1st Time Developing C41

[wjlapier]

My 1st time developing C41 film. Fujicolor 200. I screwed up the first roll I really wanted to see, but had another from my trip to Glacier National Park this summer. Making the working solution is probably the hardest part if you want to call it that. Not sure why I waited so long. I used a Jobo C41 1L kit. Dev time per instructions. Scanned with a Coolscan V and Vuescsan and finished in PS with a little level adjustment. For the most part I'm pretty happy--and proud of myself. But a few images had a color cast I'm not sure how that happened. Anyway, a few pics:

Glacier National Park 2015 by wjlapier, on Flickr

Glacier National Park 2015 by wjlapier, on Flickr

(Color cast)

Glacier National Park 2015 by wjlapier, on Flickr

Glacier National Park 2015 by wjlapier, on Flickr

Glacier National Park 2015 by wjlapier, on Flickr

(Another color cast)

Glacier National Park 2015 by wjlapier, on Flickr

Like I said, pretty happy with the results. I have a few more 35mm rolls to develop and one 120 ( Ektar ).

I have some old Kodak 120 film that has been frozen for a long time. Should be interesting to see what I get from that film.

Camera and lens was Leica M7 and Nikkor S Mount 35mm f/3.5 with Amedeo adapter:

IMG_2577 by wjlapier, on Flickr

 

[Fotohuis]

You always have a color cast in C-41 films. When printing in RA-4 you are telling the color analyser on a Grey card what is a neutral print and the system is correcting then in Y, M filters on the enlarger the right filter values.

If you have a Grey card in your negative (or a part of the road which is nearly a Grey card value) you can also do this with you P.S. (E). software.

Because I am normally printing all negatives in B&W, color in the classical way I can not be very helpfull for a full explaination in the digital way. But here are enough people to tell you exactly how to click in your software to have a neutral filtered result.

 

[znapper]

It's not always the case though.
In the digital (scanned) world, you can have perfectly neutral mid-tones, but you may have cast in the shadows or casts in the highlights.

Sometimes you can even have casts in the blue, green and red tones as well, causing skin to look completely off - when everything else seem to look fine.

Usually, for me anyway, most of the casts can be removed trough curves-adjustments on the specific color-channels, but other times, I have real issues getting a scan to look normal, while at the same time have a little pop and good saturation.

IE. Scanning and color-correction is a real drag, even with helpful software, also negative-scans will vary from frame to frame, on the same scene, from same negative-strip. (which may make people contemplate to start drinking after a while)

IMO scanning manufacturers and software-makers should fix this. When I get scans and prints from my local lab, the scans are completely equal to the prints, never any cast of anything, -and they aren't adjusting frame by frame in the labs, they batch-process the whole lot in a jiffy.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Well done!
And don't worry about cast it is film where it is acceptable. 🙂

 

[wjlapier]

Thank you for the comments and feedback!

Now that I have done my second roll I'm starting to think about a few things. But the main thing is how to heat the bath without wasting so much water running. I see some water baths on ebay and have read about the fish tank heaters. What are you guys using to bring up the temp and maintain it?

Funny thing about the second roll. I was sure I was developing a roll from this past summer vacation in Glacier National Park. It was the last image scanned that got me to thinking the roll was sitting around for 3 years. Shot the summer of 2012 in GNP. Looking back over some of the previous scans confirmed that. And I forgot what camera ( probably my M7 ) and lens ( not sure ).

 

[Fotohuis]

I am using a Jobo CPA-2 processor with elevator. In this way any color process on a higher temperature is a piece of cake. The whole process is running on 100F/37,8C +/- 0,2C.