[HN Gopher] How to develop black and white film at home with cof...
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How to develop black and white film at home with coffee (2019)
Author : nanna
Score : 186 points
Date : 2021-12-21 10:07 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.fieldmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.fieldmag.com)
| devb wrote:
| I've developed direct positive paper with caffenol in order to
| get a nice sepia tone. In my experience, caffenol smells
| _terrible_. If you do decide to experiment with it (and you
| should) I would recommend getting the absolute cheapest instant
| coffee you can find. The acid in robusto beans helps the reaction
| along.
|
| If you're looking for a non-toxic commercial developer, Kodak's
| Xtol developer is based on ascorbic acid.
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| Maybe it's because I worked as a chemist for a bit, but
| photographic chemistry is absolutely fascinating and gets very
| high tech when you get into color and things like Polaroid.
|
| Gives you a real appreciation for the technological powerhouse
| that Kodak was in its prime.
| klodolph wrote:
| I think color films in general are a miracle of modern
| chemistry. Agfa and Fuji deserve credit as the other major
| companies which produced high-quality color films, alongside
| Kodak and Polaroid.
|
| Unfortunately, these companies had to set up supply chains for
| manufacture of the necessary chemicals, and those supply chains
| run the risk of evaporating as the demand for film declines.
| Polaroid already fell to this... you can't buy Polaroid film
| any more, and it can't be manufactured, because the required
| chemicals are simply not available. The production line has
| been purchased and restarted but it's not the same film.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| Another process that's been lost is Cibachrome/Ilfochrome.
| Direct positive color dye emulsion, made to be printed from
| chrome film or exposed as a direct positive.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilfochrome
|
| RA-4 color paper, on the other hand, is alive and well; most
| of it gets used for digital prints, exposed by laser printer
| and then developed.
| ford wrote:
| For people who are interested - [0] is a relatively engaging
| video that walks through the facilities & process of a film
| developer called Indie Film Lab.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCxoZlFqzwA
| rbobby wrote:
| Polaroids (self developing color pictures) are a good example
| of everyday magic. Sure it's chemistry and not magic, but how
| sure are you?
|
| If magic was real, wouldn't those who knew how to use it figure
| out how to profit off it on a wide scale? Flying carpets? Too
| much time investment for too few trips. Aluminum "wings" that
| fooled even Bernoulli... no there's a business that continues
| to make billions. DNA testing? Don't get me started about
| prepackaged identity spells.
|
| :)
| iNerdier wrote:
| Both Polaroid and Kodak were scientific powerhouses. The
| original integral film camera, the SX-70, utilised loads of new
| technology for the time, including flat flex cables and
| microcontroller commanded shutters. Much of it seems fairly
| rudimentary in comparison for what we can do now but I'm always
| amazed that they figured this stuff out 50+ years ago.
|
| Edwin Land who started the company was an incredible talent and
| is really worth reading up on.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| Additionally, it blows my mind that so many (most?) Land
| cameras out in the world remain fully operational. At a
| glance, most of them appear like designs that would easily
| break from wear and tear.
| [deleted]
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Do you have any thoughts on how caffenol works, and how one
| might optimize this developer solution while keeping it non-
| toxic and ideally easy to create with simple household
| products? Or is Caffenol already about as good as it gets? On
| the caffenol website they don't seem to have link that explain
| the chemical process, but do mention that it's all about the
| phenols[0]. Which that in mind, wouldn't berry juice be a lot
| more effective?
|
| EDIT: the Caffenol wiki page[1] has a link to the original
| article from 1995 explaining how this works[2]
|
| [0] https://www.caffenol.org/alternative-recipes/
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffenol
|
| [2] https://people.rit.edu/andpph/text-coffee.html
| nanna wrote:
| In this interview the photographer says that he has used
| elderberry juice...
|
| > I will surely continue exploring the wide world of edible
| and potable things like coffee, red wine, tea ... made some
| successful experiments with elderberry juice, rosemary tea,
| coca cola ... next will be dark beer for sure!
|
| https://www.caffenol.org/2012/09/20/a-coffee-with-
| no-1-dagie...
| PaulHoule wrote:
| One thing I'd be concerned about is lightfastness. This
| website
|
| http://wilhelm-research.com/
|
| tells the sordid story of how Kodak just didn't care about
| the permanence of color prints until 1980 or so. Wedding
| photographers would be paid $1000's for their work but
| couldn't get materials to make prints which would last a
| lifetime. Martin Scorsese lit a fire under Hollywood's ass
| about the permanence of films, but for that industry,
| keeping films in a dark freezer turned out to be a
| practical and permanent solution.
|
| If you screw around with developing film with unusual
| chemicals I'd be concerned about how long the prints last,
| however black and white film where the image is really
| printed in silver crystals is likely to be more stable than
| the color film systems where the chemical changes in the
| silver crystals are coupled to dye systems.
|
| When I was a kid I extracted dyes from flowers and did
| experiments with them and one conclusion was that they just
| don't last.
| refurb wrote:
| There is a ton of information on the internet but it's a
| pretty straightforward chemical reaction process that you
| need to optimize:
|
| - film has a silver halide emulsion in it
|
| - silver halide converts to silver when exposed to light
|
| - once you've taken your picture, you need to: 1) remove
| remaining silver halide that wasn't exposed to light, 2)
| "fix" the remaining silver so it's stable
|
| The neat thing about chemistry is it's very empirical. What
| your process is either works or not.
|
| So would berry juice be better? Maybe? The only way you'd
| know is to try.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > - once you've taken your picture, you need to: 1) remove
| remaining silver halide that wasn't exposed to light, 2)
| "fix" the remaining silver so it's stable
|
| There's a developing stage before before your step 1).
|
| Developing causes areas of silver halide that were, in
| effect, only _partly_ converted to silver (the so-called
| "latent image") to undergo full conversion. It's quite a
| complex process.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_image
| dangerbird2 wrote:
| > once you've taken your picture, you need to: 1) remove
| remaining silver halide that wasn't exposed to light, 2)
| "fix" the remaining silver so it's stable
|
| Isn't that somewhat backwards? The developer converts
| exposed grains to metalic silver to create a visible image
| from the latent one, the stop bath neutralizes the
| developing solution, and finally the fixer dissolves
| unexposed silver halide.
| iNerdier wrote:
| It works the same way any developer works, it takes the
| latent image formed in silver halide grains and converts them
| to metallic silver. Specifically the phenols in the coffee
| (tannins here) and the added vitamin c are the developing
| agents and the sodium bicarbonate reduces the ph enough for
| them to work. Other phenol containing compounds work, from
| walnuts to rosemary. There's nothing special about coffee
| other than it's cheap and readily available.
| nanna wrote:
| Anyone have experience developing 8mm film in caffenol?
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| The size of the film doesn't matter, only the emulsion. This
| process is for B&W negative film emulsions. It will work okay
| with many other film emulsions, but the result will be a B&W
| negative.
| mmcwilliams wrote:
| I've done a fair bit of developing with caffenol and beerol and
| a combination of the two on moviefilm, mostly 16mm but the
| process is the same. Volume of the developer is the issue.
| Works best in a bucket with 2 liters of developer per 400ft of
| material to prevent exhaustion.
|
| I personally like the combination of the traditional caffenol
| recipe combined with Dagie Brundert's beerol recipe.
|
| 1L of water (warm)
|
| 100g (20 tsp) washing soda
|
| 30g (6 tsp) vitamin C
|
| 60g (12 tsp) instant coffee
|
| 1L beer
|
| On something like Tri-X I'll use a dev time ranging from 15-20
| min that I determine after testing. It's a nice balance in
| contrast between the two developers.
| nanna wrote:
| Brilliant. 2 litres developer per 400ft of material seems a
| bit little though, no?
|
| > I personally like the combination of the traditional
| caffenol recipe combined with Dagie Brundert's beerol recipe.
|
| How comes, out of interest?
| mmcwilliams wrote:
| For me beerol doesn't get to the density I'm looking for
| and caffenol, depending on a few factors, will result in a
| relatively high-contrast negative. The combined recipe is
| similar to a stock D-76 or ID-11 in terms of conventional
| developers.
|
| 200ft/L is a conservative estimate and I have been a part
| of workshops where we developed 1000ft per gallon, so YMMV.
| Checking my notes it looks like I processed reversal last
| time I did 4 rolls and so each roll would have been
| developed twice, essentially.
| ikorin wrote:
| rolivercoffee wrote:
| There's quite a nice James Hoffmann video covering this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bhOtTUtPhg
| giantg2 wrote:
| I might shave to shoot some film soon just to try it out. Been
| about 3 years since I've shot/developed film.
| AccountToUse wrote:
| It's had a huge revival the past two years. I got into it about
| seven years ago when it was still niche/"who shoots film
| anymore? Just get a sony a7!". Now the photography community
| has had a huge backlash against digital, especially in the
| hobby space.
|
| Now it's very fashionable. Pretty ironic since the biggest
| destination for it is just Instagram, where it's a pixelated
| square but alas. The plus side is that the revived interest has
| led to more companies and people making and selling cool film
| stuff. New film types, accessories, labs opening. The biggest
| downside is that prices go up to match demand. Good film
| cameras are no longer being produced. There's a limited supply
| out there. And Kodak (the best color film producer, nothing
| beats Ektar 100) price increases are only matched by price
| increases at your lab to develop and get prints.
|
| Film photography is an amazing hobby. It's a really fun
| artistic outlet that just about anybody can learn a lot about
| themselves with. You shoot for a year or two an you'll learn
| you have a style you like taking most. Maybe black and white
| architecture. Maybe golden hour landscapes. Rarely do other
| hobbies make you learn about your tastes as such.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'm not very good. Maybe partially lack of experience. I
| think I mostly have some 400TX and Fomapan. I think I have
| some Fuji 400 something for color. I have some dry developer
| too. Probably have to use it up fairly soon before it gets
| too old. I develop the negatives, but then scan them using a
| photo scanner.
| worldmerge wrote:
| Very cool! What happens to color film if you use this process on
| it?
| seszett wrote:
| Colour film gives the same results as black and white film when
| developed with the black and white process, except for the
| orange base.
|
| IMO it's not really an interesting thing to do unless you don't
| have a choice.
| devb wrote:
| Color film is based on silver halides but has built-in dye
| couplers and filters to represent the color details. Any color
| film developed with chemicals intended for black and white film
| will come out as black and white film. There is a Flickr group
| dedicated to the practice:
| https://www.flickr.com/groups/c41inbw/pool/
| dhosek wrote:
| My grandfather had a darkroom in his basement where he taught me
| to develop B/W film and make prints. I have no doubt that he
| would have leapt at this as a means to cut down his costs (part
| of our Bohemian heritage--the stereotype, which lived up to
| reality in my experience, being that our people are rather, um,
| _thrifty_ ). He had already eschewed stop bath for diluted white
| vinegar. Having access to a darkroom outside of school was a
| remarkably handy thing back then.
| trop wrote:
| There's some history of "organic" or at least "natural"
| ingredients in photography. See, for example, the early
| "autochrome" color process. It uses dyed potato starch as color
| filters. Lampblack (granted a petro-byproduct) separated the
| potato bits. The plate is coated with shellac (secreted by the
| female lac bug).[1][2]
|
| Other big photo ingredients, past and present, include egg whites
| (for albumen prints)[3], gum arabic (sap of acacia tree, for
| emulsions), and cow/pig hooves (gelatin, for the emulsion)[4].
| And, of course, the alchemist's favorites: gold, silver,
| platinum, palladium...
|
| What I'd take from this is that we're used to technologies
| involving highly refined/synthesized substances with fancy names.
| But so many 19th century processes were done with more day-to-day
| substances, and we're still partaking of those technologies.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autochrome_Lumi%C3%A8re
|
| [2] https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2019/05/how-potatoes-and-
| ge...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albumen_print
|
| [4] https://petapixel.com/2011/11/15/did-you-know-film-and-
| photo...
| peterburkimsher wrote:
| Thank you trop for the links!
|
| Do you know if there's a database of natural chemicals for
| filters?
|
| Specifically, I'm looking for a 0.3 um ultraviolet filter (or
| any base-2 harmonic e.g. 2 * 0.3 = 0.6um, 4x, 8x, 16x).
|
| Tangentially related, I'm also searching for any flowers whose
| pollen grains are 19.2 um (0.3 um * 64).
|
| As you say, the 19th-century (and Ancient Greek, Chinese,
| Egyptian, IVC) experts knew well about the biological solutions
| for technical questions. I just have no idea where to learn
| about natural substances.
| trop wrote:
| peterburkmisher: I wish I knew! I've been wondering about all
| this myself, and where even this knowledge lies these days.
| Materials scientists? Chemists? It sees a question too
| specialized for the former, and not specialized enough for
| the latter? Please anyone who knows...?
|
| More generally:
|
| Josef Maria Eder's "History of Photography" [1] is a semi-
| technical survey of 19th and early 20th century processes.
| Part of what it makes it wonderful is the narratives of so
| many chemist/photographers trying to get their discoveries
| supported by scientific societies and/or the market, with
| vastly varying success. As Eder was actually there doing the
| work[2], he has much to recount.
|
| Much more recent, Richard Benson's "The Printed Picture"[3]
| takes on how images have made their way to paper. Benson
| probably knew as much about this as anyone still alive.[4] If
| in Philadelphia, it's possible still to catch an exhibition
| of his work.[5]
|
| [1] https://archive.org/details/EderHistoryPhotography
|
| [2] https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/296322 is
| a beautiful example
|
| [3] http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/495363201
|
| [4] https://printedpicture.artgallery.yale.edu/color-
| photography
|
| [5] https://philamuseum.org/calendar/exhibition/richard-
| benson-w...
| alexellisuk wrote:
| I had lots of fun developing Black and White film with commercial
| chemicals. They are cheap enough, but do expire. Caffenol works
| reasonably well, and because it's made from dry ingredients
| doesn't really go off.
|
| The main issues I had were around the reels for loading film
| ready for the tank. 26-frame rolls were usually fine, but
| 26-frame often buckled. Stainless Steel reels were much worse and
| stuck together. For sale if anyone is interested!
| analog31 wrote:
| I had to look up washing soda. It's sodium carbonate, aka soda
| ash. Its other use is an additive that reduces the melting point
| of glass and makes it more workable.
| asciimov wrote:
| FYI: it is not really mentioned, but for better results use
| actual B&W film, not color process B&W or Color film.
|
| Also, use new film with this and don't expect great results your
| first few times.
| canbus wrote:
| Cool. My dad and I have taken up film photography fairly
| recently, myself using a Nikon F55 which lets me use all my
| digital lenses, and him using an old Kodak Brownie that he grew
| up with. He had a heart attack about a year ago and shooting on
| film seems to give him a nostalgia trip that calms him down.
| Strangely it does the same for me too. We'll have to give this a
| go together!
| thread_id wrote:
| I started photography in my teens with a Brownie that my mother
| gave me. I had several friends who shared the same hobby. We
| put together a dark room and developed the films ourselves. It
| was great fun. I have fond memories.
| dekoruotas wrote:
| Film photography is certainly the best hobby that I've picked
| up during the lockdown. Try getting some vintage lenses and
| mounting them on a digital camera via an adapter for great
| results too.
| h3mb3 wrote:
| For anyone interested, Technology Connections recently released
| two interesting videos covering B&W film development [1] and
| photographic printing [2] at home. Iirc he also mentioned
| Caffenol at some point.
|
| I find this stuff super interesting. I recently got into film
| photography a little but haven't really considered developing the
| negatives myself, mainly due to our small apartment. Maybe some
| day.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/WpgsITqoDXQ
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/AQC2WsvHdqw
| ghaff wrote:
| Developing B&W 35mm negatives is pretty straightforward and
| doesn't require much room or gear. It's also the uninteresting
| part of the process. (Aside from playing with chemistry.)
|
| I had the rest of the equipment for printing from high school
| days but, after having good darkrooms in college/graduate
| school, I set things up in a half bath in my apartment and it
| was all more trouble than it was worth. By the time I got a
| house, there still wasn't a good place to setup a darkroom and
| digital was on the cusp of coming in.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| Now do colour without toxins
| chobobro wrote:
| I've developed some 4x5 Tri-x 320 film with caffenol-c and ilford
| rapid fixer and the results were good[0]. No scratches or grain
| but that might be due to the large format and not needing to
| agitate in a tank. My development time was 11 minutes which i
| guessed from these experimental times [1].
|
| [0] https://imgur.com/a/qGeEkdw
|
| [1] https://www.caffenol.org/film-development-chart/
| klodolph wrote:
| You'd need to make some damn large prints to see the grain in a
| Tri-X 4x5. My general feeling is that 8x10 where you see grain
| in a 35mm negative, so 32x40 is where you'd see grain in a 4x5
| negative. "Where you see grain" is a bit subjective, of course.
| ghaff wrote:
| That sounds about right. Depends what speed you shoot the
| Tri-X though. At 400 the grain typically isn't bad. But get
| up to 1600 which is about the practical max and the grain is
| getting obvious at 8x10.
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| I've had similar results with 4x5" 320TXP. Some grain showed up
| on 35mm 400TX so my guess is the enlarging factor is what kept
| the large format film grain-free. I see the same effect using
| traditional developers.
|
| Ultimately I didn't find any value-add with caffenol, since it
| still needs to be fixed, and the fixer needs to be disposed of
| properly. Plus, the results are better with Ilfosol 3 or HC-110
| stand development.
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