E6 Home Development Issue

wjlapier

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So, here is a photo from some expired Ektachrome I shot yesterday. Developed today. The color cast can be removed in PS, but I'm wondering a couple of things.

Apparently this film was frozen all it's life. I bought it and froze it until. yesterday. My E6 chemicals are close to 3-4 weeks old and used twice. From what I read in the instructions developing time should have been 7 minutes. The rest stayed the same--wash 7 refills, color dev 4.5 minutes, wash 7 refills, Blix 10 minutes, wash 5 minutes and photo-flo 1 minute.

The cast--from expired film? Chems getting old already? Developing time wrong. Temp--I don't think this is it since some other slides I developed previously came out just fine.





I would love to see the second image on the light table but as it is now all I see are slightly blueish 6x6 slides. I would like to eliminate my developing so that is why I asked about Dwaynes. I have 6 more rolls of the same Ektachrome and will run another roll through the same camera--Mamiyaflex C then send it to Dwaynes to see what they can do--they said they will develop only for me.

I'm hoping to have some nice slide film to shoot in Oregon when we go to Cannon Beach this spring break.
 
Expired even though frozen and or developer or color developer too old. Contamination gives weird results also. Does not take much.

I used to buy 6 step kits and extra developer so it would be fresh.

I was never happy with blix kits, full 6 step gives better colors.
 
I've only used Kodak chemistry but Ive run thousands of rolls and sheets in my studio.

I'd say your film is ok but think you've got a contamination issue. It's very likely a little bit of blix in the color developer or other contaminate in the color developer.

The Dmax looks blue and low density which could be incompleter reversal due to old color developer also. If you're brace and want to run another roll, pull the roll after the first developer wash and carefully expose the film to bright light for thirty seconds or so. E3 which I ran a great deal of used a light reversal with photo floods after the 1st Dev wash. You can still do that if you suspect a dead reversal agent in the color dev. If it's contamination then it'll still look terrible. Light reversal went away when E4 came out and the reversal was chemically done. In any case the reversal must be complete.
 
With expired film that demands results, I'd take it to a lab. I ruined 3 rolls of C64 at home with chemistry that was well within it's lifespan (yet somehow exhausted/contaminated). Stopped developing color at home since I never had a full 20+ rolls to do in a single batch.
 
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