Trevor Cunningham:
One of the things keeping me from shooting film is the absence of
dedicated chemistry in Saudi as well as the challenge and cost of shipping
them as well. Then a thread on the alt-process forum popped up about using
coffee and a base as a developing agent for film and paper. A RIT
/*article*/ <http://people.rit.edu/andpph/text-coffee.html> explains some
brief research into the process, but lacked the referenced images.
1) Does anyone have experience with this? or have images resulting from
this process to share?
2) I would also need a DIY soup recipe for fixer. Hypo? Can't I get that
from someplace that sells swimming pool supplies?
I'd really like to get a pile of Adox film. My Mamiya has been collecting
dust for about four years now...feeling guilty.
I spent a fair bit of time experimenting with photographic chemistry, and if
i've done any thing with coffee other than drink it, it certainly didn't
stick in my mind!
Many of the developing chemicals are pretty easily obtained - if not locally
then via mail from ebay ,, a few not so easy like the good part that made
rodinal kind of special, but below is a recipe for making the
para-aminophenol HCL :)
I also didn't find anything in my experimentation that did as good a job as
hydroquinone and phenidone as developers, and thoug I didn't explore every
reducing agent by a long shot, their relative cheapness, reliability and
effectiveness suggested further exploration was more academic than useful.
Stop bath is easy too - acetic acid (vinegar) is a very cheap and commonly
used chemical. I used to advocate citric acid for a time as an odorless
altenative but discovered it depletes the fixer.. NOT a good thing when you
realise fix can be recycled and used a number of times if it's treated well.
Fixer is just sodium (or preferably ammonium) thiosulfate and a weak acetic
acid solution - this stuff is cheap and should be available anywhere
I found a company called AJAYCHEM CO. EXPORTS & IMPORTS in Saudia Arabia
(there must be many others) list thiosulphate/thiosulfate as one of their
products.
such things as potassium bromide, sodium sulphite, sodium carbonate and the
like are all relatively common chemicals and any chemical or lab supplier
should be able to sell them cheaply and with no fuss
If you'd like to explore the machanisms of development, this is a good
starting point:
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=VYyldcYfq3MC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
karl
Rodinal - the para-aminophenol HCL component can be made by using the over
the counter drug we call panadol in Australia:
http://photo.net/black-and-white-photo-film-processing-forum/00FLH4
"30 tablets @ 500 mg generic acetaminophen (crushed -- I used an 8 ounce
hammer with the tablets in a postal envelope); 50 g sodium sulfite; 20 g
sodium hydroxide water to make 250 ml
Start with about 150 ml room temp water. Stir in the acetaminophen and
sulfite (I used sodium sulfite stock solution I already had); solution will
be nearly opaque and white. Don't worry about the little rags and tags of
tableting material; they don't seem to affect anything. Add the sodium
hydroxide, stir, seal, and let stand for at least 24 hours; activity may
continue increasing (as the reaction converting acetaminophen to
p-aminophenol proceeds) for up to 48 hours from mixing"
fixer:
ammonium thoisulfate 175g
sodium sulfite 25g
acetic acid (glacial) 10 ml
boic acid 10g
water to make 1 litre
