Develop film with Coffee and Vitamin C
I have been talking about doing this experiment for a long time, but have never gotten to it until this weekend. It is possible to process your own film using coffee. Hard to believe, I know, but it works. The other ingredient besides vitamin C and coffee is washing soda. It was a little hard to track down, but you might look in the laundry section of your local grocery store. Here is a YouTube video showing how it is done:
For my test I used color slide film and it worked just fine. The pictures were taken with my trusty medium format Lego camera. I wasn’t sure what I would get, but the results were black and white negatives (as opposed to color positives). Interesting. Here is a photo from the roll:
March 18th, 2009 at 11:25 am
I think you get black and white because there’s no bleach in the processing. That’s a pretty wicked x-pro. I’m going to try this! Have you ever processed color film in B&W chemistry?
March 19th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Excellent..can’t wait to try this..maybe you could add a lit of materials so they could be written down..the video goes pretty quickly..Love it! Diane
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:14 am
It’s been over 20 years since I thought about photo chemistry, but as remember it, color films are basically B&W films with color forming chemicals added. Reversal and negative color films have different processes. I think reversal film is bleached to remove the silver image, but negative color film still includes the silver image.
The “coffee” developer, is basically an ascorbic acid (vitamin C) developer. I think it’s a low energy fine grained developer.
If anyone has worked with photo chemistry more recently, please correct any mis-information.
March 23rd, 2009 at 8:49 am
great idea! this will save me from bothering friends when I can’t wait. the only variables would be the fixer here, depending on yer chemistry for the film? (c-41, etc), or would b&w fixer be just fine?
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
i love processing film in the dark! its a very classic experience! great work!
March 27th, 2009 at 2:36 am
Amazing! I’ll try this developing system on this weekend! Thanx!
April 5th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
I really like the sepia tone of the images, is that down to the use of the coffee? I’ll be giving this process a shot next week when I get hold of some fix!
June 29th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
ASTONISHING! This is only for B/W I presume…
July 7th, 2009 at 7:37 am
I tried my first roll of film last night; it was fuji superia xtra 800 iso color 35mm. I knew I wouldn’t get color, but I was hoping for a little better b/w than what I got. Although I can clearly see the distinct frames, and some of them appear clear although all of them appear under developed or over exposed. I will be getting my Epson V500 scanner soon and will report back then. I am anxious to try it again with B/W film. Will I get better results with B/W?
September 27th, 2009 at 10:38 am
@Chris & Mike: The negatives are black-and-white because caffenol is not a color developer like C-41. If bleach was added to the processing, there would be no image at all. In color development, the developed (and undeveloped) silver is always removed.
November 30th, 2009 at 2:56 am
A stupid question (don’t remember the things anymore since I developed my lasty roll 20 years ago) – i shot a bw iso400 film as 800, what should i multiply to push it the best?