Q: What smells like a wet dog that has rolled in a dead gopher?

A: Instant coffee and washing soda, that's what.

But its worth it!

I've been shooting digital almost exclusively for the better part of two years now, but I still enjoy the process of shooting and developing film. I think it's the smell. Well, it 'can' smell good. However, if you decide you want to make your own developer the smell goes from pleasant to "Chaz, what are you making... oh my god that reeks!"

The recipe I used is called Caffenol-C and it is a home made film developer. And it smells really, really bad! The large amounts of carbon in the washing soda must react, a la decaying animal, with the instant coffee. The vitamin C speeds up the reaction of the caffeine with the film, so its not an essential ingredient, it only affects the developing time.

I had a half finished roll of Kodak BW400CN that I wanted to develop, and I wanted to know how a 'color' black and white film would do in black and white chemistry. The results are really good. The tonal range and grain is very pleasing for a 400 speed film.

Here's the recipe for the developer:
4 500mg tablets of crushed vitamin C tablets*
1 tablespoon of washing soda (sodium carbonate, not baking soda- sodium bicarbonate)
4 tablespoons of instant coffee crystals
12 oz. of water at ~75 deg F.

* after pouring the developer into the tank, I noticed a white, solid precipitate at the bottom of the mixing glass and suspected it was the vitamin C fallen out of solution or just mutated.

I used a vinegar solution for the stop bath and a dish soap solution for the final wash. For the fixer, I had to purchase it from a local photography store as it can't be easily MacGyver'd.
The Vitamin C is supposed to accelerate the developing time, but I suspected that some of the vitamin C had fallen out of suspension. I used slightly warmer water to keep the developing time unchanged.

I scanned the film and the picture above is straight out of the scanner. As you can see the tones smooth, not bunched up and the grain pleasing, though that might not show at this size.

I'm still debating developing more film this way, or admitting olfactory defeat and going with commercial developer.

The '$' signs are from the scanning software I was testing/using, the free version watermarks images with dollar signs. I suspect that's to let viewers know the picture is worth lots of money. :+)

Silver Vs. Silicon

Here are two shots, comparing a 10.2 MP camera (Nikon D80) and a 10.2 MP film scanner (Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III).
This test is purely subjective- being performed in curiosity and free time mode rather than lab coat and pen protector mode. The list of differences and variations are in fact longer than the similarities between the two tests. :+)

Here is example A and B:



And now a crop of A and B:



Whats not scientific about this?!
Along the way I realized the number of factors which invalidated this test were so numorous that there was no point in comparing the two anymore.
If you look closely, one sample is definitely grainier, and one has a wider tonal range. These too are misleading, and both can be attributed to the user and not the medium.

Film has a couple things going for it. Silver atoms are small- smaller than the photosites of a CMOS or CCD sensor. This means more detail can be captured on film and reproduced on paper in the darkroom. Film can also hold more tonal range than digital, 7+ stops compared to 5ish.
Digital has some advantages though. Its wicked fast for review and publication! If you need to do post processing there is no loss of data from scanning as with negatives.
Even with these reasons there still isn't a grand canyon sized difference in quality. Unless you have access to very expensive equipment, you won't be realizing the full benefit of film if you scan it for printing as a scanner is just a digital camera. You're just taking a digital picture of a really good picture.

The above images are pretty similar aren't they?
It might just boil down to convenience. Do you have time or facility to develop your film? Do you want to spend time in digital post-processing? Do you need extreme detail on poster-sized prints?


...
And no, I didn't forget to mention which was film and which was digital.

Last of the roll

Here are the last frames from the BW400CN/Caffenol-C experiment:
Bea and Gary

And now, the rest of the... roll

And here are some more of the pictures developed from the roll of Kodak BW400CN.