[Cerebum]

I have a roll of Rollei retro 400s. It will be the first film I home develop. I know nothing about home developing so I am being guided by a friend and he suggested caffenol. Its cheap, in everyone's closet (cheap coffee, sodium carbonate & powdered vitamin C), you don't have to wear ppe when handling it and, according to a couple of articles, you can tip it down the loo once you have filtered out any residual silver halide (by running it through a wire wool filter, allegedly!). I have seen examples of caffenol developed film and the results were great, so, ........ why doesn't everyone use caffenol? I had a roll of foma developed in rodinal and the grain was nasty, but given how many variables/options/recipes there are that could have been any number of things do different developers have different characteristics? Do they react differently to different films? Does caffenol have particular films that it works well or badly with? Am I missing something really important? Like I say, this will be my first go at home developing so any info or guidance will be gratefully recieved as my wife will not be impressed if I blow up the house!

[BarneyL]

Each combination of a film and developer gives different results, but let's talk about general features of developers, and why someone may prefer one over another.

Developers like Rodinal are acutance developers. They give contrast to the edges to make the image appear sharper. The cost is more pronounced grain (personally, I don't recommend it for ASA 400+ films, at least in small format) and often loss of effective film speed. Rodinal is also appreciated for tonality and an option to do stand development (you pour it into the tank with film, agitate a few times and the leave it be for about an hour) which, on top of giving you some free time, has some compensating effect (useful if you're worried about burning out highlights). Stand development with other developers usually results in an ugly effect called bromide drag.

Developers like D-76 are fine grain developers, used to minimise grain. Some also make the film effectively a stop or two faster, some work other way around, depends on the film. D-76 is also known as an economical solution due to its reusability. You can develop quite a lot of rolls with a litre of it.

Developers like Microphen are meant to push the film way beyond its box speed, usually at cost of bigger grain. As opposed to pushing stuff with D-76, these are designed to maintain normal (or close to normal) contrast at those film speeds.

There are also technical developers (for taming inherently high contrast microfilms like Agfa Copex Rapid), staining developers (Pyro, very toxic), bespoke solutions for concrete films (Silvermax dev, Spur Shadowmax) or class of films (T Max dev), and others that just try to be somewhere in between all the aforementioned, or are something else entirely - like Caffenol, which I don't really know how to classify. AFAIK it isn't famous for anything other than the simplicity of making it yourself and being eco friendly.

I haven't heard of films that do super bad in Caffenol, but neither I have heard of great combinations. I suspect a lot of depends on the details of the recipe and quality of ingredients. If I were you, I would start with Fomapan 100 (or other traditional-grained emulsion of medium speed) but I'm definitely curious about the results you will get with the Rollei 400s.

[Digitalis]

why doesn't everyone use caffenol?

I prefer to drink my espresso, not dunk film in it.

In all seriousness I prefer staining Pyro developers - not to everyone's taste,pyrocatechol being a potent skin irritant after all. Stand developing several sheets of 8X10 film would require a considerable amount of caffineol - and the roasting of Coffee beans produces a tremendous amount of CO2*. The pathways to making pyrocatechol is commonly based on Benzene and Phenol - both of which are common chemical feedstocks and the production methods involved in making them are efficient and less harmful to the environment.

my wife will not be impressed if I blow up the house!

I have a Degree in Synthetic/Organic chemistry - If you manage to blow up the house while developing film, you are doing it wrong.


*Even instant coffee is not free of this burden as it is still a product involving the roasting of coffee beans. The amount of CO2 production from Coffee processing does vary depending on a number of factors such as the darkness of the roast and altitudes which the beans were grown, lighter roasts being friendlier to the environment but more challenging to get a decent coffee extraction from.

[Eric Auer]

It stinks, thats why.

[stevebrot]

why doesn't everyone use caffenol?

Not particularly convenient or consistent or "natural".

I prefer developers with consistent characteristics and well-documented behaviors.


Steve

[Sandy Hancock]

I know what cheap instant coffee does to high carbon steel. I can only imagine what it can do to flimsy film

[jbinpg]

Being a happy caffenol user, I refute the assertion that it is not particularly consistent. Once you get a formula that works for you, you can repeat it at will. The greenest, gawdawfulest ground coffee has the most active ingredient and has the added benefit of being the cheapest. But I would not change my brand now for fear of messing with a known quantity. And caffenol is very compensating. All I can say is try it, you may like it.

Jack

[Cerebum]

@BarneyL @Digitalis brilliant answers, just what I was hoping for. One beauty of using coffee is I can gently and cheaply introduce the concept of home developing to a camera resistant wife before I bring in the chemicals. D-76 will probably be next if I am not happy with caffeinol. We have a coffee roastery here that has been trading for 150 years. https://thecoffeehopper.com/ We will be going in armed with a 30s leica iii, a Bronica possibly, a minolta autocord and an mx to shoot the roastery, the shop, the cafe and its staff. We will then be processing the film in his coffee and presenting him with some of the results. In tests we have found a lightly roasted Ethiopian that does a decent dev job. It is an eyewateringly expensive way if doing it but as a one off, purely for this project it will be fine. Away from this project it will be aldi's cheapest for developing, with a big pot of Old Brown Java alongside to alleviate the smell of the caffeinol @EricAuer lol

---------- Post added 06-01-22 at 12:53 AM ----------

I know what cheap instant coffee does to high carbon steel. I can only imagine what it can do to flimsy film

If it makes the film look half as beautiful as Maples metals, I will be stoked

---------- Post added 06-01-22 at 12:57 AM ----------

..... try it, you may like it.

Jack

I will be downloading this today and starting my journey

https://m.caffenol-cookbook.com/

[fs999]

Rollei Retro 400S is the only known film not developing well in Caffenol. I haven't found a convincing explanation on internet...

Here you have some more recipes :

[niels hansen]

The "best" developer, the best film does not exist - it depends-------.I started with FP4 and TRIX in rodinal. for a long time I used Acufine for TRIX and Diafine for FP4. It was in the sixties. Trix and acufine was a splendid combination , sharp, moderate grains and two stops increase in asa value. That ended when kodak changed formula. The same with FP4 and Diafine. Today my favorite is Rodinal with Rollei Ortho, Rollei 25 , PanF and RolleiIR.
All but the ORTO work great i 1:100 standing development , 2X 30 min 20 celcius . The best combination is often the one you know the best

[filmmaster]

the coffee crap is a crap shoot friend.

Results are not garrunteed. and if asking about recipes, etc online, caffenol advocats will ALLWAYS claim any messed up film is purely YOUR fault for not doing something right..

every can of instant coffee needs to have the recipe re worked. every can, every lot date, every brand.

[Wheatfield]

I have a roll of Rollei retro 400s. It will be the first film I home develop. I know nothing about home developing so I am being guided by a friend and he suggested caffenol. Its cheap, in everyone's closet (cheap coffee, sodium carbonate & powdered vitamin C), you don't have to wear ppe when handling it and, according to a couple of articles, you can tip it down the loo once you have filtered out any residual silver halide (by running it through a wire wool filter, allegedly!). I have seen examples of caffenol developed film and the results were great, so, ........ why doesn't everyone use caffenol? I had a roll of foma developed in rodinal and the grain was nasty, but given how many variables/options/recipes there are that could have been any number of things do different developers have different characteristics? Do they react differently to different films? Does caffenol have particular films that it works well or badly with? Am I missing something really important? Like I say, this will be my first go at home developing so any info or guidance will be gratefully recieved as my wife will not be impressed if I blow up the house!

Caffenol is fine to play around with, but my understanding is good luck getting long term consistent results from it. A premixed commercial developer is predictable and repeatable. Film photography is hard enough without adding the processing version of Russian Roulette into the equation.
As an aside, if you use one of the old school developers like D-76, there is no reason not to pour it down the drain when finished. Most of your household cleaners are far more harmful for the environment than the simple film developers from the past, and it's not like as if you are flushing a swimming pool's worth of it at a time.

[filmmaster]

Caffenol is fine to play around with, but my understanding is good luck getting long term consistent results from it. A premixed commercial developer is predictable and repeatable. Film photography is hard enough without adding the processing version of Russian Roulette into the equation.
As an aside, if you use one of the old school developers like D-76, there is no reason not to pour it down the drain when finished. Most of your household cleaners are far more harmful for the environment than the simple film developers from the past, and it's not like as if you are flushing a swimming pool's worth of it at a time.

And after development, caffenol is just as deadly as used Rodinal is.

[Cerebum]

On YouTube, the font of all unquestionable knowledge ...... I can't believe I just said that! Anyway, one guy suggested you can filter out any residual silver halide by filtering through wire wool! I don't know how true that is. As this will be my first go I will try what my teacher suggests. I like the idea of processing in coffee so I will give it a go but at least now I know it isn't magic and there are alternatives. @jbinpg don't be surprised if I come to you looking for inspiration

[Wheatfield]

On YouTube, the font of all unquestionable knowledge ...... I can't believe I just said that! Anyway, one guy suggested you can filter out any residual silver halide by filtering through wire wool! I don't know how true that is. As this will be my first go I will try what my teacher suggests. I like the idea of processing in coffee so I will give it a go but at least now I know it isn't magic and there are alternatives. @jbinpg don't be surprised if I come to you looking for inspiration

I think your source needs to go back and take a course in photochemistry.
Developers don't saturate with silver during use.

---------- Post added Jan 7th, 2022 at 04:28 AM ----------

And after development, caffenol is just as deadly as used Rodinal is.

As in not really deadly at all?