Contact prints using Coffee & Washing Soda.

[ibcrewin]

Hi everyone. I tried making contact prints using coffee + washing soda as a

developer. For the most part I could make out an image but there was really

poor contrast. I checked it against a contact sheet I got from the lab and I

know the negative is good.

 

Based on looking through the site, I think I might have to use a contrast

filter. I am using Adorama RC Multi-contrast paper, Mix coffe+ washing soda and

water in used jelly jar, a water stop and Ilford rapid fix.

 

Also, I have a kodak carousel projector. Should I use that instead of the

Kitchen light? Thanks!

 

Ivan

[leicaglow]

I wouldn't use MC or RC paper. I've done this before for fun and had pretty good results. With MC paper you're probably getting something like grade 1.5 for contrast. I'm not sure the Coffee mix is strong enough to do its job on RC paper and get the right color effect. As for light, I did this under an enlarger, not room light. The fact light could be bouncing all over the place from the room light could create fuzzy images.

[ibcrewin]

awesome, Thanks!

 

I think i'm going to try pumping the developer up with some Vitamin C and use my projector as an enlarger. Btw, I have a rosco filter pack. What color would I use achieve something like grade 1.5 on MC paper?

 

This was new years day and I was tooling around wiith it. Of the prints I really thought came out well, I gave them to my daughter to play with..

[gnashings]

the light yellow one would be 1-ish. Also, most print developers are very high contrast by comparison to film devs (just soup some film in Dektol and see what I mean), so whatever contrast you are achieving with coffee will be smaller (or lesser) on paper. Still, something I wanted to try in the future - glad others were curious too!

[lex_jenkins]

Are you sure you're using sodium carbonate and not sodium bicarbonate? Sodium bicarbonate won't work well as a developer ingredient.

 

Some homebrewed developers call for adding a bit of lye. In my experience this worked okay for developing negatives but produced fogging and edge staining on prints.

 

Any even light source can be used for contact prints. You can make a good contact printer by cannibalizing a flatbed scanner from a thrift store, junk shop or trash bin. Tear out the guts, install an ordinary lamp fixture, done. A little experimenting will determine whether more than one lamp is better and whether it'll work better left as-is or if the inside is spray painted with a matte or more reflective surface.

[rodeo_joe1]

My own experiments with caffeine as a developer have led me to believe it's too weak to make a practical developer. By the time you've make a strong enough brew, you might as well have spent your money on a commercial developer and saved yourself the bother.

 

IMHO Paracetamol and Vitamin C are a better route to go down for "kitchen sink" developers. Paracetamol is easily converted to Para-Aminophenol by caustic soda, and the developing action of this can be boosted further by the addition of Ascorbic Acid.

 

All these ingredients are easily obtainable and the caustic soda can be used to convert other readily available chemicals to photographically useful ones.

 

For example: Sodium Bicarbonate and caustic soda in the right proportions give sodium carbonate, of a higher purity than that found in domestic washing soda.

 

Sodium Metabisulphite (food preservative E220) and caustic soda give sodium sulphite, and Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C powder) and caustic soda give you Sodium Ascorbate. All at a high level of purity and at much lower cost than buying those chemicals from a specialist photo dealer.

 

Save your coffee for drinking!

[patrick_gainer]

You can heat the baking soda to get anhydrous sodium carbonate, and you can mix baking soda and ascorbic acid to get sodium ascorbate. You can mix sodium carbonate and slaked lime from a garden shop in water to get sodium hydroxide solution and calcium carbonate (limestone) precipitate.