kodachrome - BW processing
kodachrome - BW processing
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Have any of you tried processing it in black and white chemicals,
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Hi,
As I thought £30 per roll - process C22 was OTT, I have decided to go forward myself and processed a K200 yesterday.
Here are the facts:
_presoak the film for a couple of minutes. Pour out, don't be afraid by the yellow colour of the water.
_develop with Rodinal 1+100, time was approx. 20-21 min (I am never so strict when using Rodinal 1+100), temperature was rather 21degreesC. Agitation: 15sec every minute for the first 3-4 minutes, then every 3 minutes for 15 sec. Pour out, you will see that the devt water is very dirty, very black.
_wash 3 times with water at 25-28 degreesC, following the Ilford method. The high temperature will help removing the kodachrome black layer
_Fix at 20-25degC, I used Ilford Rapid fixer 1+4.
_wash again with water at higher temp (it was 25degC in my case). Ilford method, 3 successive strong washes. I added some continuous washing, at a temp of 25degC too, for 5-10 minutes.
_optional: stabiliser bath: 2 min; I used a personal mix of formaldehyde + wetting agent. I believe that stabilises the gelatin and anyway reassured me before sponging the film, for I knew I would have to. Indeed, there is a remaining sort-of-black-carbon layer on the film, which fortunately is very easy to remove. Either using wet fingers or a very soft cotton cloth (my case). Advice: If you are looking for formaldehyde, check the bath cleaning products: I have found that the COOP basic bathroom cleaner is a solution of it, needing only a bit of dilution (£1.5 a 500ml bottle, very good!).
Results: quite contrasty, but visually fine, similar to other BW negative films I could have used (I am yet to properly scan the negs).
Let me know how it works for you.