Baffled and Intrigued - Color Film in Rodinal?

[DRabbit]

I saw on another thread (about grainy photo) a sample of color film developed in Rodinal... the result was both interesting and confusing!

How is something like this done? I'd love to experiment with it...

 

[Rhodes]

Well, my experience with rodinal and color c-41 film was involuntary, since I was thinking that the film I loaded and shoot and then developed 1:100 one hour stand with rodinal was fuji mini-copy. After a few days I realize the error. The resaults was something completly dark in the negatives. I only saw something when puting the negs agaist a lamp or some stron bright light.
Now ilford XP-2 is another story...

 

[Disaster_Area]

I've done C41 in Rodinal before ... usually 1:100 stand for 2+ hours with an inversion every half hour or so. I thought it might give an interesting effect... something to make it stand out from the rest of my B&W negs... in reality it just turns out muddy, low contrast and very grainy. Not to the point of unusability, but it definitely doesn't have any special characteristics that would make me choose it over any of my other B&W films. I guess if you had a big stock of C41 and didn't have a convenient or cheap place to get them souped it's an good way to not let it go to waste, but I wouldn't consider it a substitute for real BW film.

Maybe if you could find some non-stand development times for it, you might get better results... the low contrast is probably due to the long dev time in dilute developer more than the film itself... If anyone's actually found a good reason to use C41 in BW chems I'd love to know.

 

[petronius]

The reason for me is that I can get CN film with 200 or 400 ASA for next to nothing, while BW film is much more expensive. My scanner works very well with the flat negatives I get. You have to like grain when you do this!

I do it so:
1) Prewash the film for three minutes in warm water
2) Rodinal 1+50
3) Developing time 17min. First 30 sec agitation, then two tilts after each minute
4) No stop bath, just water
5) Fixer
6) Wash; "Ilford" method, extended (5x, 10x, 20x, 40x)
7) Tetenal Mirasol for 30 sec
8) Strip off the Mirasol bath with the fingers
9) Dry
10) After drying I roll the film reversed for some hours to remove the twist and get flat negatives
11) Scanning with Canoscan 8400F @3200dpi

To my surprise not so much postprocessing than I thought is necessary .
All I posted in my blog in the last two months are done with this method.

 

[scorpius73]

The reason for me is that I can get CN film with 200 or 400 ASA for next to nothing, while BW film is much more expensive. My scanner works very well with the flat negatives I get. You have to like grain when you do this!

I do it so:
1) Prewash the film for three minutes in warm water
2) Rodinal 1+50
3) Developing time 17min. First 30 sec agitation, then two tilts after each minute
4) No stop bath, just water
5) Fixer
6) Wash; "Ilford" method, extended (5x, 10x, 20x, 40x)
7) Tetenal Mirasol for 30 sec
8) Strip off the Mirasol bath with the fingers
9) Dry
10) After drying I roll the film reversed for some hours to remove the twist and get flat negatives
11) Scanning with Canoscan 8400F @3200dpi

To my surprise not so much postprocessing than I thought is necessary .
All I posted in my blog in the last two months are done with this method.

I have an old roll of E2 process film. Would it be the same process and times? Just curious. Thanks.

 

[petronius]

Sorry scorpius73, I have no experience with E2 film. There was a discussion in photo.net about E2: http://photo.net/film-and-processing-forum/00DzKU

 

[venchka]

Nothing baffling. Not very intriguing. Friends of mine through C-41 film in B&W developer all the time. D-76, Rodinal, Xtol, Diafine. Diafine is real easy. slosh in solution A. Drain. Slosh in solution B. Drain. Rinse. Fix. Wash. Hang.

Most folks do it with expired film purchased cheap. Cheaper than buying B&W film. My friends are using 120/220 film.

 

[jan normandale]

here's an old thread covering this topic...

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7606

 

[Tom A]

It also works with old and expired Kodachrome! I usually rate it at twice box speed - run it in Rodinal 1:50 for 12-14 minutes. Also done it in Rodinal 1:25 for 12 min (K-25). I find the result better with K-chrome than with C-41. Probably because K-chrome is inherently a multilayer black/white film, where the color is added in the process. There was a way of taming K II contrast by running it in a low contrast bl/w developer too - similar to taming Cibachrome P10 contrast.
Somewhere on Flickr there is a site with a lot of these experiments. I will try to find it later.

 

[jan normandale]

It also works with old and expired Kodachrome! I usually rate it at twice box speed - run it in Rodinal 1:50 for 12-14 minutes. Also done it in Rodinal 1:25 for 12 min (K-25). I find the result better with K-chrome than with C-41. Probably because K-chrome is inherently a multilayer black/white film, where the color is added in the process. There was a way of taming K II contrast by running it in a low contrast bl/w developer too - similar to taming Cibachrome P10 contrast.
Somewhere on Flickr there is a site with a lot of these experiments. I will try to find it later.

Tom if you do find the site with the experiments please post a link here. I've made a note to track this thread. Thanks Jan

 

[DRabbit]

Thanks for the info everyone... I nearly forgot I started this thread!