APX new emulsion 2

Now let's have a look at the Agfaphoto APX 100 new emulsion. Again an OEM film by Ilford, similar but also different from the Kentmere/RPX bothers. Biggest difference is that this one needs much less development like the others. E.g. the Kentmere in Rodinal 1:50 needs about 16 - 17 minutes for boxspeed, the APX only 10 minutes.

And so it is with Caffenol-C. 10 minutes at 20 °C in Caffenol-C-M (rs) are enough, and here I stand developed 20 minutes at 25 °C in Caffenol-C-L with 0.5 g/l pot. bromide, both for boxspeed. A nice, sharp and reasonable fine grained classic bw film, easy to handle with the only disavantage of a slightly sub-optimal halo protection like all Ilford OEM films.

Update: it looks like the APXn and Kentmere 100 are identical. Also I couldn`t see a difference between RPX 400 and APX/Kentmere 400 anymore, it seems Ilford didn`t want a RPX to be better than a Kentmere. I can't see why I should buy a more expensive RPX 400 anymore.

densitometry

Inspired by a discussion on a german board I made a new test with the  Kodak Technical Pan in Caffenol-C-L, compared with older results of Rodinal. The film was exposed @ EI 25, developed in Caffenol-C-L with 0.1 g/l pot. bromide, 11 minutes 20°C, constant agitation for the first 30 seconds, then 3 turns every minute.

No presoak here. I recommend using destilled or demin. water, the thin emulsion is very sensitive for spots. Check if your fixer is clean! And make a clearing test, fix for double clearing time, not longer, you can overfix these films quite easy. Here I fixed for 1 minute total with my regular strength fixer. Development was perfectly even, so I guess there is no need at all to use pot. bromide and maybe get a little bit more speed. After development I made 3 intermediate rinses (tap water this time) with shaky agitation to reduce possible spots. The final rinse was again made with demin water and the film carefully wiped with a V-folded paper tissue.

As you can see, the real speed is like ISO 20, with both developers Rodinal and C-C-L. But the red Rodinal curve is more contrasty. The blue C-C-L curve is better suitable for wet prints. Quite a nice result for a film that is said to be very difficult to handle, isn't it?

On my walk to do the test shots I met 4 young photographers and they were eager models for the test. Thank you very much, guys. I exposed @ EI 25, short before dawn I shot with 1/30 and f/1.4.

Happy developings - Reinhold

 click on the pics to make them bigger

the new old RPX 400

 Hi coffee users and abusers,

good news about film and Caffenol. The "original" Rollei RPX 400 is back!

The RPX 400 from the very first production was a great film with good pushing behaviour and nice grain. Then the emulsion was changed obviously without any announcement. I couldn't see any difference to the Kentmere 400 now, and I never liked this film. 

 

Here is my original post on the RPX 400 with an update adressing that point:

http://caffenol.blogspot.de/2011/03/new-film-rollei-rpx-400.html

Many people, incuding me, complained about this inaceptable behaviour. After the new package design was launched recently the emulsion obviously changed again, now showing again all the great features of the first batch. Obviously our lament was successful. Shadow detail is splendid, even with extremely contrasty subjects. EI 1600 is possible. The RPX 400 needs a powerful development to show his best side.

I used exactly the same development as before: 5 minutes presoak, Caffenol-C-L with 1.2 g/l pot. bromide, 80 minutes at 24 °C stand development with constant agitation only for the first minute. And I got the same great results as almost 4 years earlier. EI was 800, all shots done with a Dynax 5 (Maxxum 5) in multi-segment metering mode with aperture priority at f/4, no manual exposure compensation. The subject contrast was big to huge up to more than 10 stops! Only very small adjustments were made in postproduction. Shadow detail was so splendid that I had to darken them a bit.

Credits go to a friendly guy who sent me 2 films for this test. Thank you very much! And thanks to the 2 charming girls who let me take the picture.

Best - Reinhold

happy new year

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

more microfilms - Copex Rapid

Microfilms are a little bit delicate to process, because the extremely thin emulsions are very contrasty as they shall be regarding the original purpose. Anyhow, for pictorial use we don't need specialized and very expensive developers as some distributors want to make you believe. Simple Rodinal 1:100 or 1:200 already gives nice results. And Caffenol-C used in an adapted manner produces state-of-the-art results.

Here we talk about the Copex Rapid from Agfa Belgium. I got it in an older package as the so called "gigabitfilm", and yes, the naming imho was a serious aberration of taste and the film was sold together with an expensive and very doubious developer. That initially brought the whole category of microfilms into discredit.But enough wining about people who only want to empty your pockets. This blog is ad-free and will stay so as long as the host will allow it. Caffenol strikes again!

Caffenol-C-L is a weak or compensating developer ideal for extended stand development or for a low contrast development in some minutes. Here I used Caffenol-C-L with no restrainer (no KBr or salt) for 13 minutes/20°C, regular agitation (30 sec initially, 3x every min) and the film was exposed at EI 50. The strong backlight is a challenge for any film/developer combo and of course you need a proper exposure.I metered the foreground, added 3 stops (for the zonies: it was set to zone 2) and still have a good tonal resolution in the sky. The Copex Rapid is told to handle a contrast range of 14 stops, try that with your full format DSLR ;-) Grain is virtually not existent or not resolvable with my humble Canoscan 8800F. The density range of this negative is D = 0.2 - 1.8, so it should be printable perfectly on silver paper.

The very thin emulsions of microfilms only need a very short fixing time, maybe less than 10 seconds, in normal strenght fixer, so you should dilute your fixer much more to get at least a fixing time of 1 minute to not overfix the negs. Make a clearing test!

Best regards - Reinhold

Kodak BW400CN

Recently I shot my first roll of Kodak BW400CN, a chromogenic b/w film. A first experiance in C41 color developer slightly pushed turned out very good at EI 1600, and I wanted to try Caffenol. I'm not a big fan of color film developed in b/w developer, but this BW400CN developed in Caffenol-C-L is as good as developed in color developer. No doubt. This film is ideal for high speed purposes and hybrid workflow. You can push this film a lot and still don't get to much contrast, for the sample image attached here I even had to enhance the contrast in pp. Grain is still very small, almost unvisible with my Canoscan 8800F. The look is very different from other films, probably ideal for taming highest contrasts. The orange mask is very transparent and the base fog very low.

So here's a sample, no masterpiece for sure, but showing the character of the film under very low light conditions at EI 1600, simple average metering with my trusty Canon A1. Developed in Caffenol-C-L semi stand with 0.5 g/l pot bromide, 20 °C, 70 minutes, fixed in regular bw fixer, increased contrast (s-curve) in Gimp.

Best - Reinhold

My new photo blog

No recent posts, what's happening with the Caffenol blog?

Most secrets about coffee based bw film development are no secrets any more. Also the flickr Caffenol group is rather quiet now, people are very successful all over the world with Caffenol and they create awesome pictures. My recipes have become a kind of worldwide standard, if anyone wants a standard at all. In the very first line I did this all for myself and got the most reliable developer I can think of.. Always fresh, never again think about shelf live, non-toxic and environmental safe, pleeeeasing results, what more can you ask for?

You could add all the well known agents from conventional developers like sulphites to get a real fine grain developer or experiment with other additives. But that's not my cup of "tea" anymore. 

So, this blog will stay alive as long as Google will let it live. Every once in a while I will come back here and maybe post something or not.

I started a new blog and anyone is invited to have look. I will post pictures from the past and recent ones. Digitally captured or film based. BW, monochrome or colour, frugal images hopefully:

Imagesfrugales

Best wishes for everybody - Reinhold

Here's a pic on long expired Efke KB 25, exposure index 40, developed in Caffenol-C-L with 0.5 g/l KBr, 45 minutes semi-stand at 20 °C. Very dense highlights, should have been developed at less time. Digitally split toned with Gimp.

Time for a huge english style breakfirst and a delicious cup of coffee - italian style of course.

Efke 25 - Caffenol-C-L

I was waiting for a large format contri, but it didn't arrive. So here we go with another story. The Efke R 25 was exposed with EI 50. Caffenol-C-L with 6 g/l iodized salt, agitation 1st minute continuously, let stand for 60 minutes. No prewash. Lot of uneven development, this one is the best and shows the potential. Maybe prewash and some more agitation will help, also some pot bromide. Almost no grain, beautiful tones, 6x6 neg here. The Efke is a rude film, curls like hell and attracts dust like a vacuum cleaner, the film base is like an optical fiber. I hate PET film base. As the wet emulsion is very scratch sensitiv I didn't wipe the film before drying. Result: littered with small white drying marks and dust, dust, dust...

Tones are nice, but what a pain in the a.. the darkroom and scanning handling is.

200000

.... clicks in about 1.5 years. Time for a little celebration and - above all - to give credit to everyone who encouraged and supported me or contributed with her/his knowledge here or elsewhere. Also the film donations I received were extremely helpful, so THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

White rose shot with 3.5/50 Canon FD macro lens, illuminated with a 40 watt clamp lamp, exposed on long expired Kodak Technical Pan, stand devloped for only 12 minutes in Caffenol-C-L with 0.1 g/l pot. bromide at 20 °C, gentle agitation 1st minute cont., then let stand.

Cheers - Reinhold

microfilm or high res low speed film

To be honest these are my first experiances with this kind of films. Resolutions of about 600 - 800 linepairs/millimeter at 1:1000 contrast and a gamma of about 3 in their typical applications are the benchmarks. For regular photography they need to be developed very compensating, often used are special developers. But also high diluted Rodinal can be used, f.e. 1:100 and a very short dev time below 10 minutes.

I was given a big box of long time expired films like Kodak Technical Pan, Kodak Imagelink, Agfa Ortho etc. in 35mm format and the first result with Technical Pan in Rodinal was very promising.for the second try I used Caffenol-C-L and it came out even better. 15 minutes with regular agitation (initially 10 times, then 3 times every minute) at 20 °C and with 0.4 g/l pot bromide, because I read that streaks are a common problem with this kind of films. I exposed at EI 50, but 25 or so maybe would have been better, but I need more data for this rating. As the negs were slightly underexposed, I had to brighten the images a bit in postprocessing, but not too much.

I am very pleased with the results, no fog at all, perfect even development, crystal clear transparent base. The TechPan with the panchromatic sensitation (up to 700 nm) has a nice tonal rendering, the grain is invisible and not resolvable with my scanner, sharpness is extraordinary.  A pity this film is not available from new production. Despite of strong backlight no tonal rendering probs and no halation effect at all, the tiny cables are resolved perfectly against the bright sky even in the distance. That's really something!

If you want to go into high resolution film based photography I recommend that you try Agfa Copex Rapid, that is made by Agfa-Gevaert in Belgium. Drawback is the PET filmbase, so the film must be loaded/unloaded in almost complete darkness. The ESTAR base of TechPan is easy to handle besides a strong ugly curl.

Inportant note: I found that using demineralized water is necessary for the developer and the final rinse and I very gently wipe the wet film, otherwise I get masses of small dots on the film. Treated as described here and the dots are gone completely.

Cheers - Reinhold

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:

-------------------------------------------------

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

---------------------------------------------------

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

Rollei Retro 80s again

Hi everybody,

the Rollei Retro 80s, that in fact is an aerial film from Agfa-Gevaert/Belgium, I used it once before and the film shows extraordinary sharpness and finest grain together with an unusual tonal range. The 80s is extended sensitized for the near IR-range, not as much as the Efke, but still shows the typical IR effect. I supposed that optimal results would be achieved if an EI of 50 - 100 will be used at about 40 - 50 minutes stand development and it seems to be the sweet spot for this film. Gerald already has shown beautiful infrared pictures with this film on flickr, and Yannick uses a slightly different setup with a IR-filter that probably is not as strong as Geralds, and also does fine regular, non-IR photography with this film. It's a matter of taste, but I prefer the decent wood effect over the one from the Efke. The latter may look a bit overdone, the 80s has a more "natural" look imho.

Also non-IR photography works beautiful with the 80s, due to it's sensitization it's predestined for landscapes, but also portraiture works very nice and eases some skin irritations due to the low blue sensitivity. So this film behaves quite contrary to an orthopanchromatic film. A great film for many purposes and with a unique look. But now let's read and see what Yannick did with
this film. Thank you very much for your contribution, Yannick. Cheers - Reinhold

"Thanks to Gerald Figal, met on Flickr, I decided to use Rollei Eetro 80s film as he did, with an infrared filter and then developed in Caffenol-C-L. For this try, I wanted to use a twin lens reflex in order to see exactly what I wanted to photograph. I used a Rolleiflex old standard from the mid thirties because I had a push on infrared filter made by Agfa for Rollei in the thirties to.

I shot with the IR filter during a sunny day, at f/16 and 1 sec exposure (actually near 2s because the shutter is a bit tired). It means that the film was exposed for 3 iso. On the same roll, I exposed the RR80S without filter at 80 iso. The sniper was shot at f/8 and 1/5 sec, camera on a table. I stand developed the film as Gerald did, in Caffenol-C-L, at 20°c for 50 minutes.





Washing soda"Phoenix" (not waterfree!) : 20 g

Vitamine C : 6 g
KBr : 0,6 g
Instant coffee Granarom (Lidl market) : 24 g

Kind regards from Troyes/France.

Yannick"



Note: Yannick uses a hydrated washing soda. He determined the water content and recalculated the needed amount. So it's a standard Caffenol-C-L recipe with 1 g/l pot. bromide. If you want to use iodized salt I suggest starting with 10 g/l (Reinhold)

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

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

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.

large format on Fomapan 100

Hello coffeeholics,

I asked Gerald - http://figalfoto.com/index.html - for a  contribution when I saw his pictures taken with a large format camera and a 150 years old lens. Isn't that really frugal? He immediately agreed and here I proudly present his contribution. Thank you very much, Gerald.

Click on the images as usual for a bigger size.

Best - Reinhold

---------------------------

Dear Reinhold,

Please find attached as requested two Caffenol-C-L developed photos, the one you liked and the companion shot of the skyline. I thought the pair had good tonal range with the Caffenol. These are the straight scan black-and-white versions.

Tech details:

Both shots were done in the mid-morning facing west with a 4x5 Speed Graphic mounted with a E.&H.T. Anthony & Co. Single Achromatic No. 2 barrel lens (a landscape meniscus) that probably dates from 1860-70s. Skyline shot was at f-22, shutter 1/50; the scrap heap shot was at f-18, shutter 1/50.

Film was Arista Ultra 100 (= rebranded Fomapan 100). 5 minutes preasoak, developed for 70 minutes with Caffenol-C-L in Nikor daylight tank., agitated initially for 45 seconds (= 12 inversions), then let stand for entire remaining time. Water stop, Ilford Rapid Fix.

Scanned negative straight as is on Epson Perfection V700. No post processing on these version (except to crop scan and remove a little dust from scan).

Coffee used was Folger's Classic; Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, powdered Ascorbic Acid, and KBr from Photographer's Formulary. Followed Caffenol-C-L recipe but used 1.5g KBr in 1000ml water.

Vita:

Day job is as university professor (Modern Japanese history and culture) at Vanderbilt University. I've authored Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan (1999) and several articles.

After many years of digital photography as a hobby and work tool, I began film photography about 18 months ago in the fall of 2009 with my deceased father's medium format Brownie Hawkeye Flash and with homemade pinhole cameras (paper negatives and medium format film). At the same time, I taught myself black-and-white film processing and began collecting old cameras of various formats, 35mm to 4x5. After obtaining a 1949 Speed Graphic, I started to acquire vintage lenses for it, conventional and non-conventional ones to experiment with. Lately I am shooting majority LF 4x5 black-and-white alongside medium and large format pinholes. Occasionally I take out my Yashica Mat 125G TLR (which I love), and for "snapshots" I tend to use a 35mm Pentax MG and Pentax Super ME. My "special occasion" camera is a 1926 Kodak Autographic 3A that I modified to take 6x14cm panoramic photos with 120 film.

My aesthetic tendencies are sympathetic to the Pictorialists, but I also appreciate good straight photography. I try to do both.

I love Rodinal, but lately it is getting jealous of my affair with Caffenol-C-L. Like many Caffenolholics, I like the idea of mixing a developer from common substances that are eco-friendly. I also like that it is very inexpensive, but that would not matter if it didn't produce good results. I have had such consistently good batches of 70-minute stand developed Caffenol-C-L -- no fogging, no uneven development, and great tonal range -- that even if all developers disappeared from the world I would be happy to use only Caffenol (okay, I would miss my beloved Rodinal).

Thanks again, Reinhold, for researching these recipes!

Cheers,

Gerald Figal

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Finally a beautiful portrait taken with a 240mm Voigtländer Heliar at f-5.6 on the Speed Graphic., developed in Caffenol-C-L as above. Extremely fine tones and note the clever diagonal line of sharpness only possible with the sophisticated settings of such a professional large format camera. Impressive work! Thank you very much, Gerald.

Best - Reinhold