Caffenol processing, take two

My last post was about home developing, and as I just finished another try at it, so is this one.

This time the film came out much better, much more like traditional processing - a good thickness to the final film, I waited for it to dry before really fooling around with it so it didn't get as much dust and scratching on the film.

The only problem I ran into this time was loading the film - it seemed to get caught up in the reel (which I, incidentally, broke a little bit.. one of the sides doesn't have a ball bearing in it anymore... luckily the tank came with two) as I was starting to load the film. I took it all out, reloaded it but the reel didn't seem to want to hold the whole 32 exposure roll. Maybe it's because I'd already broken the ball-bearing, who knows. I got fun little spots at the end of the roll where the film had touched the tank or something. Oh, well, I got basically all of the shots, so it's all okay by me.

With the experience of my last developing and the help of the lovely Caffenol flickr group, I determined that my developing time was way, way too little. This time, I developed for 27 minutes instead of just 12, and the results were far better. Film that's relatively opaque and commercial-looking. For something coming out of a bathroom, from just coffee and washing soda, that's pretty amazing.

Here are just a few of the shots I took. I took more shots of more things this roll, as I was confident I wouldn't ruin it and I wasn't in any sort of rush, as I had been with the last roll.

Home made photo project

One thing, other than sewing vintage fashion, that I love to do is photography. I took a photography class in high school that, while we used film cameras, was otherwise done by computer. Therefore, I never learned developing - something I'd always wanted to know. It was a big disappointment for me then.

In college, I made friends with art majors who did photography and this past year one of them showed me how developing was done. (This knowledge was helpful in today's project, I must admit - seeing it done is something I often need in order to do things myself.) There was a darkroom there, full of enlargers, but I have a scanner here that does negatives, so I don't really need any of that.

In following photography blogs, I've learned of a process of caffenol processing. It's called caffenol because one of the major components in this is coffee. Instant coffee and washing soda, really. That's all I used, though some people also add vitamin C. It worked surprisingly well, I was really excited.

Through the weeks of gathering the instant coffee, washing soda (easy - but not super-easy - to find), fixer (the only chemical you'll need) and a developing tank, my excitement only kept building with each new thing I'd found. I'd bought 15 rolls of black and white film a while back to start this project and am excited to start really getting into it.

I did this project in my bathroom - a good place with running water and a fan (to get rid of the gross smells of the developer), and hopefully in the next couple of days I'll be putting up an edit with some of the shots I took. Though I haven't exactly perfected it (it came out rather transparent) I am very encouraged by this small success. It's empowering and exciting to be able to not only shoot film but develop it too, and on the cheap without having to use all kinds of crazy terrible chemicals.

Edit (9:20pm)