Drinking developer!

Drinkable developer

I almost had an accident with one of my 250 ml bottles of Caffenol Strong. I made one liter of Caffenol Strong, 200 g coffee, 200 g Vit.C and 100 g sulfite but I didn´t count on the formation of SO2 gas from sulfite in an acid medium like coffee plus Vit. C. In fact, I should have read about this prior to the experiment (always learning). In this Caffenol version sulfite was intended as a preservative, like used for wines. I based the ammount on developers that use sulfite as an alkali, so the amount is excessive and it will produce at room temperature, after some time, a lot of gas. Fortunately I controlled the bottle, oppening slowly and lots of gas came out. From the other 3 bottles in refrigerator, in fact, no gas came out, maybe some is present but dissolved in the solution. The colder the solution the more gas it can store. It was a good idea to store the develçopers in the refrigerator.

I don't think this version of Caffenol will last (we will see) for months without changes. The ammount of sulfite as Oxyden scavenger is measured in parts per million and not 100g/liter like I did. The next version will have just a small ammount of sulfite, very few gramms, maybe one gramm is enough.

But I discovered how to use this 'developer'. I am preparing a beverage with only 5ml/liter of Caffenol Strong in just water. The total amount of sulfite in this drink will be about 500 ppm, like in some wines. Some people have allergic reactions to sulfite, but it is present in all wines. In the USA if a wine has more than 10 ppm of sulfite that must be written on the label.

Cheers! It is a very good beverage, and healty, 1g of the anti-oxidant Vit. C in one liter.

PS - Add some sugar or honney if you like it sweet!

Just another Caffenol

In this post I will try to describe how I came to the idea of ​​a Caffenol that can in principle be stored in concentrated solution for use when needed.

The idea of ​​using sodium sulfite in caffenol baths came from Reinhold, author of the excellent blog Caffenol, to reduce the grain of caffenol, making use of the solvent properties of sulfite. But sulfite is also a preservative and, in some developers, it is used as alkali to activate the developer agents. This means that it can be used for other purposes.

Then, Mike, a fellow in Flickr, that also has a fine blog (already added to my list) , had also the idea of a Caffenol 2-bath developer. I entered the discussion and started working in the same direction. But due to a bad choice, I was led to another result that may also be useful: a concentrated caffenol. Mike, the author of the topic about 2-bath caffenol, succeeded with a recipe using more Vit. C than coffee, with very good results.

My recipe consisted first in a 5% bath of sodium carbonate, washing soda, with just 5 ml/L of the concentrate developer agents. The concentrate is made of 200g/L coffee, 200g/L Vit. C and 100g/L sodium sulfite. 5 ml contains only 1g/L of coffee and 1g/L Vit C and 0,5g/L sodium sulfite. Below is a photo developed with 5ml/L of the concentrate in a 5% solution of just soda. The film is strong fogged, but the pictures are very acceptable. It took only 15 minutes to develop, like regular caffenol baths.

A Slice of house

Then I saw that Potassium Bromide should be added to bath B, in order to get less fog. I did it and exposed a second roll but I had to make some adjustments now. Using just 1g/L of Bromide is enough to slow very much the development. So I replaced 5ml of bath A with 10ml and I have prolonged the 15 minutes time to 30 minutes. So, the new recipe means: 2g/L coffee 2g/L Vit. C 1g/L Sodium Sulfite 1g/L Potassium Bromide 50g/L Sodium Carbonate.  This time I took some pictures without leaving home, from the windows to outside, with the new Holga GN. After development, no fog at all, but poor focus of the camera and grain as usual in Caffenol but not bad.

View from the front window

This test showed me clearly that I could shoot another roll with the better camera Adox Golf, the same I used with the first roll. I don't have a better camera, but I think I need a medium format camera with a better lens for these 'good developers'. This reminds me of my cheap bicycle where I installed a powerfull electric motor and the bycicle is now broken because it is to weak for the motor.

And here are two examples of the last of three rolls developed with the concentrated caffenol solution, just another caffenol but maybe cheaper than the others or somehow practical.

Across the river

About the stadium in Leiria

Semicolor

Like I promised in the last post, I exposed a cheap color film with a new recharged disposable camera, an Agfa Le Box with a 35 mm roll 24 exp. made in Japan for Schleker, Germany. I used a process based on Dignan's 2-bath developing method but where the first bath is just CD-4 (11g/l) and Sodium Sulfite (9g/l), 10 minutes at room temperature. Then I used as second bath a 'caffenol' with 40g/l soda and 20g/l cheap soluble coffee from LIDL supermarkts, 15 minutes at room temperature. To bleach the film I used povidone iodine 10% (Betadyne), 1 hour at room temperature and finally the fixer was just common table salt (300g/l), more than 5 hours at 30ºC. To mantain the temperature of the salt bath at about 30ºC, I putted a bulb lamp in a cookies box and the developer tank on the box. The film is not totally fixed, but already transparent and scannable, I will fix it later on leting it on a salt solution for some hours more.

But in this experiment, except CD-4, all other chemicals are available for other uses. Let us see: sodium sulfite is the same used for swimming pools as chlorine neutralizer; potash or sodium carbonate is available at drugstores as cleaning agent; coffee at supermarkets; Betadyne at a Pharmacy and salt at supermarkets too. The only thing special you need to develop C-41 the way I did, is CD-4, the rest is easy to get. Another point, the ammount of coffee will determine the color you get, fewer coffee leads to more color and no coffee at all you get these very bright colors of Dignan's method tending to magenta.

Now, some photos f the Agfa Le Box:

Man and nature

Corn field

River Lena from the pedestrian bridge

Water of the river Lena

The house behind the road

Aerial trafo station

While walking

The last pic

Tavira, a nice place to live

In my recent vacations in Algarve, I made some photos with my film camera Canon TLB. This camera has a light leak but I couldn't fix it yet. I can't find where it is and why it only lets light come in sometimes and not always. I am getting used to this leak and maybe it is not so bad to have some pictures with spots like people like nowadays with the lomographic fashion.

These pictures are from the same roll of the last posts. Also developed with Dignan's 2-bath developer and Blix bath of ferric ammonium EDTA plus amonnium Thiosulfate. I am about using another bleach and fixing process next time I develop color pictures. I am going to use povidone-iodine, an over-the-counter drug used to clean wounds or in hospitals to prepare patients skin prior to surgery. Betadyne is a commercial brand of this substance. As fixer I will use common salt, as already tested with black and white film.

This means that the only special chemical I will use in color C-41 process will be CD-4. All my efforts to replace it with another product failled until now. If you have any suggestion it is welcome.

Cheap and fine

I discovered a shop that sells a package of 3x24exp. color C-41 films for just 2,99 euro, that is to say, 1 euro per roll. It was so cheap that I decided to give it a try. I was realy surprised with the quality. These films are produced in Japan for Anton Schlecker in Germany. They expire in July 2014, which means they are still valid. The next, I am buying a complete stock for years, if I find them again.

I exposed the film with a Konica point and shoot camera, Z-up 80 and developed using Dignan's 2-bath C-41 process. The film was scanned with an Epson V500 and treated with the free software Photoscape.

Example I

Example II

Example III

Example IV

Example V

Example VI

Reflective scan is better

Once upon a time mankind invented lens and optical devices, cameras, projectors, glasses, etc.. The first photos were made on opaque surfaces (daguerreotypes for instance) and only many years latter the transparencies were introduced, first in glass and then acetate and polyester like today we still use.

I don't intend to tell here exact historical events, but only remember that the first photos were made in opaque surfaces. Daguerreotypes made with a good lens are extremely sharp because the surface is completely flat, no roughness like in the paper and also because there is no other image transfer like the transfer we do from a transparent negative to a paper copy. In this transfer we have noise introduced by the grain of the film, the lens of the enlarger and our evaluation of sharpeness, the roughness and grain of the paper, etc.. The final result can not be compared with the sharpness of a daguerreotype, for instance. Daguerreotypes didn't survive because the new processes with negatives was cheaper, reproductible and the image was not mirrored like in the daguerreotypes.

Now, with the revival of old processes, many of us are still using transparencies instead of an opaque medium, but the transparent material, films or sheets, have to be scanned instead of beeing enlarged optically. Doesn't make sense for me. If we want to get better pictures, we are introducing noise unecessarily when scanning at transparency.

With the monobath I am using, Parodinal-salt, I obtain pictures on film that can be scanned directly and reflective. Because the image seen from the emulsion side is sharper and will be closer to the scanner optic, an image scanned reflective is much more sharp than the same image scanned at transparency.

This means that manufacturers should consider the possibility of making opaque films instead of transparencies, even on paper instead of acetate or polyester. This paper negative (or positive) could then be scanned by every normal scanner instead of the expensive photoscanners. People using Harman positive paper (very expensive) with their Pinholes are in the right side, I think. But why not direct reflective scannable films?

Scanned at transparency

Scanned reflective

I recommend C-41 Dignan's processing method

After a period of tests on other alternatives to the classical C-41 processing method, I came to the conclusion that the Dignan's procedure is very reliable and I recommend it strongly.

But I would suggest following practical work method: make one liter of the bath A and store it in a plastic folding container. Use each time the necessary volume for the film you are using, some 300 ml for 35 mm films or 600 ml for 120 films. After use, put the the liquid back to the container and remove air. Each time you use it, it will diminished a little. Go on using until you have less than necessary to develop. At this point, make a fresh bath A and a fresh Bleach and Fixer or Blix if you prefer.

The bleach will be weaker and weaker with the time, the same with fixer or blix but the volume is kept and replaced by water, the same with fixer or blix.

I suggest following times:

Bath A - Fixed duration, always 10 minutes; it is said that the minimum is about 3 minutes but better more than less.

Bath B - Fixed duration, always 10 minutes, it will not overdevelop. This bath is used just once but I already reused it once some few days after and worked well.

Bleach of ferric EDTA - 10 minutes at room temperature, more than needed at 38ºC. Increase 30 seconds every time you use it.

Fixer of Ammonium Thiosulfate - 5 minutes, increase 30 seconds every time you use it.

If you are using Blix, 10 minutes, increasing 30 seconds each time.

With this procedure, your baths will last for at least 20 to 30 films until you reach 500 ml from the 1 liter bath A you made. It depends on the quantity carried to bath B. I always use a minimum of 20 to 25 ml per development. That is what remains in the tank after pouring it back to the plastic folding container.

The results are very acceptable, perhaps a little too pink sometimes but this is adjustable in scanner or software afterwoods.

Example I

Example II

Example III

Example IV

Note: The film I used is Agfa Plus 100 ISO and the camera is a Canon TLB 35 mm.