How difficult is C-41 at home?

[Chris C]

I've been using the Tetenal kits on everything up to 4x5 for a year or two now and get better results with it than my lab was doing (mostly dust control). Thankfully I can get it through Tetenal NZ's importer, but have to wait for their next order from the mothership in Germany and then wait for their container to be shipped.

I found a mixer tap made temperature control really easy, especially combined with a digital thermostat on my gas hot water supply. I use that for my pre heat, stop bath between steps and final rinse and after mixing my chems I just microwave them (second hand microwaves are plentiful and dirt cheap) until they're up to temp.

I've also been meaning to make one of these for a while now. I'll probably just make it rotate one way, or maybe a manual switch for reversal like what I have on my diy motorbase, but I'm also keen to add temperature control too. Maybe a jug element with a thermostat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suQTE3wx_Jk

 

[zauhar]

Thanks to Bobby Novatron for the details - I couldn't figure out what the "preheating" was about.

I just got a bill for $170 from my photo lab (with discount!) for processing a load of color film - I at least want to give the freestyle kit a try.

I borrowed an unwanted water bath from my university, so that should at least make the temperature issue easier to deal with.

Randy

 

[Tompas]

I just peaked at the Jobo Processors on the 'bay - most certainly nothing for 50€! (...)

Yes, sorry, language problem...

I meant I got my Jobo for 50€, not that they are readily available for that price. I remember I watched eBay for several weeks to find it; also my Jobo is a pretty basic version (DuoLab), just a water bed for the drum, four slots for sheet film or paper, a one-speed motor and 3 temperatures.

Recommended if you can find one for a decent price.

 

[grainhound]

Bobby Novatron: thanks for the tip re shipping Digibase from Germany. I just emailed macodirect.de for details, and will order if they can deliver.
You may not be aware that B&H have added a cheaper (ground) shipping option.
Tetenal 1L kit: $19.95
shipping: $8.22
So 16 rolls would be less than $2/roll, cheaper than any C-41 lab I've priced in Toronto.
There were posts by Petronius, an RFF member who has really delved into the process, that the 16 roll limit can be raised substantially. I couldn't find those posts, but in his blogspot he says he developed 29 rolls of film with one 1L Tetenal kit with no noticeable falloff in quality. His blog is worth reading for more reasons than that.
http://classicameras.blogspot.com/search/label/Developing

 

[JohnTF]

I normally get my RA4 chemistry from a friend at a store with a mini lab, I am a long time customer, was just wondering if the machine chemistry for C 41 is the same as what you guys need? I know it is for RA4, and as they buy in much larger sizes it is economical, some schools have picked up the habit from me and he now sells to them. I have a feeling someone here will know if this is practical.

Postal regs. are a bit strange, like you can buy/post small bottles of Rodinal but not larger ones, I thought it had something to do with some lists made up in recent years about shipping caustic materials. I do not think the new regs were aimed at this stuff, but you know how regs. end up. Rodinal concentrate is probably pretty alkaline and fits somewhere in the new regs.

For a while, folks were smuggling in Canadian toilets, as the early water saving toilets required here unfortunately required about 3 flushes/use. It make sense in some places, but when you live on the Great Lakes, a low water toilet and shower makes less sense, but regs. sometimes end up being "one size fits all".

Regards, John

 

[FrankS]

I love the idea of using a picnic cooler, with its insulation, and I have one with a spigot at the bottom (for melted Ice water) so when one adds hot water to keep the temp up, some water volume can be released to keep the water level from getting too high. I had a Jobo processor for years but never used it. Bought low, sold high.

 

[jon.oman]

One possiblity is to make your own C-41 from the raw chemicals. I have not tried it yet, but I am thinking about it. Here is one link I have found that gives the formula:

http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/photo/c41.htm

 

[zauhar]

I tried my hand at C-41 last night using the Digibase kit - the one with separate bleach (not 'blix'). Results were usable, but underwhelming. Issues-

1) Magenta shadows in a couple frames. According to the instructions my developer was too warm (it was spot-on at 38 C), OR too much agitation. Too much agitation is possible, as I maybe didn't keep to the schedule and was not sure how many seconds to agitate (I was twirling, not inverting).

2) Purple spots on a few frames after drying. The stabilizer clearly has a wetting agent, so I did not add any photoflo as folks suggest online for other kits. Did I still need that?

3) When the hell are you supposed to rinse? The instructions mention NO rinse step(s), but online advice I see advises rinsing, and the advice is contradictory.

An RFFer had a nice video on using one of the kits, but I can't find it. (Maybe it's somewhere in this thread and I can't see it?)

Thanks for any pointers,

Randy

 

[AJShepherd]

I use a tetenal C41 kit, and my process follows something like this:-

Load film into dev. tank.
Put (empty) tank, and bottles containing colour developer, bleach fix, and stabilizer in a bath of hot water (plenty of steam helps keep down floating dust particles too!)

Wait ten minutes or so. Check the temperatures. If the chemicals aren't at 38°, wait a bit longer. If they're too hot, take them out of the hot water and wait a bit to see if they cool off.

At 38° start development process as written in instructions which come with kit.

When done, take film out of tank and hang to dry.

It's all really quite easy, and so long as the developer is the right temperature when I start I don't bother checking it again!

I've been using these for a few years now, and get pretty good results. It really is just as easy as B&W developing, with just the need to get the temperature right at the start.

 

[zauhar]

I use a tetenal C41 kit, and my process follows something like this:-

Load film into dev. tank.
Put (empty) tank, and bottles containing colour developer, bleach fix, and stabilizer in a bath of hot water (plenty of steam helps keep down floating dust particles too!)

Wait ten minutes or so. Check the temperatures. If the chemicals aren't at 38°, wait a bit longer. If they're too hot, take them out of the hot water and wait a bit to see if they cool off.

At 38° start development process as written in instructions which come with kit.

When done, take film out of tank and hang to dry.

It's all really quite easy, and so long as the developer is the right temperature when I start I don't bother checking it again!

I've been using these for a few years now, and get pretty good results. It really is just as easy as B&W developing, with just the need to get the temperature right at the start.

Well, the issue is that the Digibase instructions suck. I KNOW there is a rinse step, in fact more than one rinse according to what I've seen, but the instructions say nothing about that. I found some more detailed directions someone posted at one point, but cannot track them down.

Randy

 

[zauhar]

I found this in an APUG discussion:

"Lack of stop bath is not odd, but lack of wash is. Referring to Kodak's Z-131 publication (I believe the 3rd PDF is most appropriate for small-tank use in home darkrooms), the Kodak C-41 process is normally:
Developer: 3:15
Bleach III: 6:30
Wash: 3:15
Fixer: 6:30
Wash: 3:15
Stabilizer III: 1:30
Dry: As needed

In another thread, PE explained that the bleach is acidic enough to serve as a stop bath, so no separate stop is necessary. (RA-4 blix, used in print-making, is apparently much less acidic. I'm not sure about the blixes used in C-41 kits that use blix.) FWIW, I use a pre-soak prior to the developer step in order to bring the film temperature up to 100F.

Also, there are variants on many of these chemicals from Kodak, such as final rinse rather than stabilizer. (Stabilizer is needed for older films, but either works fine with newer films from Kodak and Fuji.)

If the washes were omitted, the bleach would contaminate the fixer. This might not be a big problem if you used it one-shot. IIRC, the instructions for Kodak's single-use E-6 kit don't include a wash between the bleach and the fixer, but this is a single-use kit. I don't know how much of a problem it would be if you were to re-use the fixer; it would effectively turn the fixer into a weak blix. Certainly omitting the wash after the fixer step would leave fixer in the film, and that couldn't be good."

Does that make sense to anyone? The developing time matches the Rollei instructions.

In my case I did NOT rinse between bleach and fixer steps - according to the above I contaminated the fixer. Good thing that I momentarily thought I was doing B&W and discarded the fixer down the drain! I needed to make some more... I DID rinse between fixing and stabilizer, about 2 min with 38 C tap water. I also rinsed between developer and bleach steps, per someone's suggestion.

One person suggests rinsing after EVERY step to avoid contamination of the reagents!

Randy

 

[Juan Valdenebro]

I've used the Tetenal kits always (separate liquids).

It's very easy, as B&W.

I load film (no presoaking for taking it to temperature) normally on my plastic reels.

For chemicals temperature, I use my microwave oven little by little, and for keeping that temperature I use a big bowl with water at the same temperature and place the tank inside up to its top, and if -during development- my thermometer says it's half a degree below, I add a very little bit of very hot water (I keep apart) to the bowl's water surrounding the tank, and check it went back to the right temperature. All this is really easy.

It works perfectly for negative film. As doing C-41 home doesn't mean a considerable saving and I can have it well done going to lots of labs, I use C-41 home basically for something that's hard to get well done in labs: developing slide film with C-41 to get color negatives from positive color film... The advantage in doing it home, is you can use longer times and calibrate your exposure ISOs and development times... I used to push my development for cross-processing always... For C-41 that's 20, 40, 60 more seconds... I really recommend it: cross-processing has been done for decades and our brain has seen that palette in magazines for a long time, so it's nice to see results... Best films are ISO100 Kodak slide film (I prefer all the rest over 100VS... Avoid Fuji)... And for skins I like to post-process digitally to get skins tonally on place and let the other colors be whatever... Very nice for women and clothes in nature... Bracket a test roll at N-1, N and N+1 incident for every shot, and develop normally as a start or 30 seconds more for wilder colors... Contrast is up always, so compose for medium tone colors and visualize blocked shadows and blown hghlights&clear colors...

Cheers,

Juan

 

[dfatty]

I found this in an APUG discussion:

"Lack of stop bath is not odd, but lack of wash is. Referring to Kodak's Z-131 publication (I believe the 3rd PDF is most appropriate for small-tank use in home darkrooms), the Kodak C-41 process is normally:
Developer: 3:15
Bleach III: 6:30
Wash: 3:15
Fixer: 6:30
Wash: 3:15
Stabilizer III: 1:30
Dry: As needed
Randy

When I was trying to figure out c-41 processing steps, I remember reading a lot of PE's advice on APUG (IIRC he may have worked for Kodak?). I don't remember all my thought processes but I basically arrived at the steps you've listed. Except that I do bleach for 4:20, and when I rinse, I rinse for 4 mins, changing water every minute. It's a pain but easier with a Jobo, which I use. Oh, and I also do a pre-soak of 4 minutes before the developer (changing water once at 2mins), to bring the film temp up. IIRC PE seemed to think this was very important.

It seems to work well for me, and I've been using the same batch of chems for a few months now with no contamination issues afaik. I do remember reading that you do not want to do a rinse between the developer and bleach.

 

[zauhar]

Dean, I will try the steps with your modifications.

How much (and how?) do you agitate? I am using a two-reel tank with one reel loaded and I question if inversion is appropriate (and inversion seems to be expected). The fact is, I may have agitated too much just by twirling - I will better regulate it next time.

Juan, I agree that there is not that much advantage over the photo lab, and my local lab does a good job - I should help keep them in business! I mainly wanted to be able to process the film fast if I was in a hurry to see something, or if I had a lot (like ten rolls) and didn't want a huge bill.

Cross-processing sounds interesting, if I can get some confidence with the basics I would like to learn more.

Thanks!

Randy

 

[dfatty]

Dean, I will try the steps with your modifications.

How much (and how?) do you agitate? I am using a two-reel tank with one reel loaded and I question if inversion is appropriate (and inversion seems to be expected). The fact is, I may have agitated too much just by twirling - I will better regulate it next time.

Randy

Randy, I use a Jobo, which has a motor that continuously spins the tank, and reverses the direction of spin every few seconds. So I'm not exactly sure how to do it manually. But considering that the slow speed on the Jobo is supposedly about 25rpm, I'm guessing you're not twirling too much by hand? I'm far from an expert on processing though.

 

[zauhar]

I tried again last night, this time using Dean's protocol, this time with a Paterson tank (rather than the Samigon, which had damp reels).

The results were again disappointing, with magenta in the shadows, sickly colors in general, and very harsh grain. THAT has to be the clue - it is my agitation that is to blame.

The Rollei sheet indicated that the magenta shadows could be due to too much agitation, so I reduced my agitation this time. The Paterson tank I have has no top, nor a twirling rod, so I agitate using an off-center oscillation of the whole tank (basically a swirling motion). This works fine for B&W, but maybe this is very wrong for C-41 chemistry.

In general, excessive grain is due to excessive agitation (or so I have read, have not had that issue with B&W). I think I will try next time with very gentle agitation with the Samigon tank/spinning rod, and see what happens.

I need some more color film to process, first.

Randy

 

[zauhar]

I wanted to post a couple examples - I think that the grain is not all that excessive, rather the issue is that I didn't do a final rinse with photoflo, since the stabilizer seems to have some detergent in it. But I still had a lot of blotches.

The colors are not always good. Magenta in the shadows:

Sickly yellows:

Any of you get the same sort of effect with the Rollei kit?

I am going to try agitation by inversion this time and see what happens.

Randy

 

[neelin]

Ecojet-N Type 04-LR
These are 1000 roll (24exp) modules for Noritsu & Konica/Minolta minilabs that are in use in North America. They are available from suppliers to minilabs of the dry tablet type.
The chemistry is dry tablets. I've worked out a regime of replenishment for small tanks. I've mixed 1 liter quantities of replenisher, then use it to make my starter and then continue to use my replenisher.
If you got a GWN group together you could probably split a kit of dry tablets.
I'm not sure but I think labs buy it for just over $300, so mere mortals could prob. pick it up for around $400.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neelin/5040804004/in/set-72157623581710904
If you look at Flickr, youll see some of the examples. Quite saturated results. I also have a pair of 1-shot experiments up there with diluted replenisher.

**disclaimer: these are commercial chemicals, but the procedures are home-made experimental because they are designed for process equipment, not batch (small tank). I use 3:15@100F dev. time. I'm happy with the results, I'm sure there is much room for tweaking, but I don't have the volume to interest me in further refining. I did use a precision pH meter at a lab to do my initial start-up dilutions. I would have like to refine it, combining with hydrometer readings, especially as the chemistry is used to tweak replenishment rates, but I don't have access to them.

 

[zauhar]

I have tried every agitation scheme I can think of, and have been very careful with temperature - at this point I question if my reagents are really OK. My last experiment, using inversions, produced slightly better results than the photos I posted above, but still not acceptable.

Did any of you use the Rollei Digibase kit? All discussion seems to center on the Tetenal.

I ordered the Tetanal kit, will give it a try soon. Really frustrating.

Randy

 

[dfatty]

Sorry it's not working for you, Randy! I'm curious about the agitation because I've used my Jobo at higher RPM with no ill effect on the output. Below is a snap I took last week while testing a new body, developed with the Rollei chemicals. I think it's fairly color accurate. (In fact, I made this current batch of the Rollei chemicals in January, so it's 8 months old and working okay. I did up the dev time a bit because it's old)

I'm relatively new to film and developing film so I'm still learning myself. But the Rollei chems have worked for me so I think that after you figure out what needs tweaking your results should be much better. If I see anything about the proper way to hand agitate or what might otherwise be causing it I'll let you know.