Technik Der Woche #4 ~ Developing Film With Coffee

On my first role I relied of this video heavily, and received a nearly transparent first role of film. It seems that every role of film is a little different. My first role developed for 8:30 minutes quite insufficient for my film. When I developed my second role I developed for 10 minutes and received denser images, however they were still not very good and required a large amount of manipulation to bring back detail into the images. Finally on my third role, which was shot almost exclusively in the Duluth-Superior area came out almost perfectly, having been in the developer for 15minutes. My next role will be developed for a total of 20minutes, as my negatives only needed to be slightly adjusted in GIMP.

Last Thursday had the chance to process my first role of black and white film, using the Caffenol method. If you're not familiar with this method, it essentially entails developing your film using instant coffee, a few household items, and a simple dark room chemical.  Don't believe me, it costs only around thirty dollars to get started, and it will last you tens of roles.

Materials include: Development Tank ~ Instant Coffee ~ Vitamin C Powder ~ Washing Soda ~ Film Fixer ~ Film Can Opener ~ Black And White Film

Following link only to items I used in the making of these images.

First of all before you can ever develop any of these you need to expose a role of film, I used a role of Fuji Neopan Professional 400 film, which can be ordered on amazon for around $3 a role at the time of this posting. I great deal for a fine grain film with 36 Exposures.

I first discovered the concept of developing my own film after finding a video online made by make magazine, a favorite of mine. Here is that video below.

If you plan to try this please view the video above, leave your film in the developer for at least 15minutes, contrary to what the video says. Below are my directions that have worked the best for myself.

Developer:

• 6 Teaspoons Instant Coffee (I used Folgers classic)


• 1/4 Teaspoon Vitamin C powder


• 3 Teaspoons Washing Soda (Also called soda ash, I used Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda


• 350ml or 12 onces of water

Fixer: I used Kodaks Kodafix film and paper fixer. See instructions for your brand. Most are 1/4 fixer to 3/4 water. So 9 onces of water to 3 onces of fixer.

1. Load your film into the reel and tank in complete darkness


2. Mix your developer and let sit for 3 minutes - please note it will have an acrid sent of rotten tuna, though it is entirely bearable


3. start a stopwatch and pour in your developer, at the top of every minute agitate the tank 3 times, like shown in the video above, do so slowly. Tap it on the table after every agitation. Continue this for the next 20minutes (for Fuji Neopan Professional 400)


4. Once completed pour out the developer, and rinse with room temp water 4 times, agitating the tank 6 times every rinse.


5. Pour in your fixer and agitate 3 times every minute for 5 minutes, be sure to tap the tank on the table after every set of agitations.


6. Pour out the fixer, and rinse with room temp water, 4 times, first rinse, agitate 3 times, second rinse, agitate 6 times, third rinse agitate 12 times, finally fourth rinse add a small drop of dishwasher detergent, and agitate 24 times.


7. Open your tank, and retrieve the film, hang it to dry for several hours.

The biggest differences are my proportions, and development time.

Check out some of my shots.

[slideshow]

The Photos Will Also be on display as a gallery here.