Developing C-41 in B&W Chemistry

[ravid905]

I've seen a few posts here and there regarding this subject. I have recently aquired about 30 rolls of Portra 400, for a little bit more than a buck a roll. Only slightly out of date, Dec 2005. The developers I use are Ilfosol S and Ilford DD-X. Can anyone recommend some developing times for this(ese) combinations. Usually use Ilfosol at 1+9 and DD-X at 1+4, temperature 21 degrees. Anytimes really, as I have quite a bit to experiment with. Also does anyone think it wouldn't even be worthwhile to try such a thing. Thanks in advance.

 

[tetrisattack]

Who can say? Give it 12 minutes and see what happens. If you do a few rolls of this, you can give us a definitive answer to which we can refer back. 🙂

 

[ravid905]

Well I did the first roll at 12 minutes using the DD-X mix, it looked pretty underdeveloped so I did another one at 14 minutes. Still looks a little light on developing. One thing I did notice is that it didn't seem to clear up like I would have expected with b&w negs. You could also still see the purple backing, I guess that's what it is. That disappeared after about twenty minutes and I was left with very dark brown negs still, although there was a definite image on both rolls that may be able to come up with something. Oh well, gotta start somewhere. Anyone have any advice they may want to add to help a newbie out??

 

[tetrisattack]

Interesting! Thank you for doing this!

The normal C-41 process has dye coupled to the silver. You develop the silver (and presumably the dye), then bleach the residual fixer out leaving just the dye, then the film is fixed.

So, without the bleach, it looks like you're stuck with very dark, very dense negatives.

This is only peripherally related, but it's similar. The other day I processed some C-41 but I intentionally skipped the bleach step because I'd heard of the effect being used in movies (saving private ryan) and on TV (CSI). I'll attach a picture of how the negatives came out, for purposes of comparison -- presumably, your unbleached negs look like mine but without the color.

I'll also attach a picture of what the negs look like printed on color paper.

In the first picture I'm holding a printfile sleeve up to the sun, in a skylight!

 

[Ash]

When I developed a C-41 roll in generic b&w chemistry I did it for about 10-15 mins I think. It was a month or so ago now. The same applies for E-6 film, you get the horrible dyes left on the film.

Try giving the film a wash BEFORE developing, with warm clean water to see whether anything washes off the neg (can't remember whether this helped, but it was a suggestion I was given before) and then do the normal b&w steps. DONT use bleach because it kills the negs in my experience.

The brown backing doesnt affect the neg tooo badly, try scanning or darkroom printing anyways, you might be surprised you can still get a photo out of it

 

[Ash]

underexposed (evening came too soon) and the other is the living room in the middle of the day, properly exposed with a touch up in photoshop - you can see what the brown layer does to a scan in the first strip

 

[ravid905]

Thanks for the starting point tetris, my negs do have a similar appearance to the ones you posted. I had no idea what to expect to begin with, I've only been devloping for two weeks now and I had gone through all my backlog of b&w's so I thought I'd give the c41 a try. Is that process you mentioned similar to what they may have used in Three Kings, for the infectious pockets of bile scenes? As for Ash, it is interesting to see the results of scanning the negs, very intersting tone to it, am I to assume you just scanned it as c41? Also the second attachment, is that one scanned as c41 and converted or scanned as b&w?I'm still waiting on my scanner to arrive, canada post has screwed up another delivery on me, so I have to wait a little while longer to do some of my own.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Well, this is my experience: I developed a roll of Kodak B&W C41 in "normal" B&W chemicals, and it all looked fine and dandy, but after about half a year, the negatives started to fade. I asked somebody in the darkroom I used to go to (and she had much more experience than myself), and told me that she wasn't surprised: I'd have to have the negatives reprocessed in C41 chemicals if I wanted to keep my negatives.

It was a test roll, so I just let it go. Four years later, I can barely see anything.

 

[tetrisattack]

Proper C-41 involves a stabilizer after the wash step, which not only serves as a photo-flo equivalent, but also stabilizes the dye with formaldehyde and god knows what else. They say it's an "optional" step, as in, it may be omitted if the longetivity of the film doesn't matter.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Another thing: C41 colour film processed in BW chemistry yields BW images in
a dense orange field. But if you bleach this developed film in C41 bleach (not blix!) to rehalogenise the silver image, the film can be processed "normally" through standard C41 processing and end up with full-colour images. The film has to be wash thoroughly and dried before running it through C41. Apparently, the colour couplers aren't destroyed in BW processing and remains with the developed silver.

Jay

 

[Ash]

Jay, How can this be possible? At least, how can you do this?

I played around with some bleach on a neg and the whole thing melted before my eyes.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Jay, How can this be possible? At least, how can you do this?

I played around with some bleach on a neg and the whole thing melted before my eyes.

Ash

Could it have been that you used "Blix" (combined bleach/fix) instead of just plain bleach? Blix baths would rehalogenise the silver and dissolve it at the same time. Bleach baths just rehalogenise the silver and leave it in the emulsion.

The bleach I used was a plain potassium ferricyanide + bromide solution. Same as the one found in two-bath sepia toners. Or you could make one:
Enough ferricyanide and bromide to make a 10% strengths of each in a solution. Add a bit of carbonate.

Soak the developed colour film in the bleach until the blackened silver image assumes a creamy-grey appearance. Observe the changes from the base side
of the film- the top layers tend to bleach faster. Once you can no longer see
black areas (should take about 10 minutes), rinse the film thoroughly and dry.
Intact rolls can be sent to a 1 common 1 hour street lab, but cut film strips can be tricky when reprocessed in C41 this way. Cut strips could be tray developed in C41. Processing can be done in room light. Process according to standard C41 instructions, but controls won't be too critical.

Jay