How should properly developed negatives look, and do these C-41 negatives developed in Caffenol appear correct?
Asked 3/27/2017
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I developed a roll of Fuji C-41 color negative film in Caffenol for 18 minutes, and the strip looks very faint unless I hold it up to a strong light. There are images on the film, but they are hard to see, and the result is black-and-white rather than normal color negatives.
What should properly developed negatives look like? From the appearance of these negatives, do they seem underdeveloped, overdeveloped, or affected by exposure problems?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
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Why go about this learning experience the hard way? First -- you need to abandon experimenting with color film processed as black & white. You need to start using conventional black and white chemicals. You need to hold off on using Caffenol until you get some more darkroom time. Color negatives have an orange overall base coloring that is more difficult to evaluate. They are also more difficult to print. For this and a thousand other reasons, start with conventional black & white film and chemicals. By the way, the posted images appear under-exposed and over-developed.
Originally by user44949. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user44949
9y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
A normal negative usually looks easiest to judge when held to a bright light: clear film areas should still show a visible film base, and image areas should have a good range of densities without looking either completely empty or blocked up.
In your case, the results sound typical of an unusual process: C-41 color film developed in Caffenol won’t look like standard lab-processed color negatives, and the orange film base of color negative film makes evaluation harder. Based on the community replies, your strip likely shows image detail, but it may be underexposed and overdeveloped. Several answers also note that 18 minutes is probably too long for this kind of Caffenol use, with one experienced user suggesting roughly 11–12 minutes depending on the exact recipe and temperature.
If you’re learning to evaluate negatives, the simplest path is to use standard black-and-white film with normal black-and-white chemistry first. If you want to troubleshoot whether the problem is exposure or processing, shoot a bracketed test roll and have it processed by a reliable lab so you can confirm your camera exposure before experimenting further.
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