Develop Film with Instant Coffee and Vitamin C

Matt Richardson @ MAKE recently explored homebrew film developing with "caffenol" in this how-to video.

Only recently did I find out that you can develop negative film with instant coffee, vitamin C, and washing soda. This homebrew developer has become known as "caffenol" and there are plenty of photographers out there who have used this method in the darkroom. I read up on a few different recipes and tried my hand at developing my own snapshots with caffenol. As you can see from the video, it took a couple tries, but I did eventually get it right. As a matter of fact, I was impressed with the results:

Subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube and Vimeo.


Comments

Newest comments listed first.

Posted by: Jenn Wisbeck on July 6, 2011 at 10:24 AM

How cool! Sounds like a great way for people to try developing film without lots of chemicals.


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