Color chemicals.

S

Stephanie Brim

Mental Experimental.
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Okay, I know how much easier it is to get a Jobo or another type of automated processor to do this, but I have nowhere near the money to do so. So, considering that it would save me a buttload of money, I'd like to look into doing color processing myself in a cute little two reel tank just like my other one. Does anyone have any tips on doing this? Best brands of chemicals to go with, go kit or separate chemicals, how to keep the temperatures stable, etc. Any advice would be appreciated. :)
 
Jobo's go on ebay for a fraction of what a new one costs from B&H et al. I'd check into used before I gave it up entirely. That said, it's still something I looked at and decided to hold off. (C-41 at home)
 
I'll back Xaos -- but with two buckets (one to stabilize the chemicals and the other to stabilize the tank), E6 at home is entirely possible.

Cheers,

Roger
 
Well, my basement is a constant 75 degrees...almost always. Even in winter. It's pretty damn stable as long as, after the chemicals are mixed, they're allowed to sit for at least a day to come to room temperature. I'm lucky with that. If I can develop at 75 degrees (which is what I do with black and white) I'll be able to do it with no water bath at all.
 
i'm looking into the same thing. a guy on pn, rowland mowrEy, has posted lots of good stuff on this. apparantly, he's been working on a c41 processing kit for decades. the best thing is to use kodak's chemistry, though i want to cheat a little. it looks like tetenal makes pretty good three step kits for e6 and c41, and they're much more affordable.

you're supposed to have a water bath to keep your chemicals at the right temp. first fill it up, tweak it until it's the right temp. then have a kettle of hotter water nearby (maybe on an electric stove) to bump the temperature back up when you need it. i bought a big styrofoam cooler a couple days ago, as well as a kodak process thermometer type 3. anyone want their thermometer calibrated? i'll do it for $1! dang, this thing was pricey.

today's research question is whether decanting and pouring chemistry by hand creates a timing problem.
 
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I use the Tetenal Press Kit C-41, no problem keeping the temperature for the short 3m15s development time.. Easily done with a standard 35mm tank.
 
Yes, I've done C41 for both chromogenic B&W and color negs in the same Kindermann stainless tanks used for traditional B&W. It's more awkward due to the 100-deg temp and the short developing time, but with some forethought and preplanning it can be routinely successful. (The short time makes pouring consistency important).
 
As to the specific chemicals... I haven't done this for some years, and used to use Ilford's own kit for XP-1 film, and Unicolor's color neg chemical kit. If I restarted this now I might well choose individual C41 components from Kodak.
 
If I were to develop color film at home, and this is a big IF. Here is what I would do, mainly because I am cheap and a bit odd. I would buy a picnic cooler at a yard sale to hold my warm water bath. I would buy a section of 4" PVC with end caps to match the number of chemical tanks in the process. I would cut the pvc to a length sufficent to hold however many reels I thought I would develop at one time plus some extra length for chemical displacement when the reels are submerged. I would cut a section of 1/4" plywood to fit over the cooler opening and in this plywood I would cut circular holes large enough for my pvc tanks to fit through. If I was using a three step process I would have 3 pvc tanks made. I would heat my chemicals to about 2 degrees above working temp and have my water bath at or slightly above working temp. Normally 100 degrees F. I would fashion a reel holder out of #9 wire as a handle to dip and dunk my reels of film in the tanks. With the lights off I would dip my reels into first tank for allotted time then remove and dip into next tank for allotted time etc. No worries about pouring chemicals in a timely fashion as they are already in the tanks.

The plywood would allow the tanks to stand upright in the water bath while film is being "dunked".

Wayne
 
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At one time there were some developing kits that were operatable at a wider range of processing temperatures than the standard 100f. Wonder if they are still around?
 
Rowland Mowrey posted about some C41 temperature experiments in a thread in the photo.net Film and Processing Forum about a year ago. He was trying different times, and was getting some success around 75 degF, and it included experiments on developer additives to address certain problems. I've lost track of further developments (sorry!) in these experiments, but it looked promising.
 
I use agfa c-41 which can be done at 87 F as well as 100 F. I like the results better at the lower temperature as the times are easier to get right. For temperature control I bought an old Fisher Scientific SS temperature bath on ebay for $10. You can still find them once in a while in the industrial MRO section.
 
Wayne R. Scott said:
If I were to develop color film at home, and this is a big IF. Here is what I would do, mainly because I am cheap and a bit odd.
Wayne
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Warped minds think alike. Err Great minds or soemthing or other. In my brain full of churning half baked ideas, this one keeps coming back. Eventually the minilabs will dry up, and they'll do so before film dissappears completely.
 
You don't need the whole automated Jobo schmeer, but if you plan to get serious about doing color I'd suggest you invest in a "tank roller" -- one of those motorized tabletop gizmos that agitates the tank by rolling it back and forth. The advantage of this is that it makes your agitation more consistent, so your results are less variable from roll to roll.

The disadvantages are that these rollers only work with plastic tanks (stainless steel ones don't seal up tightly enough) and you'll probably need a bigger tank than a two-roller -- the tank has to be long enough to fit across the roller's "cradle."

Otherwise, you don't really need anything for temperature control other than a foam plastic picnic cooler (ultra-cheap) and a good thermometer (not so cheap, but maybe you already have one.) You fill the cooler with water at slightly above your desired processing temperature, give it an hour or so to stabilize (the foam keeps the heat from getting away), then put the mixed chemicals and tank in it and leave them for another hour or so to stabilize. Once the temperature is stabilized, it won't drop very much during the few minutes that the tank is out of the cooler for the first developer, and the rest of the steps aren't nearly as temperature-critical.

I'm not sure you really save much money this way compared to the cost of getting process-only at a lab -- but if you want to experiment with pushing, pulling, cross-processing, etc., it might be the way to go.
 
I really like Wayne's idea of using a picnic cooler. Available cheap at thrift shops, and many have a convenient drainage spout at the bottom (I've personally had thoughts of converting one into a print washer, but that's another thread). I would think one of these could easily keep a water bath at 100dF for long enough.

While Wayne's full-meal-deal conversion also sounds great, you only need to fill the thing with the right temperature water to start using it - though you would have to open up the lid every 30 sec to agitate the film.

As for getting the chemistry to the right temperature, I use a stainless steel 1000cc graduate (another thrift-shop find) sitting in 3-4 inches of very hot water. Pour the chemicals in, stir with a thermometer until done, pour back into bottle and place in water-bath.

Good luck
 
jlw said:
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I'm not sure you really save much money this way compared to the cost of getting process-only at a lab -- but if you want to experiment with pushing, pulling, cross-processing, etc., it might be the way to go.
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That's the first question that sprang to my mind also. Considering the cost of development and sleeving only (without prints), I am not sure it is worth it in color.

Has anybody kept track of costs to see if there is really a savings? For sure there is in b/w, but I am not so sure about color. Of course, if you just turn on to doing your own, that is different.
 
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