reuse or not?

Hi,

sometimes I reused a caffenol batch. Up to 2 weeks of storage I could not find any major drawbacks, maybe a slight loss of contrast. Here I reused an only 2 days old one, one 24 exp. 35mm film was developed with it. The negs were underdeveloped remarkable, the border printing was faint and overall density quite low. So I had to brighten up the images and work on the curves quite a lot. Fortunately there was still enough substance to do that. It whould have been a shame if this picture would have been ruined. So I stay on the safe side in the future and will discard the developer after a single use like I did in the beginning. But there's no need to hurry, the developer will remain usable at least some hours without degradation.

Rollei RPX400 @ 800, Caffenol-C-L with 1.5 g/l pot. bomide. 90 minutes 22 - 23 °C stand development. Presoak 5 minutes, constant agitation in the first minute, 3 gentle inversions at 2, 10 and 40 minutes.

Cheers - Reinhold

Vit-C worldwide seller

Hi,

since Vit-C is difficult or not available, or only very expensive or in poor quality in some parts of the word, I thought it might be useful to post here a wordwide supplier of affordable 100 % pure ascorbic acid (Vit-C). It's a family owned business in the 4th generation, located in Germany and usually supplies bakeries and grain mills with bigger quantities. Smaller quantities he sells via an ebay.co.uk shop worldwide. Mr. Breinbauer's answer on my email inquiry was very fast and friendly. Prices and worldwide shipping are very attractive, no additional taxes.

breinbauerrohstoffe

You should store the Vit-C in the dark and in airtight boxes or bottles.

Added to the link list. I'm not related in any way to the owner of the shop, I just post the link for your conveniance.

Infrared: Efke IR820

Hi,

things "develop" more and more. Today I got a message from Gerald (Nashville, USA) about successful developments of the Efke IR820 in Caffenol-C-L. To be honest, I've seen some really ugly pictures (from a technical point of view) with this film souped in Caffenol. Gerald demonstrates impressively what's possible. WOW! Also you might want to have a look at his magnificent flickr stream:
Gerald @ flickr















Here's what he wrote:

"These images were taken with a Yashica Mat 124G loaded with medium format Efke IR 820 film. Exposures were in bright sun at f-16 for 1 second on a tripod, using a Hoya R72 deep red (infrared) filter, making the effective exposure index about iso 3.

The film was processed in a daylight tank using Reinhold's Caffenol-C-L recipe without modification for a 70-minute stand development at 20 degrees celsius after a 5-minute presoak in distilled water. Initial agitation was for 45 seconds (about 12 inversions) and then I did not touch it for the rest of the time. I used a plain water stop bath and Ilford Hypam to fix.

My source of sodium carbonate (washing soda) was Spa-Kem pH Plus (100% sodium carbonate) from Kem-Tek (http://www.kem-tek.com). I used crystalline ascorbic acid and Folger's Original Instant Coffee. The potassium bromide came from Photographer's Formulary.

Cheers,
Gerald"

Thank you very much, Gerald, for the detailed explanation, the supply sources and of course the beautiful pictures. I'm really proud I can post this report here.

BTW, I'm not related in any way to any of the merchands, producers etc. mentioned here on my blog. This blog is and always will be free of advertisements as long as the hoster supports that. I don't sell my soul ;-)

Best - Reinhold

Ilford Delta 400 @ 800 - Caffenol-C-L

Here's a report from Kyle who got nice results with the Delta 400. Let's read what he writes:

"Hello my name is Kyle LeNoir. I have been doing film photography for 6 years. I currently work freelance as an event digital photographer and film photography tutor in chicago (USA). Stand processing is my preferred way to process film since I darkroom and alternative print or scan depending on the print size. So far I have done 10-12 rolls with C-C-L. I found the results comparable or better to standing in rodinal 1:100 or GSD-10. I am thinking of changing my times to 60min to ease printing in wet darkroom.

Caffenol C-C-L @70 degrees Fahrenheit
nescafe clasico instant coffee
jacquard soda ash (anhydrous)
Vitamin Shoppe C-1000 Powder (Ultra-fine ascorbic powder)
photoformulary potassium bromide ( I used 1.5g per liter)
Ingredients weighted with black box jewelry scale
Camera was an agfa isolette II with apotar lens and metered with a sekonic studio deluxe (incident)
Epson Perfection V750 (no post processing except for cropping,setting white and black points,resizing)

slow agitation for first min (15 tilts) left still for 60min.

Ilford Delta 400@800 was a pleasant surprise. I have never been a fan of the look of this films tonality. I decided to give it another chance while on my local film store visit. The results were better in C-C-L than any other developer I used with this film so far. I got the tones I wanted from the film finally. The roll gave an good amount of overall detail and printed in the darkroom very well. I feel pretty confident that it should do pretty well at @1600."


Thank you very much, Kyle. Indeed looks like EI 1600 is very possible.

Cheers - Reinhold

iodized kitchen salt can replace bromide

Hi folks,

good news. Thanks to Rob (Robbek) for his inspiration. I used iodized kitchen salt as a restrainer substituting potassium bromde. About 6 g/l may be a good starting point for medium speed films, and 10 - 12 g/l for high speed films. No need to adjust anything else, the pH remains the same. Also much cheaper than peanuts. Bingo.

The blackpoint was misadjusted during scanning by intension to show the perfect even development and not only black borders.

I guess that's a real breakthough for people having problems getting bromide. And the FP4+ and RPX 100 had a very clear base, almost as clear as a transparency film. Semi stand developed like here would have been desatrous if the iodate wouldn't have done the job so excellent.

Since I use about 0.5 g/l pot. bomide compared to 6 g/l iodized salt for medium fast films, and 1 - 1.3 g/l pot. bromide compared to 10 - 12 g/l iodzed salt, the conclusion is to recommend about the tenfold amount of iodized salt compared to pot. bromide as a good starting point. Adjust for your personal needs, more iodate will cause speed loss. So far I have great results with PanF, FP4+, HP5+, Rollei RPX 100, and RPX 400 (see image below) even at 24 °C full stand development. These are all classic emulsions, maybe flat crystal emulsions like Tmax or Delta need an adjustment, maybe less salt? And if you use another salt with another iodate concentration you of course have to recalulate the amounts to.

The salt I used was a very cheap one from the supermarket, 500 g for 29 Eurocent. it contains 0,0025 % potassium iodate. The very small amount in the salt is sufficiant. For the experts: the iodate is probaly reduced by the developer to iodide that's known as a strong restrainer in literature since decades.

There's also a salt with iodates and fluorides. I didn't use that, but only iodized salt. Fluorides might cause some trouble, maybe more trouble than benefits, but I don't really know.

Cheers - Reinhold

some pictures - Caffenol-C-H

Kodak Tmax100 @  EI 400 (image above) and Rollei RPX 100 @ EI 400 ( image below), developed in Caffenol-C-H with 0.5 g/l potassium bromide. 12 minutes @ 23 °C regular agitation, equaling about 15 minures @ 20 °C. EI 200 would have been better for both films.The Tmax additonally was quite underdeveloped. Bought short before the expiring date he was stored in a small shop at probably unsuitable conditions some years without any cooling. During summer that could have been easily much more than 30 °C, the shop has no air condition. Seems he didn't like that too much. Anyway, I like the pic.

Cheers - Reinhold

next new film - Rollei RPX 100

Hello again,

here's the 2nd new film from Maco/Germany, the Rollei RPX 100. Like the RPX 400 it is made in Europe, a classic cubic emulsion with 100 ASA boxspeed and shall replace the old Agfa APX 100. To say first things first: this film in my opinion is far better than the old APX 100 and much more than a substitute. The RPX 100 is a  very fine grained, easy to handle and easy to develop film with excellent tonality. Speed in Caffenol-C-L is enhanced and grain is still very small, almost invisible. Again Maco brought us  one of the best classic emulsions available today, it could turn out that this beautiful film will be my first choice for medium speed films in the future. Available in the US as the RPX 400 about end of April, 35 mm earlier than 120 format. Here we go with progressive exposures from EI 25 to 400.

Semi-stand developed in Caffenol-C-L, 0.8 g/l potassium bromide, 20 °C, 70 minutes. No presoak, agitation first minute continuosly, then 3 times at 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 minutes. Perfect even development, very fine grain. EI 25 to 100 are overexposed, EI 200-400 is perfect for scanning purpose. Maybe a bit too contrasty for silverprints, so I would reduce the dev time to about 40-50 minutes at EI 200. I have no doubt this film will also perform very well in Caffenol-C-M at about 10 minutes developing time. Look at the following scan, exposed at EI 400!

The scan almost didn't need any postprocessing, only a very slight contrast adjustment was necessary. When I took the wet film out of the tank I immediately said "WOW". The rest of the film exposed at EI 100 was very dense, still scannable without probs but probably too dense for silver prints. So expose sparingly and/or reduce dev time. This film has blown me away. Attractivly priced, perfect quality. Drawbacks? I haven't seen any.

Cheers - Reinhold

new film - Rollei RPX 400

Update:  I'm convinced that the recent RPX400 is a different film from the very first production run. I never could repeat the great results I had with these first 20 rolls that I had. I checked the recent RPX 400 and Kentmere 400, imho they are now the identical, and got ugly grainy negs. I do not use this film anymore. Sorry that I have no better news. I guess that the first RPX400 was too good for the low price and the manufacturer Harman reacted

Anyway, here's the original post, it was a great film, r.i.p.


Hi everybody,

the german distributor Macodirect.de - well known for the Rollei films and developers - introduced 2 new films in late 2010, the Rollei RPX 100 and Rollei RPX 400. Both films are produced in Europe and are classic cubic emulsions. We were waiting a long time for a replacement of the Agfa APX 100 and 400. and  Maco finally succeeded. A test with the 100 ASA film is intended for April by me and I could get first impressions of the RPX 400 in 35 mm format. 120 format is also available  In the US the films will be availavle at Freestyle in a couple of weeks, 35 mm earlier than 120. The films have a regular panchromatic colour sensitivity.

Improvements are said to be made with the new films and I can confirm that the RPX 400 is really a great new film and works very fine in Caffenol-C-L! Aren't that good news?

So lets have a closer look. The first batch was devoloped with my standard routine in Caffenol-C-L 70 minutes semi-stand at 20 °C. In the first row you see exposures from EI 400 - 3200 without any postprocessing in brightness or contrast, the second row is edited as I thought it looks good and tried to make them all look as similar as possible. Already the EI 400 picture needed some brightening and contrast enhancing, indicating that the development was not powerful enough. Nevertheless the results at 400 and 800 are very pleasing, at EI 1600 you see some loss in shadow detail, and the 3200 exposure is quite bad if you look at the 5x5 mm crops (neg size), where the grain is only pretending non existable shadow detail. Obviously the film needed more development. In every other relation the film is very easy to handle. Scratch resistant, good halo protection, perfect film flatness etc.

For the next test I've choosen a more delicate subject with a rather big contrast due to the strong side light and a dark surrounding. I didn't care for an EI 400 exposure but started with EI 800 going up to EI 3200. Development was 80 minutes in Caffenol-C-L with 1.2 g/l potassium bromide,  5 mins presoak , 24 °C pure stand development and agitation only for the first minute. Yes, 80 mins @ 24 °C! To keep the temperature I used a mantle bath with water of the same temperature. The stronger development should give the best film speed and more contrast, and the lack of any agitation after the first minute should avoid burnt highlights. When I took the wet negs out of the tank for drying I immediately knew: yep, that's it! The EI 800 exposure is spot on, almost no postprocessing needed, the grain is very fine for EI 800 and the contrast is simply perfect. No blown highlights at all. Base fog is still low enough for easy to enlarge wetprints, perfect even development. I was amazed. Rarely I've seen such fine negs at that speed. EI 1600 is still usable when enhancing the shadows a bit at the price of some more visible grain in the dark areas and a very slight shift of tones. Again EI 3200 was unusable with very ugly grain in the shadows and it's not displayed here.

sidestep - hot soup

Ilford HP5+ @ EI 2000

Caffenol-C-L with a few drops Rodinal added (1:200 diluted not in water but Caffenol), 1 g/l potassium bromide, 60 minutes semi-stand development, 20 °C, 5 minutes presoak, agitation continuosly the first minute, 3 times at 2, 4, 8 and 16 minutes. Fog is very low, negs are quite thin, lights are dense but nice shadows anyway. Maybe 75 or even 90 minutes full stand would be optimal. Can we gain 3200 with good shadows? Probably not, but 2500 could be possible.

available light - HP5+ @ 1600

Hi again,

after Wolf got fine results with the Ilford HP5+ at EI 1600 in Caffenol-C-L and I had splendid shadow details in Caffenol-C-H at about EI 800 I gave HP5+ another try as 35 mm film in Caffenol-C-L because  I'm still looking for a replacement of the Neopan1600. HP5+ could be the film I will stick with. I could verify exactly Wolfs results, nice fine grain and still acceptable tonal range.

Minolta X-300 with Rokkor 2.8/135, 1/30 at f/4 handheld. Simple average metering. Amazingly I almost got no camera shake.

Caffenol-C-L with 1 g/l potassium bromide, 5 minutes presoak, semi stand development 75 minutes at 20 °C, agitation first minute constantly, 3 times at 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 minutes. Very low base fog level, very easy to scan from negative (Canoscan 8800F + Vuescan Pro) with only minor postprocessing.

Compared to Neopan1600 grain with HP5+ is smaller, tones are a bit more compressed and Neopan1600 easily goes up to 3200. As a replacement for the discontinued Neopan 1600 I like the HP5+ most so far. Tri-X was really disappointing @ 1600. But EI 1600 is probably end of the line for HP5+ if you want some shadow detail. TMax 400 could be a second choice, but I prefer the look of HP5+.

Cheers- Reinhold

PS: fixed the mistake, of course I used Caffenol-C-L, not -C-H for the semi stand development.