Developing Kodak T-Max P3200 in Caffenol

With Baking Soda, Vitamin C Tablets, and a Salt Mixture as a Fixer

7 min read by Dmitri.
Published on January 2, 2023. Updated on October 1, 2024.

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In this article: The setup. What does this recipe accomplish? Ingredients. Tools. Modified Caffenol-C-H developer. Salt fixer. Developing time, agitation and temperature. Results. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

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Figure 1. Instant coffee weighted for the developer mixture.

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Figure 2. Crushed vitamin C pills (bottom-left), vitamin C mixture (bottom-center), and salt developer (bottom-right).

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Figure 3. Checking the temperature of the Modified Caffenol-C-H developer.

The setup.

Over the holidays, my brother delighted me with his interest in our dad’s old film camera, FED 5B.

I handed him a roll of Kodak T-Max P3200 that he shot indoors. It was his first time with a film and a rangefinder camera; he chose to eyeball his exposures.

We wanted to see the results, but all photography stores and labs were closed, so we did some research on how to develop film using nothing but “edible” chemicals found at most grocery stores — including the fixer step.

Here’s what we came up with:

What does this recipe accomplish?

We used the following recipe to develop high-ISO black-and-white Kodak T-Max P3200 film at box speed, using chemicals found in everyday grocery store items.

The drawbacks we’ve encountered with this recipe are the dense-looking negative, a long fixing time (overnight soak), and grainy results.

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Ingredients.

☕️ 40g of instant coffee.

🧂 20g of table salt (iodized) for the developer plus 300g for the fixer.

💊 16 vitamin C pills containing 1000mg each. If you get the powder in pure form (linked), you can skip the steps requiring you to crush the pills in a Ziplock bag.

📦 150g of baking soda.

Tools.

Oven, access to running water, a Patterson developing tank, a kitchen scale, a Ziplock bag, coffee filters, a fine-mesh strainer, a 1L measuring jug, a stopwatch, CineStill Cs temperature control system or similar and/or a thermometer, an optional 5L plastic tub, and two clean containers/bottles that can hold 1.5L of liquid each.

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Figure 4. Baking soda (left) and washing soda (right) compared.

Modified Caffenol-C-H developer.

This recipe is based on the Caffenol-C-H formula from The Caffenol Cookbook. But instead of using 1g of potassium bromide (KBr), we used 20g of table salt, as suggested by Josh Vickers. We also converted baking soda into washing soda since the former is easier to find in pure form. And finally, instead of vitamin C powder, we used tablets, which are also more accessible; if you’ve got it as a powder, you may skip a few steps.

✪ Note: The difference between baking soda, NaHCO₃, and washing soda, Na₂CO₃. The heat will cause a reaction, 2NaHCO₃ → Na₂CO₃ + CO₂ + H₂O.

1. We set the oven to 425℉/220℃ and placed about 150g of baking soda on a sheet in a thin layer to bake for 2 hours. Once ready, it looked slightly finer, although it may be difficult to tell the difference (see Figure 4 above).

2. Your bottle of vitamin C tablets will tell you how much ascorbic acid is contained in each pill; we calculated a total of 16g of vitamin C/ascorbic acid. Then we crushed them in a Ziplock bag into a fine powder and mixed them carefully with 250ml of warm water in a bowl.

3. We strained our vitamin C mixture through a fine mesh and then a coffee filter. This took a really long time.

4. Mixed 54g of the washing soda (that we made by heating baking soda for two hours) with 250 ml of warm water.

5. Mixed the washing soda mixture with the vitamin C mixture. In our case, it caused a reaction that formed white solids, which we strained again and then poured into a measuring jug.

6. Added 40g of instant coffee and mix thoroughly.

7. Topped up with warm water to 1L, mixed, and added 20g of table salt.

8. Let the developer cool to 20-24℃. We used ice and water in the 5L plastic tub and CineStill Cs Temperature Control mixer to make a water bath where we submerged the sealed developer bottle.

Salt fixer.

We mixed 300g of iodized salt with 1L of warm water. Some salt remained undissolved, which we thought was OK.

✪ Note: Further discussion and the original suggestion for the salt fixer can be found here.

Developing time, agitation and temperature.

We poured the developer (20℃) into the Paterson tank with the film reel(s) and set a timer for 19 minutes.

We did ten inversion cycles for agitation and then three inversions every minute until the time was up.

Poured out the developer. The Cookbook authors advise not to reuse it, so we didn’t.

Filled the tank with the salt fixer, agitated ten times and then let stand for 12-48 hours. To speed things up, we heated ours to 42℃ and allowed it to cool for 10 hours before the final rinse.

Results.

I did not think we’d see any results from the negatives once I hung them to dry. They looked densely brown with barely visible silhouettes.

Densely-brown negatives out of Caffeenol developer mixture.

Later, someone confirmed that this is to be expected with Caffenol recipes. And thankfully, my scanner was able to pick up a decent amount of detail from the film.

That is not to say that I’m completely satisfied with the results. The images appear exceptionally grainy, significantly more than the results I got from T-Max P3200 developed in Ilford DDX by The Lab.

I’ve also noticed that many of the images appeared under-exposed, which may be the result of inconsistent metering or improper development times. Others’ results in slightly different mixtures, posted online or shared with me on Twitter and Mastodon, also showed large grains.

I used the PrimeFilm XAs scanner, which has a DMax of 4.2 (meaning it can work with very dense negatives).

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Kodak T-Max P3200 in modified Caffenol-C-H developer and salt fixer for 19min at 20℃.

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Kodak T-Max P3200 in modified Caffenol-C-H developer and salt fixer for 19min at 20℃.

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Kodak T-Max P3200 in modified Caffenol-C-H developer and salt fixer for 19min at 20℃.

And here are the respective samples of professionally-developed Kodak T-Max P3200 by The Lab in Ilford DDX:

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Kodak T-Max P3200 in Ilford DDX, pulled 1 stop by The Lab.

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Kodak T-Max P3200 in Ilford DDX by The Lab.

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Dmitri Author Mar 10, ‘24

I developed & fixed film using nothing but edible ingredients from a grocery store. It’s been over twelve months, and it’s time to re-scan to see how the picture holds up.

Developing black and white film with coffee is a well-known trick. Many photographers tried this method and its edible variations. However, the last step usually involves industrial chemicals.

The Caffenol film development experiment I tried last year used an unproven substitute for the last step (fixer): table salt. It got results, but I wasn’t sure if the film would fade over time.

Something reminded me of this experiment today, and I decided to scan the film again to see how well it held up.

Turns out it held up well. I see no significant difference between today’s scan (attached) and the results I got in December 2022 (see the article ☝️).

The salt fixer works!

My fixer recipe used 300g of iodized salt with 1L water (or as much as could dissolve). After some agitation, the film was soaked in salt overnight.

I can confirm this works, but could this recipe be altered to be more practical? Would an hour or even less time in salt still work?

#editorial🔥 #filmdev

08_gruel.recluse Mar 25, ‘24

I developed & fixed film using nothing but edible ingredients from a grocery store. It’s been over twelve months, and it’s time to re-scan to see how the picture holds up. Developing black and white film with coffee is a well-known trick. Many phot…

I have been meaning to respond to your original post. I was saddened to see how badly your negatives came out, and even more sad to see that you believed and others “confirmed” that this is normal! It is not! Proper Caffenol recipes produce negatives of the HIGHEST quality, indistinguishable from negatives developed in Kodak D76 or similar. Not grainy, not dark and murky. Clear, fine grain, great tonality and contrast. It makes me cringe to see all the people online saying you get poor quality negatives from Caffenol. I have been shooting since the 1990s on dozens of film stocks and with dozens of developers. I have been using nothing but Caffenol for the last few years since I realized its advantages. The only drawback is development time is a bit longer than commercial developers.

Dmitri Author Mar 25, ‘24

I understand. Could you tell me what may’ve gone wrong and have you developed this exact film using the recipe? The results were confirmed for P3200 specifically, I’ve certainly seen better results with slower emulsions.

The setup.

What does this recipe accomplish?

Ingredients.

About this article:

Dmitri