kodak says it is the sharpest, fined grained ISO 400 film and it pushes up to EI 1600. So why not taking it to the Construction of the Oktoberfest in Munich and shoot at dusk with a slow Lens, a Tamron 28-80 f3.5-5.6

ORWO PAN 100

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Recently someone gave me two rolls of ORWO PAN 100, a panchromatic Black and White film, made here in Germany. ORWO still sells it as medium speed surveillance film, but I don’t know if the emulsion nowadays is the same as the one from the film that I’ve got. This panchromatic film has the characteristic to be sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light, producing a very realistic image.

Both Rolls are expired long ago (1996) and so I was not really expecting good results as I didn’t know how the FIlm has been stored over the years. I loaded it into my [Revue 35CC (my Espresso Camera)](/espresso-camera/ “Espresso Camera” and began shooting from EI 100 to 800. Results are quite usable, but I find the grain not so appealing. Contrast wise this film behaves quite good, so I might consider buying a few fresh rolls to see if the grain is the result from the expired emulsion. Nevertheless this Film can now be found in the [Film Development Chart](/film-development-chart/ “Film Development Chart”,

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.

Harmony Recipe

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Josh Harmon was kind enough to share his caffenol recipe and sent me two nice pictures, developed in caffenol. They show how flexible caffenol is, and that there is enough room for experiments.
The films he tried are Arista EDU 100 (fomapan 100) and an old TMAX 100:

Locked Gate, Arista EDU 100

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).

Found film

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

On a recent flea-market I bought a Revue 35CC with some Film inside for very, very little money. The camera had a stuck shutter, so I took the half exposed film out and cleaned the camera. Fresh batteries and voila, the little Revue is alive again. I developed the film in caffenol (what else), a Kodak Gold 200. The last two frames where really interesting, as they show the inside of a camera shop, supposing the owner bought a new camera on this date. He forgot to take out the film, though. If you recognize the place or the little kid, please give me a shout 🙂

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.

Neutral Color in B&W

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

I have a fair amount of Kodak Professional Portra 160 NC (Neutral Color) but never tried it out. Having still the Hartblei Tilt-Shift on my Canon 3000N, I thought I should give it go. And low ISO film always comes out great in Caffenol.

Here are the results:

The H, the P, the 5, the Plus

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

As said in the [last post](/2010/03/24/got-film/ “Got Film?”, it was time for a new film, the HP5 Plus from Ilford. Carefully exposed with my trusty Canon 3000N, crazily shot with a 65mm Super Rotator from Hartblei. Developed using the [Delta Recipe](/2010/03/12/the-delta-recipe-delta-std/ “The Delta Recipe” .

Let the pictures speak for themselves:

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:

Hold on. Color film?

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Well, you can develop every kind of film in Caffenol (a B&W process, that is) as long as it contains silver. So why not push that to the extreme and use an expired ISO 1600 Film and develop it in Caffenol.

Salt & Pepper

Voigtlaender Vitoret DR f2.8 1/30s.

Fujicolor 1600, expired 2004
Developped in caffenol (No-C) for 30 minutes.

The negative comes out very dense, but as I primarily scan the negatives, this is not a problem.

The Delta Recipe (Delta-STD)

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

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.

Elevate

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

On this site you will get loads of Informations about Film Development in Caffenol:

Recipies for all kind of different FIlms with Examples
Cameratips
Tips on how to get the best result out of your Coffe
How to scan your developped Film
How to develop prints in Caffenol
Downloads of Lightroom presets

To give you an Example, the following picture was shot with a Leica M6, 35mm f2 Summicron on Ilford Delta 400 Film.