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Coffee Developers

new member asking basic things

#1
Hi

I have been wanting to try this for a while but am a little confused about some of the very basics:

What is the purpose of vit C some recipies use it some seem not to?
what would be a good starting point timewise for FP4?
Do you still use conventional stop bath or just wash?
are all fixers suitable?


Sure this info is available so please pointt me to some links if you are able

Many thanks

Ian
 
#2
hi ian

i am not a science-tech type
so i can't really answer many of your questions.

http://caffenol.blogspot.com/
( caffenol blog )
and
http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/VitC/vitc.html
(patrick gainer artlcle )

will give you an idea what the vit c does ...

i don't use stop bath, but only water
and i use rapid fix ( because it is what i have on hand )

some films may be prone to pinholes with stop bath, so keep that in mind,
i am sure if you do a search here, you will be able to figure out if fp4+ is on of them

the digital truth site offers this info on fp4+
http://www.digitaltruth.com/devchart.php?Film=FP4&Developer=Caffenol&mdc=Search

but it is a starting point ...
depending on which brand of instant coffee and other ingredients, and which recipe you use
your developing times will change.

the blog is a great source with images, and scale-measure-weights for the various ingredients.

have fun!

john
 
#3
Vitamin C speeds up development, it is in itself, at least to a certain degree, a developing agent. Some Apug'ers (titrisol and friends) did some tests 7 or 8 years ago with different salts to reduce stain and get better shadow detail. Ascorbic acid (aka pure vitamin-C) evidently did the job, combining with some of the sodium carbonate (washing soda) to form a salt called sodium ascorbate. I mix the soda and vitamin-c first, let settle for a few minutes and then add coffee last minimize the exposure to the dreaded caffenol smell (not that bad really). You could add a lesser amount of sodium ascorbate instead of vitamin-c, but its more difficult to get hold of. There are two approaches to Caffenol-C type recipes, those with little vitamin-c and those with considerably more. What you end up doing is up to you, its a matter of taste really.

Since I´m in no way an expert, I´ve relied on the findings of others, and use the Caffenol-C-H and C-M recipes from the caffenol.blogspot.com site mentioned by John. The C-H recipe has a potassium bromide buffer for high speed films (400 ISO and up), the idea is that it will reduce base fog. Slower films (IS0 100 and mot likely up to 200) can do without. With either recipe 15 minutes or so @ 68F is the recommended starting point, for films developed at box speed or pushed one stop. I have however seen evidence that FP4 may well do with less than that, 12 minutes or so in Caffenol-C-M (no bromide buffer).

For my first ever Caffenol developed film I bracketed every shot -2/-1/0/+1/+2 to get an idea of what would need to be done next time around. And sure enough, next film I more or less nailed it.

I too use water stop bath. The film will continue to develop somewhat until the end of the stop bath and before being dunked in the fixer, but I wouldn´t worry about it. I use TMAX fixer, but that's just because it was what was handy.
 
#4
Everything that I use is more or less the same as Ezzies or jnanians descriptions except that I use C-C-L semistand and a very dilute acid stopbath @ more or less around 20-30% normal strength..

Good luck and welcome to the wonderous world of coffee negs! :smile:
 
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