Caffenol developer tests

[chrisgavin]

Hello all.

I've been following this forum for a long time and have much enjoyed reading the discussions here. I've finally signed up so that I can contribute something too.

I'd like to share some recent experiments I've been trying with DIY film developing using using the 'Caffenol C-M' recipe I found here...
http://caffenol.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/ ... ecipe.html
I've processed a couple of short lengths of B&W Argenti PAN-X Negative Super 8 film 'bucket style' in a Paterson (stills) tank, and I can confirm it works!

I've also been trying out various methods of scanning/re-photographing the film too, and cut together some of the resulting footage to make this ...
https://vimeo.com/69736803

Hope this is of interest or useful to anyone considering DIY processing too.

[grainy]

Very interesting! I've been thinking about caffinol since I heard of it 10 years ago but haven't had the chance/courage to try with super 8 yet.
Can you explain how you used the bucket method -- did all the film get exposed this way or was some neglected/underexposed?
What blend of caffinol did you use? Did you control the temperature?
I'd be grateful to hear any specifics you want to share.
regards
G

[john59]

What a great little post, I would love to know aswell.

[chrisgavin]

Hi there, many thanks for your interest in this.

Yes, I started reading about coffee-based film developing online a few months ago, and coupled with the ever-rising prices of super 8 (film & processing) decided maybe it was time to try this at home. I borrowed some of my dad's old still film processing gear and got my developer recipe from 'Reinhold's Caffenol Blog' http://caffenol.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/ ... ecipe.html
I bought one cartridge of BW Super 8 negative film from here ... http://www.18frames.co.uk/product/argenti-pan-x-100
I learnt that this APX100 film is used by stills photographers too and there is no evil remjet backing to deal with on this film.

For my first couple of attempts, I've just been processing short lengths floating about in the Paterson stills tank, so the film has some random effects but wasn't overly tangled up in there. About 5 feet the first time , then 8 feet the session after that. (This is all the footage that I put together for my 'Wall of Death' film.)

I've read and can confirm that a big screw driver turning the hub can be used to break the 'clutch' of the super 8 cartridge, then you can cut the film and simply pull it out (No need to smash the cartridge at all). I've discovered that my loft is a pretty dark space and that's where I can remove film from the S8 cartridge and get it safely into the Paterson tank. Once the lid's on, I come out of the loft and the rest of the operation takes place under normal lighting in my kitchen.

The Patterson tank takes 500ml so I just halved the ingredients for the Caffenol C-M recipe.
I've added some notes in brackets about sourcing the ingredients...
Digital scales and some graduated beakers, a thermometer and a stopwatch are useful for this operation.

1. 0.5 litre water (Tap water)
2. 27g washing-soda powder (Ordered from Ebay, be sure to get Sodium Carbonate powder rather than the crystals: Washing soda NOT baking soda!)
3. 8g vitamin-C powder, (Ordered from Ebay)
4. 20g instant coffee (Coop supermarket own brand Fair Trade instant coffee granules- apparently some types of coffee don't work and some do!)

I also mixed up 100g of old Hypo fix crystals in 0.5 litre of water to use as the fixer later on.

I got the developer to about 20deg C and got a tray full of water to around 20deg C too. This was actually quite easy to control by mixing some tap water and also setting the room heating too to keep everything about this level.
I poured the DIY developer mixture into the Paterson tank containing the film for about 15mins altogether and followed a standard agitation regime for the first minute, then a few agitations each minute thereafter.

I emptied out the developer (this is 'one shot' stuff and probably can't be used again) then used several (maybe 4 or 5) tank fulls of the 20deg C water. The water flushes out the developer and acts as the stop bath. I left the film standing for a little while in each bath of water, maybe about 5 mins in total for this stage.

I then emptied out the stop bath water and poured in the fixer solution. I left this for about 10 minutes as recommended on the fixer packet.
At the end of the fixing, the fixer solution can be retained in an airtight bottle and used again next time.

After fixing I washed the film a few times, eventually just leaving the tank with the lid off under a running tap for a while. Towards the end of the washing I put a tiny bit of washing-up liquid in (as a 'wetting agent') , then squeegeed the film and hung it up. I used a hair-dryer to speed up the drying process a little, then when it looked dry, rolled the film onto a spool.

So that's the Caffenol processing. It worked well enough to encourage me to want to do more and there's still almost 40 feet in that cartridge to process. The next obvious step is to process longer lengths and try to improve the quality a bit.
I'm working on a DIY spiral tank at the moment, and hope to try this soon for the rest of this film. If that works, I'll probably post about that too.