Are you feeling a little MacGyver-ish and have access to a film camera? Perhaps you want to try developing your pictures using coffee and vitamin C instead of a traditional developing solution. [Danish Puthan Valiyandi] does a great job of walking us through the steps he took, including precise measurements, temperatures, and timings involved in achieving great results. This is probably not for the first-timers, as he does use special equipment associated with traditional developing methods.
The process uses a couple of easily obtainable materials: instant coffee, vitamin C powder, and washing soda (sodium carbonate). Once the roll of film has been exposed, it’s put onto a jig for developing (Danish does this with the lights on to make the video after the break worth watching, but you’ll need to do it in the dark). Once nestled inside of the development container, he mixes up a batch of his diy developer and agitates according to a times schedule. When the development is finished, a chemical fixer–no diy alternative used here–is added to set the film. Dry out the strips and use a scanner to digitize your work. We’re surprised by the quality of the finished product, but we shouldn’t be… he certainly knows what he’s doing.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZSKrfen6DU&w=470]
[Thanks Rob via Photojojo and Found Photography]
This is really old,old news. Go to Imagesfrugales blog if you want to know *all* about film development in Caffeine: http://caffenol.blogspot.com/
Also there are a dozen or so flickr groups that deal with Caffenol.
Selective coffee stains!
Interesting idea.
Just a friendly reminder that Sodium Carbonate and Sodium BI-Carbonate are two different things…
I’ve been developing film with Caffenol (the nickname for this formula) for a while now. There are even groups on Flickr showing off photos developed with it.
I’ll stick to Dia-Fine thank you.
Just wanted to point out that he’s using a proper black and white film, and this probably won’t work using colour film or the black and white films commonly available at consumer photo labs (which are designed to work with colour film processing).
You can use it on color film, Simon, but the orange base of the color film makes it harder to scan.
All photographic film has silver halide crystals in them. Processing colour film starts the same as B&W film, but the colour dyes are activated by the dye couplers and then the B&W images are removed by bleach (often combined with the fixer – “blix”). From what I understand, if you used a simple B&W process with colour film you are essentially performing a “bleach bypass”. I’m not certain though. Also, caffeinol stains your film brown, which is not usually a problem with B&W film, but could be for colour.
Will it work on presensitized pcb? That combined with vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and salt for etching gets us complete pantry/kitchen solution for board fab!
While [Danish Puthan Valiyandi] may not have *included* a DIY fixer recipe, they are out there, based on Sodium thiosulfate crystals (available from pool supply stores): http://www.frugalphotographer.com/info-formulary-coffeedeveloper.htm (scroll to the bottom)
What about using OJ and ammonia? I know the Mythbusters tried it in a Macgyver special, but couldn’t remember the exact steps (according to Wikipedia: OJ for 10 minutes, then ammonia for fixing, still in a darkroom).
Seems kinda risky to use any liquid around a flash card…I think I’ll stick with using USB to develop my photos.
Oh and I forgot to mention:
it IS absolutely possible to develop color film in caffenol. The negative will be B&W of course.
Hi,
I run a blog dedicated to caffenol development:
http://www.caffenol.org
cheers,
dirk
It’s a cool idea, if you shoot film and have the kit for developing already you should give it a try, though i will say that commercial developers aren’t that expensive anyway. I’ve read from those that have tried this that the caffenol mixture absolutely smells disgusting, so be prepared for that.
I’ve seen weirder, there’s a guy on flickr called inetjoker who’s a mod on the i shoot film group who managed to develop a roll of B&W using his own urine, it worked it the negative were pretty grainy.
Maybe he should’ve imbibed some coffee first.
used to use one vitamin c developer several years ago.. worked really nice. my friend got a recipe and prepared it on his own.
So, where do I pour this into? My SD card slot?
lol.
I miss film, I really do. I dont miss having to develop it.
No, you use a printer refill kit to inject the SD card itself, then pull off the plastic shell and you should have your pictures all ready to scan using a flatbed.
SD ftw. Film ftl
I’d add that I have avoided using Cafenol in plastic developing tanks because I’ve seen how stained plastic drinking cups become after the 10th glass or so. But metal developing tanks are cheap, and harder to scratch with a soft brush when you want to remove the coffee stains.
Knows what he is doing, but cant spell distilled…
Maybe he can’t spell distilled or maybe it’s just because it’s a typo since in german it’s “destilliert”.
So don’t try to act like you’re something better!
I already tried it as long as 28 years ago nothing new