How to develop black and white film at home with coffee (2019)
fieldmag.com
fieldmag.com
Gives you a real appreciation for the technological powerhouse that Kodak was in its prime.
Edwin Land who started the company was an incredible talent and is really worth reading up on.
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/
- 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.
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.
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.
> 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...
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.
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.
:)
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.
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.
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...
Do you know if there's a database of natural chemicals for filters?
Specifically, I'm looking for a 0.3 µm ultraviolet filter (or any base-2 harmonic e.g. 2 * 0.3 = 0.6µm, 4x, 8x, 16x).
Tangentially related, I'm also searching for any flowers whose pollen grains are 19.2 µm (0.3 µm * 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.
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...
In case you're wondering why 0.3 µm is so important, this is why:
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-relative-size-o...
Hypothesis 1 is that there is a correlation between particle size and wavelength of resonant light.
Hypothesis 2 is that there is a correlation between other wavelengths of light and mutations.
corollary to that: masks = COVID concentrators, left as litter on the street, under broad-spectrum sunlight, will be disinfected, but also occasionally mutated.
Therefore mask litter is a very high risk.
Therefore all humans must pick up masks from the street, dispose of them safely, and wash hands immediately. Love your neighbour, take the risk because you're vaccinated. And keep wearing that mask, even though it's < 100% efficient, it's better than nothing because it cycles.
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.
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.
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.
Also, use new film with this and don't expect great results your first few times.
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!
If you're looking for a non-toxic commercial developer, Kodak's Xtol developer is based on ascorbic acid.
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.
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.
> I personally like the combination of the traditional caffenol recipe combined with Dagie Brundert's beerol recipe.
How comes, out of interest?
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.
IMO it's not really an interesting thing to do unless you don't have a choice.