Develop Film with Instant Coffee and Vitamin C

Craft & Design Photography & Video

Matt Richardson @ MAKE recently explored homebrew film developing with “caffenol” in this how-to video.

Only recently did I find out that you can develop negative film with instant coffee, vitamin C, and washing soda. This homebrew developer has become known as “caffenol” and there are plenty of photographers out there who have used this method in the darkroom. I read up on a few different recipes and tried my hand at developing my own snapshots with caffenol. As you can see from the video, it took a couple tries, but I did eventually get it right. As a matter of fact, I was impressed with the results:

Subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube and Vimeo.

2 thoughts on “Develop Film with Instant Coffee and Vitamin C

  1. Jenn Wisbeck says:

    How cool! Sounds like a great way for people to try developing film without lots of chemicals.

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Becky Stern is a Content Creator at Autodesk/Instructables, and part time faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Products of Design grad program. Making and sharing are her two biggest passions, and she's created hundreds of free online DIY tutorials and videos, mostly about technology and its intersection with crafts. Find her @bekathwia on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram.

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