1 year caffenol.org – a flashback

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 Read more…

Rollei RPX 400 (was:Retro 400S)

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. Read more…

Agfa Copex Rapid in Delta-MICRO

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 Read more…

Matchbox Pinhole & Caffenol

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. 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 Read more…

Happy New Year!

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 Read more…

caffenomatography

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, Read more…

Action!

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 Read more…

more Kodak Porta 160 NC

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: 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.

Density testprint

Density

f 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.