it's so easy

Hello coffeeholics,

some new interesting facts from the still growing worldwide community using coffee as a main agent for b/w-film development. I was never really satisfied with TriX in Caffenol, but when I saw the fine results of Thomas I had to think over my estimations. Secondly his system for developing at boxspeed and a 2 stop push with Caffenol-C-L is simply brilliant. You mustn't tweak your developer depending on the used film brand or desired speed, simply adjust the dev time. He did it with great results and many different films at different speeds and temperatures and his method is incredibly easy. Let's read what he wrote:

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i did develop my b&w films for quite some time using highly diluted rodinal and stand development and was very happy with the results and especially also with the uncomplicated way of doing it: one developer for normal and push development, no tweaking for film type or room temperature. the only problem i got was uneven development, especially in medium format. as i was not able to solve this problem i looked around and at that time - about a year ago - i read about your stand- and semi-stand development experiences with caffenol and gave it a try. i wanted to try this strange idea of developing films anyway. i just followed your caffenol c-l recipe and it worked perfectly for me (prewash for 5min, agitating 30sec at the beginning and then 3 times at 2, 4, 10 and 40 minutes and dumping the develper at 70min). the results were amazing and had much of what i liked about the rodinal stand development. at some point i also wanted to be able to use the films not pushed at box-speed and tried to reduce the development time to get there. after some experiments i ended up with 5min prewash, 30sec agitation at the beginning and then 3 times at 1, 5 and 15 minutes and dumping the developer at 30min.

these two strategies for developing film at box speed or with a two stop push i'm using since and it always worked. and that at temperatures from 20-25 degrees celsius and films varying from acros (100+400), agfa apx 100 (100+400), kodak tri-x (400+1600), tmx (100+400), tmy (400+1600), ilford fp4+ (100+400) and some others (the numbers in brackets are the filmspeed i used the films at). the results were always very good. to see some images developed that way, you may have a look at my flickr stream

vielen dank und liebe gruesse

t

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Thank you very much, Thomas, for these easy to follow instructions. I have no doubt a similar procedure would work f.e. with Caffenol-C-M, maybe 7 or 8 minutes for boxspeed and 15 minutes for a push +2 development and regular agitation.

Cheers - Reinhold

my dream team

Pentacon Six 6x6 SLR, Carl-Zeiss-Jena Sonnar 2.8/180, Fuji Acros100 EI 200, exposure f5.6/250 handheld, Caffenol-C-M, 24 °C, 10 minutes, crop 10x10 mm negative size.

The 25 MP scan (3 MB filesize) can be seen here:   http://img126.imagevenue.com

The scan was done as always with a modest Canoscan 8800F. With a professional print service or a good enlarger you can make huge, wall-sized prints.

Cheers - Reinhold

Caffenol-C-H "highspeed"

Hello coffee junkies,

a new chapter of Caffenol development is ready to be published. I was not satisfied with Caffenol/C and high speed films and I didn't recommend it. Too much fog, flat in contrast, poor usable speed, ugly grain. but I constantly thought of trying to modify Caffenol-C-M for these films. Potassium bromide (KBr) is well known as an anti-fogging agent, but I thought it would mess up the concept of great shadow rendering. I was wrong. So good and bad news: KBr works well with Caffenol, but it is not available in regular supermarkets. In Germany a pharmacy in my neighborhood was able to deliver it within a couple of hours, 100 gramms for 15 Eur. Quite expensive compared to the other ingredients, but it will be good for 100 litres of developer and some hundred films. So the additional coast will be about 4 - 8 Euro-Cent per development. Potassium bromide is not toxic and doesn't spoil the environmental friendly coffee soup.I don't know how easy potassium bromide is available in other countries, reports are welcome. The german name is Kaliumbromid, or you may ask for the scientific latin name "kalium bromatum" in pharmacies.

Crops 10x10 mm negative size, Neopan 1600 @1600 ASA left, HP5+ @ 400-800 ASA right :

So here's Caffenol-C-H, "H" for highspeed, recommended for 400 ASA films and faster. There is considerably less fog, although there will be still some, but not any more disturbing. Tonality, contrast and shadow rendering are amazing for available light with lot of shadow areas. On the minus side we have still quite big grain. For example, the Neopan1600 developed in Diafine produces much nicer grain and was my preferred developer. But I never got better shadow details as with Caffenol-C-H. And I slowly begin to love the bigger grain, together with the wide tonality it gives a special look. Boxspeed or pushing is possible. More detail for exposure index must be evaluated, rating under available light conditions is difficult and I made no densitometric tests. Try boxspeed or +1 push.

How to: I made a stock solution of 10 gramms KBr in 300 ml destilled water, stored in a glass bottle. It will last almost forever. 1 ml contains 0,033 gramms KBr. 250 ml developer need 7.6 or easier 8 ml of the stock solution. This equals 1 gramm per litre KBr. Simply add the 8 ml to the ready mixed 250 ml Caffenol-C-M and voila: Caffenol-C-H. Be sure to do the math right! I'm sorry.

Edit: if still too much fog, use 2 g/l of potassium bromide.

So far I used HP5+ and Neopan1600, both with excellent results. 1gram per liter KBr was added to the Caffenol-C-M recipe, no other changes. Developing time was 15 minutes like before, or 30 minutes stand development with agitation first 30 seconds and 3 minutes presoak in tap water.

Thank you very much Caro and Chris for allowing me to publish the images. Finally an example of the Acros100 in Caffenol-C-H, also works perfectly. But for 100 ASA films I still recommend the simple Caffenol-C-M because the KBr isn't really needed.

Best regards - Reinhold

Acros 100 in Caffenol-C-H, 15x15 mm negative size, the bromide doesn't disturb

Interview with Stephen Schaub

R.: Dear Stephen, I'm very proud to have on my blog one of the very few professional photographers in the word who is developing film with Caffenol-C. You are the leader of the figital revolution (figitalrevolution.com), you combine analogue, film based photography and digital editing and printing.

There are many great working commercial developers outside, does the world really need another, an experimental B/W-film developer?

S.: Caffenol and Caffenol C have several advantages from economic to environmental and depending on the film it can have a wonderful ability to help control tonality for scanning purposes. I have tried many, many different developers over the last 20+ years and Caffenol C as I use it has been one of the most rewarding.

R.: Do you use both, Caffenol and Caffenol-C and what makes the difference?

S.: I have tested both and in the end settled on Caffenol C for two reasons:

1. The processing times are much shorter... in the range of 10-20 minutes whereas Caffenol is more like 20-40 minutes depending on the film.

2. Caffenol C negatives do not have as much of a brown stain as Caffenol negatives do, in fact some films have no stain at all... I found no real advantage to this stain unlike the stain from a developer like PMK Pyro and as such it just made my negatives more dense and harder to scan.

R.: One of the most discussed themes about Caffenol and Caffenol-C is fog. With medium speed films it is not a big thing, even when they are pushed, as far as I can say. But with higher speed films, 400 ASA and above, my trials were more or less disappointing because of too much fogging and a poor usable speed. What is your experience?

S.: About the same. Caffenol and Caffenol C in my opinion work best with slower speed films. My favorite films are Tmax 100 and Fuji Acros... both are fantastic in Caffenol C and both scan quite well.

R.: Are there any other drawbacks?

S.: Not really... the smell is easy to get used to and I sorta like it now. It is not perfect for all films as mentioned before and I don't know how it would be for wet darkroom work but for the films I use day in and day out it is now my go to developer.

R.: You shoot EI 25 to 1600 with 1 film, 1 developer and 1 processing time. The images look top-notch. That sounds too crazy. Are you kidding?

S.: Some films with Caffenol C have a tremendous latitude for scanning. This of course depends on the quality of your scanner, I use an Imacon- and it also depends on the range of the scene. I have found that films like Fuji Acros can indeed have a usable EI from 25-1600. I have now tweaked my process for two different times for this film.... one time for 25-400 and then a second time for 400-1600... it just makes the scanning a bit easier and will make it possible for users who don't have a scanner like an Imacon to fit the range of the film within the range of their scanner. But in a pinch as the test images show, yes one film, one processing time and EI 25-1600 is very possible. It does sound crazy but fantastic as well.

R.: Stephen, thank you very much for this interview. I highly recommend your website figitalrevolution.com. and caffenol.com for more details. Is there anything you still want to tell my readers? And all the best for your ongoing caffenol and future projects.

S.: Always remember why you got into photography in the first place... because it was fun! and Caffenol is not only fun but also amazing for the hybrid workflow... what more could you ask for.

Viva la Revolution!

Juliette

...is a charming young french jazz singer. After the show I could shoot this portrait. Lit only by one small lamp, not brighter than a couple of candles.

Minolta X-300, Rokkor 1.7/50 open stop, Fuji Acros100 @ 1600(!), Caffenol-C-M, crop 15x20 mm neg size, scanned with Canoscan8800F and Vuescan, edit with The Gimp.

The Acros 100 was exposed at EI 1600, developed in Caffenol-C-M for 20 minutes at 21 °C. I added +10 % of each ingredient. The neg is thin and needs some edit work. I would not recommend this 4 stop push for daily use. But not too much noise and very small grain here. Probably the smallest grain I ever saw with a 1600 ASA exposure. Watch the bigger size!

Best regards - Reinhold