caffenol

I shot three films today with a view to testing the use of paracetamol as a reducing agent in film developer. The two I ran off in Southern Cemetery (36 exposures of HP5+ and 36 exposures of Delta 400) were both developed in the following solution, following a Tylenol recipe on the ascorbate-developers blog:

• Na2CO3 (anhydrous) — 24g
• Vitamin C — 7g
• Paracetamol — 1g
• KBr — 1g
• Water to make 650ml

Hardly believing it myself, it turns out that coffee can act as a film developer. This I had to try. Three different films (XP2 at 400, FP4+ at 125 and HP5+ at 400), all developed at the same time:

• five minutes soaking in water
• 16g Na2CO3 (anhydrous) added to water
• add 10g Vitamin C
• 1.5g KBr (anhydrous)
• 40g Red Label instant coffee
• make up to 1 litre of water
• 1 minute of agitation
• rest for 59 minutes (at 21°C)
• wash, stop, wash, fix, wash