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Tipster of the Week: Your Kitchen Is My Darkroom
written by scapegoat on June 28th, 2009 , 19 comments (20 votes)

The New Coffee Developer Receipt by dogma

I think we all remember Matt’s coffee developer tipster, it made us aware of the potential of household stuff in film developing. Who would think that coffee and soda can do such thing? That combination really works, but it has one weakness – low contrast negatives and tell you what, there is a way to fix it, just add a pair of vitamin c tablets. Coffee + soda + vitamin C and your film gone look perfect! You don’t believe me?

Vitamin C – Lemons, limes, oranges and other Citrus fruits immediately come to mind as good sources of vitamin C. Unfortunately though, that vitamin doesn’t have enough concentration needed for this experiment. I have tried to develop film with fresh lemon juice and the film came blank. You’ll need head on over to your medicine cabinet and have yourself a couple of vitamin C tablets.

So what you will need? here’s the list.

Chemistry:

  • Instant coffee (not decaf)
  • Vitamin C
  • Washing soda
  • Room-temperature distilled water
  • Fixer
  • A tiny wee drop of dish washing liquid

Equipment:

  • A daylight developing tank & reel
  • A roll of exposed film
  • A bottle opener
  • Scissors
  • Measuring beakers
  • Spoons
  • 2 glasses
  • A timer
  • 2 clothespins
  • Clothesline or coat hanger

Receipt:

  • 350ml water
  • 5 teaspoons instant coffee crystals
  • 3 1/2 teaspoons washing soda
  • 1g vitamin C (2 tablets)

Procedure:

Set up the dark room and load the film on the reel. You can find more info about this here

Crush the vitamin C tablet, combined it with the coffee and mix them together in a glass with 125ml of water. Stir until all the crystals and gritty bits are completely dissolved.

Mix the washing soda in a separate glass with 125ml of water and stir until dissolved. Mix the two solutions together in a container that is large enough to hold all of the liquid.

Take your tank with the film and pour developer in it.
Hit start on the timer and agitate slowly and constantly for the first minute. (agitate – turn the tank upside down and then right side up again once.)

After the first minute, agitate the tank 3 times once a minute.When the timer goes off, drain the developer and fill the tank with water. Agitate 6 times, then drain the water from the tank.

Repeat this step 2 more times.

Again, drain the water or stop bath and fill the tank with fixer. Set the timer for five minutes and agitate 3 times each minute. Now about fixer, if you want to make the process more interesting you can use salted water instead, it will do just fine. The only thing is that it takes much more time and water because of the high concentration level of salt; 1L water + 500g salt.

Pour out the fixer and fill the tank with water. Agitate 3 times and drain the water. Refill it again with fresh water, agitate 6 times and pour out. Refill, agitate 12 times and pour out.

The final step – In a separate container, dissolve a small drop of dish washing liquid with enough water to fill the developing tank and put in in the tank, agitate slowly 24 times then drain.

Open the tank and remove the reel with your film. Use a clothespin to hang the roll of film and let it dry and then finally you can scan the images!

I have only one more, but very important tip to add: if you plan to develop films in coffee overexpose it by one or two steps to get better contrast because you can not push process with coffee, so you have to do it manually by overexposing it in your camera. I have used Kodak Tri-X 400 ISO film and shot them 200 ASA settings.

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19 comments

  • vicuna
    by vicuna
    4 months ago

    That's a fantastic tipster!!! Thanks a lot Dogma for this receipt!! :)))

  • mattcharnock
    by mattcharnock
    4 months ago

    thats a great idea! it is possible to develop the film in just vitamin c as well but i think you need about 1000 grms! good work

  • stouf
    by stouf
    4 months ago

    YEAH ! This is absolutely awesome ! I was wondering about it... And now you give us the whole receipt !!! Thank you so much ! A truly great tipster !!!

  • majorted
    by majorted
    4 months ago

    whaaaaaaaat???? Ive got to try this!!

  • rater
    by rater
    4 months ago

    Great tip! It has been some time I want to try that...

  • itakesmartpills
    by itakesmartpills
    4 months ago

    this is wicked.

  • eyecon
    by eyecon
    4 months ago

    Great results!

  • dogma
    by dogma
    4 months ago

    Thanks guys! CaffenolC really knoks off! I'm in love with it and promised my self to forget chemicals and use only this receipt :D

  • lomosexual_manboy
    by lomosexual_manboy
    4 months ago

    Super awesome results. How many minutes did you develop for?

  • dogma
    by dogma
    4 months ago

    uuuu i missed that info it was 12 minutes!

  • something_went_wrong
    by something_went_wrong
    4 months ago

    Splendid results! Hard to believe they were made in cafenol...

  • treehorn46
    by treehorn46
    4 months ago

    now the homemade fixer

  • ripsta
    by ripsta
    4 months ago

    nice tips and nice pics
    love all the mx

  • herbert-4
    by herbert-4
    4 months ago

    Thanx for the recipe. If I get access to a darkroom, I'm going to try this!!

  • lfuentesp
    by lfuentesp
    3 months ago

    Wiiiiiiiked!

  • by poetpunk
    3 months ago

    I just tried it and failed horribly :( I tried to develop 120. guess I should have added more than I did to the formula. Where should I get rid of the stuff? I feel like I wasted film and material... gotta learn somehow. Thanks for the tip;)

  • buster_adams
    by buster_adams
    3 months ago

    I like it better that way the BW has very big contrast!!!

  • phia237
    by phia237
    2 months ago

    Is it possible to use powdered citric acid rather than Vit C?

  • phia237
    by phia237
    2 months ago

    It is possible to use citric acid, but as I've not tried with Ascorbic acid I can't do a comparison. My negs came out blank when I processed for 12 mins and very underdeveloped when I did 20 mins. I used water straight from the tap though, didn't warm it first which I think was the problem.
    I'm going to experiment now with doubling the exposure time and warming the water up a bit!
    I'll let you know x

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