Since I'm getting all this film...

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Stephanie Brim

Mental Experimental.
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Lots of slide film means lots of developing cost. If I'm just going to have it scanned anyway, why not just try and develop it myself? I figured that I'd need an E-6 kit and a C-41 kit, really, to do everything I want to do. Is it recommended? Can I do it without going insane? I hear bad things about trying to develop color yourself, but when it comes right down to it, I don't have access to a local lab that will do cross processing and so if I don't want to go 70 miles out of my way any time I want to get something developed, it will be best to take on the task myself.

So yeah, any tips would be appreciated. Besides the obvious, "start with black and white first" one, I mean.
 
The biggest problem with developing color is temperature control. If there were any way you could send it off or save up and make one trip to have a whole batch processed you'd probably be better off. Not to discourage home developing, but I've heard it's quite difficult.

Paul
 
Yeah, that's what I hear too. Bah. Maybe I can find a lab that I can send to that wouldn't charge an arm and a leg for cross processing.

In that case, any ideas? 😛
 
Stephanie,

I don't have any experience with C-41 but did a whole bunch of developing with E-6 back in the late 70's (in high school).
With the E-6 you just fill a big sink with the hottest tap water you can get and place the bottles of mixed solution in there for 10 minutes to get to temp.
Just keep an eye on the water temp while working and it all should work out fine.
And, NO, you should be able to hang on to your sanity, just read the instructions all the way through and make sure you understand what you're doing.
I haven't done this in years only because of the cost of materials vs. the amount of color slides I have shot lately. I can't justify developing my own slide film at home, but would jump at the chance to do it again if I could.
Maybe you could do a few test rolls at first so you wouldn't loose any real keepers.
Have fun and enjoy the experience of developing your own slide or print film...not too many people have that on their resume.
Let me know if you have any other questions...I'll have to dust off that part of my brain to get them but what the heck...Enjoy!!
 
My lab here charges six bucks a roll for 35mm, regular processing. I'm not sure about cross-processing. A&I is a mail service you could do, it looks like it would be about 8.50 for a cross-processed roll, not sure how the shipping works. Their website is www.aandi.com.

Paul
 
It's been a while since I've done it, but processing C-41 is relatively easy.
We used to have a stainless steel tank, I believe it's called a water jacket, and in it there was water and a submerged heating element. Plop your tanks with chemicals in the water jacket, and when it's up to temperature drop in the reels.
We had a transportable kit for the newspaper back in the days before digital and would process the stuff in bathrooms at hotels or where ever was available.
You could probably do it with out the water jacket - just maintain the right temperature.
And don't get Blix on your khakis - it'll never come out. 🙂
 
Looks like I'm going to reply to all of your threads today Stephanie 🙂

I just found a local lab that appears to be nationally (internationally?) renowned for processing E6. Keep in mind that I have not used them yet, but plan to soon. If you search the net you will find glowing reviews of Capital Color. Of course, their web site is far more difficult to find, but lucky for you I've found it!

http://www.e6slidefilmprocessing.com/

They have a ton of info on their site including pricing and shipping costs, as well as a lot of technical info like correct EI for a bunch of different slide films. Here is the blurb from their FAQ about cross processing (they do it for a 15% bump):

http://www.e6slidefilmprocessing.com/FAQ.htm#crossproc

Their normal charge is $8/roll for 36 mounted slides, or $7.25 unmounted. I think its pretty reasonable considering their reputation. The only other lab in the area I've tried for E6 cost me $14 for 36 mounted slides.. and they ended up giving my slides to another customer by mistake. Took me a week to get that sorted out.

Anyway, I would definitely look into processing my own E6 as I have recently taken the plunge into B&W processing. My only problem is a six year old and chemicals that are fairly dangerous.

If you give it a shot I'd really like to hear how it works out for you!

Michael
 
if it is encouraging at all a few weeks ago i talked to a guy who sells keychains with slides of peple in them. he walks aroujd with his camera and asks people if they are interested, nevermind that he is a rather strange man...but then he takes the roll back to his truck and develops it cuts the slides and fits them into a keychain so i bet it can be done easily if a few precations about temp are observed
 
Seems to me that, with some of the kits, C-41 isn't going to be that hard. A bit challenging the first few times maybe, but not hard. E6 doesn't seem hard either. Black and white seems to be a piece of cake. I'm working only with 35mm film so I'm not worrying about medium format, I'm just developing and scanning so there's no need to print, and there's plenty of daylight supplies so that I don't really have to worry about the whole no darkroom thing. I think that, when I'm finally financially sound again, I'm going to invest in a set of chemicals, a tank, a changing bag, and a bulk loader and cartridges.
 
At my lab I buy 50 processings at a time - about 4 usd each. If I want a film pushed/stoped more than one stop or if I want it to be cross prcessed they charge me for 1½ processings - works fine - unfortunatly the stoped developing Scala - any way - I would not mess with colour processing - B/wh is eneugh for me!
 
Stephanie, color developing is not really all that much harder than careful B&W developing. I did E6 all the time and occasionally did C41. It's true that the developer step is more temperature sensitive than B&W in theory, but the fact is that one should be meticulous with black and white temperature, too. I was slightly tempted to resume developing color in recent years, because of the difficulty of traveling with large amounts of exposed film. Then I talked myself back out of it, although my developing tanks are still the only darkroom equipment I have not parted with.

I have not tried cross-developing, in which you indicated an interest. However, these days I think I personally would try to get those effects by scanning a negative or slide and then beating on it with Photoshop.

The actual color developing has a straightforward recipe. You need a good tank, as was mentioned, and a good thermometer, but given some reasonable equipment it's straightforward.

A big extra catch is that the chemicals deteriorate fairly rapidly. They last six weeks at most, and less time if they aren't in full bottles. So what happens is that to get your money's worth out of them, you need to save up a lot of exposed film and then do a lot of developing in a fell swoop. That may or may not suit you. If you don't use them up fast enough then your effective price per roll for developing your own stuff goes up.

But if you're motivated and have a creative motive for it--cross-developing, let's say--don't be afraid to try it!
 
Roger,
Someone else mentioned the Jobo and I figured I'd look into it.

Also, I plan to only mix up what I need of the chemicals at once time and also try and save up rolls as much as possible. I knew about the deterioration.

Living in Iowa and wanting to do creative photography can be a bad thing due to the lack of professional shops around here. I think the closest shop that I could use is 20 miles away and that's iffy.
 
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Hey Stephanie,

I help run a college photo club and we do figured out how to do e6 processing this year. Basically we found a jobo in the closet, and we were like, "oooh what does this do?" 🙂

After a few experiments with different types of chems, we settled on getting the 5L kodak kits. (Kodak 5L Kit ) They are not bad pricewise, and we just mix a liter at a time. The mixed chems usually stay good for about 3-4 weeks. We tried tetanal kits - they had fewer chems, but I think they died quicker, or were more expensive or something.

But ya - a jobo makes it really easy to keep the chems at temperature and it does the agitation for you as well.

Hope this helps. Feel free to contact with questions.
 
Dear Stephanie,

I know how you feel about isolation. There might be a pro lab in Poitiers 35 miles away and I'm pretty sure there's one in Tours 60 miles away. This is one reason why I do my own E6....

A Tetenal 1-litre kit can be split and gives you 2x 4 rolls of E6 in two CPE2 runs -- only 2/3 the nominal 12-roll capacity of the kit. A 1200cc Paterson kit will (just about) process 20 135-36 in a few days in a Nova deep tank hand line or 2x 5 rolls in the CPE-2.

Time and temperature are not as intimidating as you might fear. I use a 'fly by' technique on the CPE-2. Heat everything to 39.5; 5 minute dry rotation of cylinder; 1st dev (7 min not 6) comes out at 36.5; average 38C = 100F. Works fine!

Check www.rogerandfrancews.com for pics processed this way. And yes, I am 'the' Roger Hicks -- though I rather like the idea of being a fake. As Picasso once said, "I often fake Picassos."

Cheers,

Roger
 
Tom Diaz said:
A big extra catch is that the chemicals deteriorate fairly rapidly. They last six weeks at most, and less time if they aren't in full bottles. So what happens is that to get your money's worth out of them, you need to save up a lot of exposed film and then do a lot of developing in a fell swoop. That may or may not suit you. If you don't use them up fast enough then your effective price per roll for developing your own stuff goes up.
Click to expand...


The life span of color chemicals is one most important factors. I haven't priced an E-6 kit but I remember in my E-4 days you had to have a lot of film to make it economically worthwhile. And you don't even gain a great deal by having personal control since its difficult to "push" or intentionally underdevelop slide film and get any consistancy. In my case I think the only advantage would be turn around time and usually I'm not it that big of a hurry. I don't know if you can actually save money by processing at home.
 
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