Coffee developer samples....

I developed a roll of plus-x pan 125 in coffee and washing soda.

Photos are posted <A href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?

folder_id=392338">here</A> I used my Olympus om-1n, 50 1.4 and a

vivitar 2x macro teleconverter. It's just some photos of my sons'

toy car. Just something to put on film so I could try the coffee

thing

Interesting. Could you give some details about the "coffee developer" and your processing?

My dog cringes in anticipation of pain when I approach with camera in hand with that same motive. And if you know Labradors, you'll know that pain and fear are not concepts generally acknowledged to exist in their world. It's generally at night with poor lighting, and nothing else handy to point the camera at. His face is half turned and lids half closed in anticipation of the flash; not his most photogenic self. I give him the highest marks for valor and not running away to hide. Pretty soon, the wife will have cut roses out again, and thus spare him his role in my film and camera testing.

 

BTW, nice tonality in those shots. What's that recipe you used?

Be carefull; I posted Coffee images and got roasted! :)<BR><BR>Imagine a Labrador near the water; and you having to struggle to get him/her into the water to fetch a stick! :)

I got the recipe from a Shutterbug article (september2003 issue). Roger K. Bunting is the author.(www.photoglass.com)

Here is the recipe.....

 

8 oz of water, 4 teaspoons of instant coffee crystals, 2 teaspoons of washing soda.

 

Stir the ingredients until uniform, then develop film for 25 minutes, agitating every 30 seconds.

 

I doubled the ingredients for the 16 oz tank I was using. I didn't have any measuring spoons so I just guessed with the coffee and washing soda. I had to visit a couple of stores before I found the washing soda. I used arm and hammer. WASHING SODA, NOT BAKING SODA! I used water for my stop bath and Ilford rapidfixer for my fix.

 

Quote from article...."This simple formula will develop any silver-halide emulsion, but for best results you'll need to experiment to determine the optimum composition and development time for the particular film and exposure level you use"

Thanks. That's just too funny to not try. If I had some Folger's instant, my dog would be in trouble.

 

Did you shoot it at box speed, then? How did the density come out for you? It's difficult to tell from the scans; they're uniformly good. You can get a rough estimate of density by laying the neg across black text on white paper. Density 1.1 would just begin to occlude the text completely; 0.8 starts to make reading through it difficult. Last, what brand coffee did you use? Really last: I reckon the base got stained a little; can you estimate how much? One way to do that is by stacking normally developed film next to the sample on a lightbox, until the film edge base+fog roughly matches. Sorry to bug you with this... I would understand if you ignored the dunning questions.

I sounds really interesting. I can not resist to give it a try.

Ramiro.

light years different from my experiment...<div></div>

What film/speed did you use?

What coffeee brand/temperature?

Agitation?

 

I think that the caffeic acid is what does the job, so depending on the amount of caffeine it should be important to know the brand... I'd prefer to buy the food lion brand myself.

 

 

Anyway, great pics!

Much better than my experimental developers using coffee, vitamin C, eye of newt, etc. So *washing* soda is the trick, hmmm? Not baking soda.<div></div>

So...could I use my espresso machine for rapid developer or push processing?

In answer to Michael's question, yes, I've observed some staining of the film base (presumably on the emulsion side) with most of the homebrewed variations I've tried. Whether this was a useful form of staining, I can't say.

 

I can say that the photos on one roll in particular produced prints with a unique and appealing tonality.

 

I stopped experimenting with homebrews late last year when my time became occupied with other matters. And some of the homebrews produced fogging, especially on prints. Given my limited time at the moment it only makes sense for me to stick with known products.<div></div>

<i>So...could I use my espresso machine for rapid developer or push processing?</i><p>

 

Though I'm sure this was meant as a joke, the amount of coffee crystals to water called out in the recipe posted above was just about the strength of espresso. So, for the instant coffee, you could likely substitute eight ounces of espresso. Unfortunately, that's eight shots (or six, at least), and it would take me twenty minutes to make that much with my machine (and a half hour to cool to room temperature); the beans would cost me a dollar or more, compared to fifteen cents and thirty seconds of stirring for four teaspoons of instant crystals.<p>

 

One is led to wonder, however, whether it's possible to buy technical grade caffeine over the counter? It does seem the most likely developing agent in coffee; everything else that's there is in smaller quantities, and as an alkaloid it's chemically related to salycilates, phenol derivates (such as metol), and hydroquinone.

I can just see it now, on digitaltruth...

 

APX 100 @ EI 80 in Folgernol, 10 minutes, 70 degrees F, constant jittery agitation

Well, I just had to try this! My first attempt was with some of the brew per cup coffee bags

(similiar to tea bags), using some old Plus-X, and it came out way too stained (I think this

is due to the type of coffee), with quite a bit of fog (old film). My next attempt was

somewhat better, I used Folgers instant coffee this time, and used some current film

(Ilford Ortho+). Not too bad, the negative has a slight overall stain, but nothing that

should matter for anything.<div></div>

I just finished a roll of Tri-X (old TX, expired about 1999, not 400TX) done with Fred Meyer store brand coffee crystals. Because Tri-X usually takes about 25% longer than Plus-X to develop in the same soup, I gave 30 minutes at 72 F with five inversions every minute, water stop (to avoid problems with gas generation on the carbonate alkali), and my regular Ilford Rapid Fix. The negatives have a definite brown general stain, but (at least to naked eye) look perfectly well developed and with adequate or more than adequate contrast. I'll see how they scan, and check red channel vs. blue channel, but this looks like it could actually be practical (aside from the long process time).

 

BTW, I had no problem finding washing sode -- Arm & Hammer brand was on the shelf in the laundry section at the local large supermarket; I also grabbed a box of 20 Mule Team borax while I was there. Total for coffee (I don't drink instant, so had to buy a jar), washing soda, and borax was just over $10, and I have enough chemicals to caffeinate about 100 rolls of film. The filtered water to mix and final rinse will cost me more than the developer!

 

The smell was certainly interesting -- the developer smells like the residue in a broiler 12-24 hours after broiling steaks.

Interesting. Donald, what did you rate the TX at (or alternately, if you were going to try another roll, what would you rate it at, based on your first roll)? I may give it a try just to see what it looks like.

I shot the (old) TX at the rated figure of 400, used the internal meter in my Spottie, and applied no compensations (though I did exercise some awareness of the nature of the center weighted metering field to avoid gross errors). I was amazed at the amount of shadow detail in some shots that I expected to be underexposed; I wonder if the true speed with this process might be 500 or even 640, and I suppose I should shoot a test roll to find out. OTOH, the mid tones are correct with metering at EI 400, so for the next roll I'll most likely leave my meter at 400 and just accept the improved shadows as a gift. The effect seems almost like a slight compression. I'll attach a crop of a 6 mm square portion of one of the negatives which (all credit to the Super Takumar 1.4/50 lens) is one of the crispest negatives I've ever seen, and certainly the best sharpness I've ever produced in my own processing, along with an exceptional range of scannable density.

 

Which is the other thing -- I've only got the roll about 1/3 scanned, because I ran out of time last night, but despite looking very dense, these negatives scan very well as black and white (haven't tried them in color yet, but I plan to, if only to compare red and blue channels to check for imagewise stain).<div></div>

Caffenol must be a similar developer to Pyro.

 

My guess is that Caffeic acid (CAS NUMBER : 331-39-5) is the main developer and it is similar in structure and activity to pyrogallol (thus staining). [glefkadis photographic chemistry]

I guess it is naturally present in coffee becomes active by the addition of carbonate (besides boosting the pH). Or it may be th eproduct of some reaction of caffeine with carbonate....

 

I don;t have any deccafeinated coffe crystal at home, but if I get some I may give it a shot to see if anything appears.

Thanks, Donald. I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some washing soda, so I'll give this a try.

 

_View Camera_ magazine (if I remember correctly) published a piece a while back on a green tea formula that essentially replaced the pyro in a pyro developer with brewed tea. The results published in the magazine looked surprisingly good--as in "good enough to use," rather than "good for kitchen chemistry."

Glad to see I'm not the only one- The green Tea article was in Photo Vision Magazine ;July/August 2003; Vol 3 No.6: "PMK or TTM" by M.J.Vajed, M.D.; pg. 46-49.

_PhotoVision_, That's right. Sorry for the mis-attribution.

I had to make a trip to Walla Walla, WA today (I live in Vancouver, WA). I shot some TMAX100. I will develop that and post the results. I stopped and took some pictures of an old guy (Ben) that ran some type of antique store on HWY 12 in Walla Walla (The last chance store).

 

Glad to see people are trying this...and it's working. I am new to developing b&w film. The stuff I did with the coffee was only the second roll that I developed. My next project will be a pinhole camera. Keep posting coffee results have you have any.

I'm not sure if caffeine really is the active ingredient that does the developing. My very first

attempt was done with individual packets of coffee that you brew per cup (looks like a

teabag), and it came out way to darkly stained (the attached photo is my very first attempt,

before the one I posted earlier). After I got the coffee working right I decided to try tea, as

it's also high in caffeine, but when I tried it, use Lipton Iced Tea bags (I'm assuming that

they're the same as 'normal' teabags, just with more tea per bag) all I got was a darkly

stained sheet of blank film! I might just go and buy a small bottle of instant decaf just to

be able to confirm or deny caffeine as the developing agent!

 

-Mike<div></div>

In the Tea article he uses 14 "green tea" bags steeped in 550ml of water. He speculate that the active agent is the formation of Gallio-Tannic acid.