Sunday, February 10, 2013

A Pinch of Salt

Nikon FE2 Micro-Nikkor 55mm f2.8 Orwo UN54 Caffenol-C-M +20g Iodized Salt - Probably one of the few good uses for Instant coffee is developing film, my adventures with Caffenol continue. This is a variation of the Caffenol-C-M recipe found here. My normal Caffenol-C-M mix is as follow:

Start with 1 Liter of water
Add 54g of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda, Stir until dissolved.
Add 16g of Vitamin C Power, Stir until dissolved.
Add 40g of instant coffee (in this case Original Maxwell House), Stir until dissolved.

I usually let the mix stand for 10 to 15 minutes before use to allow any small are bubbles to escape.
A good starting point for for developing time is 15 minutes at 68℉ for an ISO 100 film, with constant agitation for the 1st minute and then 3 inversions every minute there after.

For this image I added 20g of iodized table salt to the mix to act of a restrainer. This helps reduce base fogging and streaking that can be a problems with the normal Caffenol-C-M mix. The addition of the salt worked well with Orwo UN54 resulting in minimal base fogging and great overall contrast. Shadow detail is also outstanding as you can see.
Scanned with a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III using Silverfast 6.6.2r5 Software

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