Topic: C-41 Home Developing

[Alan]

I thought I would share my experience yesterday on developing C-41 at home in the kitchen sink.

I had a day off work and after accumulating 7 rolls of 120/220 film and the C-41 chemicals waiting on the side
Lines I cracked into it @ 11am - - - 3 rolls later it was 2.15pm!

I had planned on developing 2 rolls at a time and had them loaded in the tank preheating in the water, but half way through mixing the Developer I realised I didn’t have enough chemical.

I considered the options - - - and decided to fire ahead with the weak mixture. It also transpired that I didn’t have enough Bleach and Fixer to mix for 2 rolls and not enough
Stabilizer to mix for 1 roll!

I used this kit from MACO DIRECT >
http://www.macodirect.de/digibase%C2%A9-midi-literbrfor-films-40027%C2%B0brfor-films-10021%C2%B0-p-2340.html
Which is really set up capacity wise for 35mm film.

Anyway onto the developing itself: 25c for 13 minutes
But because of the weak mixture I went for 14.
Bleach for 6, fix for 7 and stabilize for 2 instead of the suggested 1.30. Agitating every 30 seconds.
I also quickly rinsed the film after each of the 4 steps
With water @ 25c which was not suggested in the instructions.

There were 3 different suggested temperatures and times
37.5c @ 2-3 minutes
45c @ 2 minutes
25c @ 13 minutes
Although time consuming the 13 minute is appealing as the slight temperature fluctuations should not affect the final outcome if they are corrected quickly.

Anyway here are my results with the Fujica Gw690 on Kodak 160 220 well expired using the sunny 16 rule.

[astrobeck]

Well done!!!!!

That's quite a story...and love the donkeys!

That little donkey is so cute!!!!
I like the boost of contrast in the second one.

Thanks so much for posting this.  You made me think that I shouldn't be so uptight about processing color.

[sapata]

These are great results Alan...
I've been saying about processing my own colour film for a while and this adds more inspiration

[Alan]

thanks guys,

the hardest part is actually getting everything mixed and started.
I'm planning another 3 rolls for saturday - have the mixes done
so should be easier and quicker.

[Thom Stone]

Awesome, been meaning to try this for ages, must have about a hundred rolls of undeveloped c-41!

[Alan]

Thanks Thom,

its easy enough - the hardest part is starting !

[charles binns]

Great results.  Colour processing is not as daunting as some people think.  The key thing is to maintain a constant temperature for which you need a water bath.  I have a Nova tank and get good results with that. 

[Alan]

cool, i use the kitchen sink with the kettle on standby !

[AJShepherd]

I've been using the Tetenal C41 kits and apart from one time I underdeveloped it I've had excellent results.
You don't really need any fancy thermostatically controlled waterbaths as I'd originally been led to believe.
I just run some hot water in the bath and stand the bottles in for a while to bring them up to temperature.

The main problem I find is that the lids of my tank leak more at the higher temperature than when I'm doing B&W films, which mean I have to be a lot more careful doing regular tank inversions to avoid splatter!

I'm thinking next year I might have to give E6 a try!

[f6point3]

I've asked for a C-41 home kit for Christmas...we'll see if Santa decides to bring it for me! 

[Phil Bebbington]

Alan, stunning result given the obstacles you had. I'm sure that your tale will relax many thinking of taking the plunge!

[Alan]

AJSheperd - i might try the tetenal kit next, where did you get yours?

f6point3 - i hope you get it and make good use of it.

Phil, tanx - it gets easier the more you do it  

Incidentially I hav'nt been posting or wasting film much lately, the weather here is horrendously
crap. I have been working on a motorbike project which is taking up a lot of time in the evenings.
I ran a roll of colour film through an Olympus OM10 to document the start and developed it myself.

anyone interested can visit the blog > http://www.2strokelover.blogspot.com/2011/11/start.html

the recent images are taken with my phone camera  

[f6point3]

f6point3 - i hope you get it and make good use of it.

I did!  My in-laws gave me a Jobo Press Kit, and I have developed 3 rolls of 120 since the day after Christmas.    It's fairly easy since I've gotten used to dealing with black & white developing, and the water bath is pretty easy to maintain (I have a 1-liter measuring beaker, squat, not tall, and the tank fits in just right).  My only complaint is with the Blix: for some reason it leaks out of my tank like it was a sieve.  I've seen about two ounces of this stuff get wasted each time I develop a roll, just from how it streams out of the tank when I agitate.

The results are nice, though, so far.  I don't want to hijack the thread with my photos, so here's a link to see results from my first roll, which was expired Fuji NPH 400 in 220, cut and re-spooled to 620, and shot in an Argoflex EF with flashbulbs:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/f6point3/sets/72157628620326821/

[Alan]

very good results! thanks for sharing.

cant comment on the leaking - sorry.

the apprenticeship on developing B+W sure helps when it comes to colour.

[jojonas~]

My only complaint is with the Blix: for some reason it leaks out of my tank like it was a sieve.  I've seen about two ounces of this stuff get wasted each time I develop a roll, just from how it streams out of the tank when I agitate.

do you use a paterson tank? atleast that type of tank can be agitated with a stick instead of inversions.
this is what it looks like: http://www.yarki.net/E6/content/CRW_3109_large.html
 
you've got some nice results anyway!

[Alan]

Yea good point - the paterson tank can indeed be agitated with
the little spindle instead of inverting!

[moominsean]

little blog post from me on c41 developing

http://moominsean.blogspot.com/2012/01/color-film-developing-at-home-easy.html

[Phil Bebbington]

Sean, an excellent tutorial. One I know I will use.

[Alan]

Sean, an excellent tutorial. One I know I will use.

+1

nice one sean!

[Skorj]

Great stuff both!

[astrobeck]

again, thumbs up to all!
Wish I had this when I first began with C 41.

Sean's instructions are much easier to read than the micro print on the C-41 kit I first started with.

And as Sean mentioned at 5 dollars a roll for processing at a lab, that money is much better spent toward a kit!!!

Thanks!

[Ed Wenn]

Hmmm, I can't believe I missed this thread at the time Alan posted it and then with all the subsequent comments. I too am a C-41 home dev advocate and have been at it for about 18 months. No bad results so far...in fact I now prefer it to b/w processing because all films take the same amount of time. Once you've mixed your chems and decided on the logistics of your process, it's all pretty straight forward. My approach to C-41 processing is the same to most of my photography and so I don't tend to get hung up about having the right equipment and I tend not to believe the scare-mongers. Film is forgiving and even C-41 processing gives you a lot of 'get out of jail free' options. It's hard to screw it up.

I process using a big plastic storage box next to the kitchen sink with an old room thermometer to test for temp. I top up with hot water from the tap every now and then.

The only thing I pay attention to is in storing the chemicals. First rule is that they last about 4 million times longer than everyone tells you. Second rule is to make sure you do everything you can to keep the air out of the container in which you store the developer.

[LT]

Second rule is to make sure you do everything you can to keep the air out of the container in which you store the developer.

I keep all my B&W chems in brown bottles from the pharmacist (usually free) and I use one of these with my B&W chems - it really helps:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vacuvin-Vacuum-Saver-Giftpack-Stoppers/dp/B0000AQVO2

L.

[Alan]

good post ed!

i bought some black plastic containers from MACO for the chems
but i fear they are not air tight! have to look into that, maybe
i have to put a spacer in the caps.

[jojonas~]

Second rule is to make sure you do everything you can to keep the air out of the container in which you store the developer.

thought on this.. I've used the tetenal kit and would often get quite a bit of foam when I poured the chems back into the bottles. I often wondered how far I should push my bellow bottles as I wanted as little air as possible to enter but thinking that the foam was chems too I was kind of a wuss about it.
I can say that my chems didn't last "4 million times longer than everyone tells you" probably because of that

[charles binns]

I use the one litre Tetenal kits, which are good for up to 16 films.  I tend to process in batches, usually when I have 12 films, so there are no issues with storing chemicals.

C41 is pretty straight forward as everyone has said, as is E6 processing.  Again I use the Tetenal 1 litre kit and process in batches as well.

[Steven.]

i was thinking of buying a c-41 kit but i'm concerned about how precise temp has to be.. at the moment i'm at the mercy of my bathroom sink and the room temp so getting exact temps is hard. would a +/-5 C affect the results too much?

[Alan]

well 5 deg. +/- is a lot, but can be compensated with time!
how much I couldnt tell though.

location of developing is not a factor, temperature and time are
the critical things to watch, but easy to master.

[al]

well 5 deg. +/- is a lot, but can be compensated with time!
how much I couldnt tell though.

I'm not sure how this relates to other kits, but the Nova kit I use has development times for a wide range of temperatures, all the way from 26 to 43 degrees!

So say you were aiming for 38C but actually got 36C.  The specified dev time for 36C is 3:55 rather than 3:15.
That's about 17% less developing time than you should have had.

Here's the interesting bit though.  The info sheet also gives instructions for push/pull processing.  To push/pull by 1 stop, you should increase/decrease the dev time by 30%.  So a 2 degree developing error might result in around 1/2 stop underdevelopment - doesn't sound too much of a problem given the wide lattitude of print film?

Reading these instructions again and thinking about it, I reckon I've had more problems from overdevelopment than underdevelopment. The negatives occasionaly come out of the tank looking nice and bold but don't scan very well, poor grain, poor tonal range etc.  I've always been more scared of the developer cooling down too much, but in future I'm going to take care to be sure it doesn't get too warm, and not worry too much about the (minimal) temperature drop during processing. I think I just need to take more time with temp readings, my cheap digital thermometer is a bit slow to react, and sometimes I think things are at the right temp then ten seconds later the thermomenter jumps up another degree or two.

The blix stage is where keeping things warm helps.  I've never had a development failure (except when air got in the bottle) but I have had some dull, streaky negs from poor/incomplete blix.  I now double the blix times as the kit gets older and make sure it's kept warm, not so easy as you're supposed to agitate continuously.  According to the experts, seperate bleach/fix is the only way to go really.

Pdf of the instructions linked below if you're interested

http://www.novadarkroom.com/pdf/2005%20Prospeed%20Instructions.pdf

[charles binns]

+/- 5C is alot.  But you can keep temperature pretty constant by adding small amounts of boiled or cold water to the sink  - I use Tetenal kits and you need to keep the temperature range within +/-1C for the developer.

If you can afford it, I would recommend you by a Nova water bath, which is what I have. That will keep the water temperature at a constant level.

[al]

OK, I did a little school science experiment.  I've got this cheap USB thermometer probe so I stuck it in my patterson tank filled with water to measure the temperature drop continuously over the 3:15 development period.

In each case, the tank was pre-warmed by filling it with warm water.
500ml of water was poured into the tank, and the lid put on just as you would when developing.
I then went through the normal cycle I would when developing film, i.e. invert initially for about 10 seconds, then invert twice every 30 seconds.

In the first test, the tank was just left on the worktop between inversions.  In the second test it was placed in a washing up bowl of water which started off at about 38C

It's pretty cold at the moment - room temperature was about 15.5C.

Not sure of the reason behind the flat parts of the plots, I thought the drops might coincide with the inversions but they dont seem to line up.  Might just be a crappy temperature probe.

Anyway, as you can see, even without the hot water bath, temperature drop is less than 2C, and with it it's less than a degree.  Warmer weather would help (it was about -2 out there!)

[Sam Thompson]

I'd like to try processing C-41 as well. I wonder if an aquarium heater would work to keep the temps stable.

sam.

[Mike (happyforest)]

I used to use an aquarium type heater when developing XP1 years ago. In fact I intend to resurrect it having recently got my hands on a C41 kit.

It was sold by polysales as having an extended range for use in photographic applications.

The other places that might have similar products are the hydroponic garden suppliers like http://www.growell.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=heater

Mike

[Alan]

i have thought of this before - hmmm would be handy for sure to keep the temp
regular

[Photo_Utopia]

 My only complaint is with the Blix: for some reason it leaks out of my tank like it was a sieve.  I've seen about two ounces of this stuff get wasted each time I develop a roll, just from how it streams out of the tank when I agitate.

If you are using a patteson tank press the plastic lid in the centre and lift the edge to let the gas out and re-seal the lid between agitations.
Blix bubbles a lot during agitation, air is good for it too, unlike developer.

I've been using fish tank heaters too, some makes only go up to 35°C so watch for that, a kettle is good for one run sessions but if you have the heater you can have several tanks and get multiple films per session

Or do as other suggest and use the centre 'twiddler' thingy.  

[David A-W]

Had my first go at home developing C-41 today and I have to concur - it is really quite straightforward and the results are very satisfactory. I used the 3-bath Tetenal kit, which was simplicity itself.

After years of monochrome perhaps it's time for a bit of colour in my life?

Warding off the evil eye, Turkey, May 2012. Kodak Ektar 100. Voigtlander R3A, 50mm Heliar f3.5

[Alan]

yup looks good - well done.

I think im going to try the tetenal kit next.

3 bath's even easier.