The first attempt was very underdeveloped so back to the drawing board. I realised that the caffenol recipe I’d based my clove recipe on was intended for long stand development, of about 70 minutes, and had a low Sodium Carbonate content so my development time was far too short. This time I increased the Sodium Carbonate in the mix and left everything else the same. Development of a test strip of film suggested that the developer was working so I proceeded to develop a roll of snapshots from around the house using the new recipe.
The only other change I made for this attempt was in the film used. Previously I’d used Silberra 54UN ISO100 film. Expensive stuff. This time I used Fomapan 200 35mm film as I have a ready supply of this and it’s relatively cheap so I can keep experimenting without changing the film type or going broke.
Ingredients
- 1 x 500mg clove supplement tablet
- 27g Sodium Carbonate (Soda Ash)
- 10g Vitamin C powder
- 500ml tap water
Method
As per attempt 1. This time I measured the temperature of the developer at the point of use, 28°C. Once I have adjusted the development timings, I will work on the temperature to get useful results.
- In a 500ml jug, dissolve the clove tablet in 200ml water at 48°C. Stir for 20 seconds and leave to stand.
- In a second, 1 litre jug, add the Sodium carbonate to 300ml water at room temperature, stir until the mixture is nearly clear.
- Add the Vitamin C powder to the Sodium Carbonate solution, and stir until the mixture is nearly clear. The solution will fizz a little but nothing alarming.
- Carefully pour the clove solution into the Sodium Carbonate. Try to avoid transferring the sediment.
- Leave the solution to stand.
Development, stop bath, fixing, and wash
As per attempt 1
Results
This was a success, although the film was very overdeveloped. I think this is mainly down to the length of development time however temperature could be a factor. Most development is done at 20°C, but this was done at 28°C, so a big difference. The resulting pictures were very grainy, but I got much better contrast. The pictures have a slight ‘fog’, which I may try to address later with some Potassium Bromide, but I want to get the timings close first, then will review the fogging. For the next attempt, I will use the same recipe but roughly halve the development time to 12 minutes.
Here’s a couple of photographs from this attempt:
Clovenol 