Happy new year 2014 everybody.
Medium format quality with slow technical (micro) 35mm films and Caffenol-C as a great and cheap developer compared to the dedicated and expensive soups? Yes, why not? The results are first class using a proven recipe and adjusted dev times. Using really fine resolving zoom lenses at bright sunshine make it possible to get great results even handheld, of course fast prime lenses are first choice for every subject.
There are also films from fresh production as Rollei ATO, Rollei Ortho 25, Rollei ATP, Agfa Copex Rapid, and of course the new Kentmere/RPX 25. The latter are not technical films and will probably need some more minutes dev time.
Another sample from the excellent Kodak Technical Pan, developed 12
minutes at 20 °C in Caffenol-C-L with 0.1 g/l pot. bromide, regular
agitation, means first 60 seconds continuously, thereafter 3x every
minute. Excellent tonal range even at heavy backlight.
Love and peace - Reinhold
click for a bigger size
7 comments:
Thank you for your enthusiasm and willingness to try (and post) new ideas. Caffenol use has come a long way under your leadership. Your blog is tremendously helpful and, as always, a springboard for ideas.
Here's to another year!
Best regards,
-Jake
I'm experimenting more and more with Agfa Copex Rapid and Caffenol.
It's absolutely exciting, and the results are encouraging.
I'm using both C-L and LC+Cnew.
A question for you, Reinhold: do you filter the liquid, after the final mix? I'm seeing too many spots on my negatives, maybe unsoluted crystals.
Thanks for your great blog, and happy 2014!
Fernando
Hi Fernando, important question, see next post.
And Jake, thanks a lot for the appreciation.
Cheers - Reinhold
I received a comment from Stephan but had to replace a broken url:
"Hello Reinhold. I follow your blog about Caffenol with high interest. I also experiment with your receipes but I replace soda by equivalent amount of potasium carbonate. Do you think it can have any influence on the results? Also I have successfully developed Adox CMS 20 film, which also belong to category of "no grain" films. I have used receipe from this guy and it works pretty well. http://www.flickr.com/photos/62756870@N02/6092783139/ Since that time I love this film. Cheers Stepan"
Hi Stephan, are you kidding, you are a chemist?
http://www.blogger.com/profile/05389339668646683895
For pot. carbonate you have to multiply the amount of washing soda waterfree (= sodium carbonate) with 1.3 regarding the different molar weights. But I have no info about possible hydrates and if so if they can be "dried" the same way as sodium carbonate. Sorry, no better knowledge here, ask a chemist (youself?)
Hello Reinhold,
to be honest, yes, I am a chemist. And indeed I used equivalent amount of potassium carbonate (calculated from their molar weight ratio). But as far as I know the chemical properties of those two carbonates are very similar. But in an old book of classical photography I have found an information that a developer containing sodium carbonate works less energetically (lower contrast) than a developer with potassium carbonate. This information is quite new for me but it can explain the results I have got with potassium carbonate containing Caffenol. The negatives are simply more contrasty than I would want and expect with this compensating developer. But this could be of course adjusted by decreasing the development time I guess. Anyway thanks for your answer and I wish you a lot of energy and enthusiasm to keep this great blog alive!
Stepan
Reinhold,
Thanks so much for all the great information on caffenol. I have been using your caffenol CL recipe and semi-stand agitation cycle with Rollei IR820, Acros 100, and TMax 100. I've been very pleased with the results and overall ease of use. Here are some examples http://www.flickr.com/photos/2_many_cameras/sets/72157638713646433/
I use distilled water, pure soda ash from a pool supply store,generic Vit C tablets, and the cheapest regular instant coffee I can find. Instead of potassium bromide, I use sodium bromide (also sold at pool supply stores). I find it works very well at slightly less than 1g per liter. At about $5 for 100g, very inexpensive also.
I develop all the above film at 1 hour, with 10 inversions initially followed by 3 inversions at 1,2,4,8,16,32 minutes. I stop with water, and use Photographer's Formulary TF5 archival fixer, with a photo-flo final soak.
extremely beautiful picture!
Love the tones and dynamic range
and a certain glow it has...
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