How To: Develop film with coffee and washing soda

Give a new look to your photographs! Use coffee! This video tutorial will show you how to develop film with coffee and washing soda, along with a little vitamin C.

Developing photos with this so-called "Caffenol" developing, produces pictures lovely, soft-contrast, black-and-white negatives when processing either B&W or color film stock.

This video will show you everything from taking the photo to hanging the photo to dry.

Instructions:

Dissolve 6-tsp coffee, 3-tsp washing soda, and 1/4-tsp vitamin C separately in water. All in all, it has to be 350mL / 12fl oz of water at ~20°C/68°F.

Let it stand to clear microbubbles. Make sure the mixture has a temperature of about 20°C/68°F.

Depending on the film used, set one of your stopwatches to one minute and the other according to the recommended developing time. Using Agfa APX 100, it needs 20 mins.

Pour in the developer and start your stopwatches. Agitate throughout for the first minute. Slowly! Then, agitate 3 times each minute.

Always stomp the tank after each agitation procedure onto the table to get rid of bubbles on the film.

After the developing time, pour in 20°C/68°F warm water, the same temperature like the developer, and agitate 5-6 times. Pour out the water and repeat another two times.

Now get your fixer ready. Pour out the water and put the fixer into your tank. Fresh fixer needs about 5 minutes. Agitate again about 3 times a minute and also stomp the tank.

Now pour back your fixer into a bottle as you can re-use it a couple of times.

Final Washing, Ilford Style:
Water 3x agitation, pour out
Water 6x agitation, pour out
Water 12x agitation, pour out
Distilled water with some drops of liquid soap 24x agitation

Then let it dry in your bathroom over night.