Topic: Why am I so bad at C41?

[Indofunk]

Today marks at least the 5th time I've developed rolls of colour film in Tetenal C41 and it has come out completely, 100% blank. No edge markings or anything. I refuse to believe that my developer has spontaneously died that many times, because I keep track of how many rolls I've used with that particular batch of developer.

Today I actually had an extra hint as to what the problem may be. I was following this tutorial for yet another weird way to develop film, and got to the B&W developer/fixer point, pulled the film out of the tank, and saw a few light images. Then I blixed it, and took a quick look at the roll before adding a second roll of film (redscaled Gold 400). There were no more images on the film. Nevertheless, I went ahead and added the second roll and went developer-blix-stab. Both rolls came out blank. Could it be dead blix?

[jharr]

Blix is bleach and fix which dissolves out the unexposed silver. Seems like if your blix were exhausted, you would have mostly opaque film, not clear film. That is just intuition talking, not knowledge. I use my Unicolor kits waaaaayy past the manufacturer's recommended roll count and they are mostly fine. I toss them when I start getting blue lines on the film (I guess they are orange lines on the neg, blue on the scan). Is your thermometer calibrated? You could be cooking the emulsion off if you are running too hot (maybe?). <silverlining>At least your vacation snaps came out good!</silverlining>

[Indofunk]

You're right, it really couldn't be "dead" blix. And I too have used Tetenal C41 dev way past the recommended number of rolls, which generally results in an extreme blueshift. But this sudden death is a thing that happens way too often. I store my chemicals at room temperature, which during the summer can get up to 70F for extended periods of time, could that be a factor? I'm really close to giving up on colour photography altogether...

[Fluminian]

Happened to me too. It was exhausted or contaminated developer.

[AJShepherd]

How long had the developer been mixed for?

I ask because each time I've used the Tetenal kit I've had great results for a few months, but then even if I'm short of the stated max rolls count I get really thin negs.

I think the developer just dies after a certain period of time, no matter how often you've used it. Three months, I've had good results. Four months, it's gone.

[Indofunk]

Mixed on 8/5. Although I mix 1/2 the 1L kit at a time, and this was the second half of the kit. So altogether the kit might have been laying around for 3 months...

I'll try mixing a full kit and throwing it away after 3 months.

[jharr]

I don't seem to have shelf life issues with the Unicolor kit. I mixed mine probably back in May or June and it has been sitting around the house all summer in San Diego where it routinely gets well into the 80's and occasionally into the 90's in the house! My chems are in 1L plastic bottles wrapped in black gaffers tape. There is a very small air gap at the top of the bottle. They just sit there and when I need them, they work. I also am very careful not to cross-contaminate the dev with any blix (separate funnels, bottle caps marked, etc.) A little whiff of blix will foul your dev in a hurry.

[Indofunk]

I've heard not-so-good things about the quality of the Unicolor kit, but if the venerable James Harr uses it, it's gotta be good Maybe I'll try that on my next order (which is apparently now  ) and see what happens. Freestyle carries it, right?

[Indofunk]

Oh, and I use the same funnel, but I wash it really well ... maybe I'll throw another funnel into the order?

[Photo_Utopia]

I think it sounds like dead developer, I wouldn't use developer past about 4-6 weeks from mixing point.
Also it only takes a small amount of bleach to contaminate the developer–according to Fuji 1ml in 1000ml will be enough to kill it.
I have seen contamination many times in the past and it looks like the whites go cyan and the film looks reddish instead of yellow brown.
Bleach should be kept away from developer, if you smell the developer and it smells like ammonia then its contaminated. Small amounts will progressively kill the action of the reduction agents.

I have developed way over 100,000 colour films and never personally or professionally had a failure. Keep it away from light, bleach, fixer and especially air and it will last over a month; sure it can last longer sometimes—but why take the risk?...

[jharr]

I've heard not-so-good things about the quality of the Unicolor kit, but if the venerable James Harr uses it, it's gotta be good Maybe I'll try that on my next order (which is apparently now  ) and see what happens. Freestyle carries it, right?

Yeah, Freestyle is where I get it. There is only one Blix, so you can't do bleach bypass with that kit.

If by "venerable" you mean "willing to accept mediocre results because he's too cheap to buy new chemicals every month." then yes... I am.

sure it can last longer sometimes—but why take the risk?...

I keep it as long as the results are acceptable (see aforementioned low standards). Why toss good chemistry down the drain because the manufacturer wants you to? Note: consistency is not my main goal. I do weird things to film and sometimes get weird results, but that's okay with me because well, I'm kind of weird (in the best possible way).

[Indofunk]

sure it can last longer sometimes—but why take the risk?...

I keep it as long as the results are acceptable (see aforementioned low standards). Why toss good chemistry down the drain because the manufacturer wants you to? Note: consistency is not my main goal. I do weird things to film and sometimes get weird results, but that's okay with me because well, I'm kind of weird (in the best possible way).

This is exactly me. Which is why I don't mind at all when I get my blueshifted results. Just more weirdness! Yay!

So I guess by "venerable" I mean "one who agrees with me"

[Photo_Utopia]

Understood but by the same token if you don't worry about the 'quality' in a sensometric way then occasionally you'll draw a blank; the idea of what is and isn't good chemistry will depend on the results you want to achieve. I shoot medium and large format the idea of shooting an 8x10 and developing in contaminated 6 month old developer that has reached less than p.h 10 makes me shudder

I remember back in the day when i was taught processing I was told to think of it (the issues of contamination and consistency) like this:
You can prepare the raw chicken, toss it in the pan and then chop the salad (without washing your hands) 9 times out of 10 you'll be OK the other will just be awful.

If you can live with the randomness and the success to failure ratio—you have no problems. 

[Indofunk]

Randomness I don't mind, success likewise I don't mind, it's the failure rate that I want to cut down on...

[Photo_Utopia]

Well randomness and failure when it comes to C41 are linked. Developing is easy–if you keep to a few simple rules.

The breaking of those rules and the randomness will mean less than optimal results and occasionally–disaster

[Indofunk]

Got it.

I just ordered a Unicolor kit. It's cheap enough that I can force myself to the "one month only" rule even with my relatively low color output...

[Indofunk]

Also it only takes a small amount of bleach to contaminate the developer–according to Fuji 1ml in 1000ml will be enough to kill it.
I have seen contamination many times in the past and it looks like the whites go cyan and the film looks reddish instead of yellow brown.
Bleach should be kept away from developer, if you smell the developer and it smells like ammonia then its contaminated. Small amounts will progressively kill the action of the reduction agents.

You know what I just realized, that original article I said I was following said to bleach before proceeding to develop normally. So even though I washed for about 10 minutes after the bleach, I'm sure a small amount got into the dev. So I'm going with that as the cause

[Francois]

You can always test the developer before sending a whole roll through it by soaking a piece of film leader in it and see what happens.
From memory (relating to a thread we had many years ago), the leader turns brown if the dev is OK.... can someone confirm this?

[Indofunk]

I may have to do that from now on...

[Francois]

It's a cheap way to make sure everything is up to par before starting the process.

[Photo_Utopia]

You know what I just realized, that original article I said I was following said to bleach before proceeding to develop normally. So even though I washed for about 10 minutes after the bleach, I'm sure a small amount got into the dev. So I'm going with that as the cause

I think the article said to develop a slide film in B&W developer then beach it, was and re-dev in C41.

Missing the initial B&W developer will mean that no silver reduction will take place, so when the blix* goes in it will remove all the silver leaving the film blank.

The process should be:
B&W development to make all exposed silver develop.
Bleach to make unexposed and undeveloped silver soluble.
Wash to remove bleach and and a small amount of unexposed silver.
C41 development to make the developed silver reduce further.
Fix to remove silver made soluble by the bleach.

*N.B Blix (beach and fix combined) and normal colour (EDTA) bleach are not interchangeable in the above process–you'll end up with blank film with no edge markings! Using fixer before development will do that!

[Indofunk]

Part of B&W development is fixing, right? So the full process would have been B&W dev -> B&W fix -> wash -> colour bleach -> wash -> C41 dev -> C41 blix -> C41 stabiliser. That's what I did anyways ... Anyways, both rolls of film (including the one I added right before the C41 dev step) came out blank, so it was definitely something in the C41 process.

[Photo_Utopia]

No    any fixer will render the following developer ineffective because fixer removes undeveloped silver thus fixing the image. Its a developing golden rule.

You can't* do any further development of the silver once the fix has gone in, its a common mistake that people fix before developer which always means blank film.
You can't develop  after fix because the film is already sans silver.

Fix must be the last step (apart from wash/stab)

*There is a process called Chromium intensification that can bring out detail post fixation but in the real world rare and beyond the scope of this conversation.

[Indofunk]

I reread the article and it does specify a non-hardening fixer PRIOR to colour development. My thinking (based on zero knowledge, of course) was that fixer removed the undeveloped silver, but not the silver that was developed by the B&W developer, nor the dyes attached to those silver particles. So the colour developer doesn't actually develop any silver (which the fixer has removed), but rather just attaches the dyes (or whatever it is that colour developer does with the dyes )

Related question: without actually taking a class at ICP or something, where can I read up on exactly what chemical processes take place in each step of B&W and colour developing? All of my searches for this information return a million hits for tutorials on HOW to develop, not the exact chemistry that is going on.

[Photo_Utopia]

Fixation removes the silver halide (unexposed and undeveloped)making it into a soluble silver and changes the reduced (developed) silver to a metallic silver.
The dyes in colour film are formed by the action of oxidisation at the silver/coupler interface, I'm sure if you fix before development the photolytic silver created by exposure will be removed.

I recommend  The Theory of the Photographic Process by C.E Mees (Macmillan) for reading.

[Indofunk]

Fixation removes the silver halide (unexposed and undeveloped)making it into a soluble silver and changes the reduced (developed) silver to a metallic silver.
The dyes in colour film are formed by the action of oxidisation at the silver/coupler interface, I'm sure if you fix before development the photolytic silver created by exposure will be removed.

I recommend  The Theory of the Photographic Process by C.E Mees (Macmillan) for reading.

Excellent, excellent. Thank you.

[Francois]

where can I read up on exactly what chemical processes take place in each step of B&W and colour developing? All of my searches for this information return a million hits for tutorials on HOW to develop, not the exact chemistry that is going on.

Have you looked at wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_developer

[Photo_Utopia]

Just one last thing. Are you sure the process didn't go:

Use an E6 film (sans colour masking)

B&W developer
B&W Fix

and crucially

Potassium Ferricyanide or another intensifier (works like a re-animator)

Then C41 normal process

If so what you're doing is complex and VERY far from plain Jane 'C41' more like cross processing with intensification and some colour development of the intensified grains?

Missing out the crucial part will not yield the result that you want.

[Francois]

Potassium Ferricyanide or another intensifier (works like a re-animator)

Potassium Ferricyanide is actually part of Farmer's Reducer, so this won't intensify at all.
The reducer can be used to turn the silver back to a latent image so it can be redeveloped or removed through fixing.

Intensifiers contain Silver, Chromium or (back in ye very old days) Mercury.

But in this case, the process looks a bit like a botched negative acceleration process.

[Indofunk]

and crucially

Potassium Ferricyanide or another intensifier (works like a re-animator)

Did NOT do that. I can't see that step in the link?

[Indofunk]

But in this case, the process looks a bit like a botched negative acceleration process.

Haha, so can I blame the author of the article?

I *have* used B&W developer on CN film, then NOT fixed and gone directly into C41. That definitely works.

http://www.indofunkstudios.com/2014/09/17/hybrid-process/

[Francois]

OK, I just read the page you were looking at and it is for a negative acceleration process.

This is very different from regular processing in that it's a way to get a good gain in film sensitivity, very large grain and none of the cross processing effects.

If you want instructions on this process, I have some. But they all involve a separate bleach and fix bath. Blix will just kill the film since you're removing the developed silver before re-developing it all.

[Photo_Utopia]

I haven't read the link but what you describe sounds like something photographers played with a while back with intensification and pseudo solarisation, and without the accelerator you'll get a blank film, also I'll bet the say the step where you bleach before C41 you are using EDTA (like in E6 and C41) and not Blix like the kits.

A very complex process, and one that you'll need to adhere to all the steps exactly–it's a long way from C41 which you aren't bad at-you just did something different.

[Francois]

I just went through my formulary and found these notes I wrote on the subject
(sorry for the messed-up tables)

Film Acceleration

Film acceleration is a process which will effectively increase the sensitivity of color film. It will easily give a 2 stop increase in sensitivity. It is based on a cross processing technique and will thus give somewhat random results. Color balance will be altered and grain will be increased. The process involves exposing slide film that is designed for the E-6 process at an increased exposure index and processing it successively in a B&W developer followed by a C-41 color developing process. The use of a paper developer will give apparent and well structured grain. Regular film developers will allow the use of a much higher EI but will give much more visible grain.

PROCESS
Step      Temperature           Time   Notes
Water   23.8°C/75°F   2 min.   Use vigorous agitation.
B&W developer   See chart   See chart   
Rinse      1 min.   Continuous agitation.
Fixer      5 min.   Use a non hardening fixer, color-film fixer or Rapid fixer without the hardening agent.
Wash      10 min.   Use intermittent agitation.
Bleach      10 min.   Use C-41, E-6 or the Acceleration Film Bleach.
C-41 process         Do the standard C-41 process. Can be done in daylight.

 
Recommended color transparency films
Film   EI   Developer   Time   Temperature
Ektachrome 100   400   Acufine   12 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 200   200   Dektol   3 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 200   400   Acufine   9 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 200   400   Dektol   6 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 200   800   Acufine   12 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 200   1600   Acufine   16 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 200   1600   HC-110 dil. A   10 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 160   320   Acufine   9 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 400   800   Acufine   9 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 400   1600   Acufine   12 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 400   3200   Acufine   16 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 400   800   Acufine   10 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 400   1600   Acufine   13 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 400   3200   T-Max   14 min.   23.8°C/75°F
Ektachrome 400   3200   XR-2   12 min.   30°C/86°F

It is possible to use a combined Bleach/Fix instead of the regular separate fixer and bleach baths only for the final step.

It is possible, if you don’t plan on doing the C-41 process immediately, to thoroughly rinse the film in demineralized water immediately after the first bleaching step that follows the B&W developer. If you decide to do so, do not use any drying aid like Photo-Flo or it will contaminate the C-41 chemistry. Rinse for at least 10 minutes using vigorous agitation and squeegee the film to remove excess water. Hang to dry in a dust free environment.

[jharr]

Aw crap. Now I want to try this. Just what I need... one more process. 

[Indofunk]

I'm going to try it again without the bleach step (ie, just like my blog post I linked to earlier, but using E6 film instead of C41).

[Francois]

Aw crap. Now I want to try this. Just what I need... one more process. 

You don't really want to try this. The image comes out all pointillistic... 

[jharr]

Aw crap. Now I want to try this. Just what I need... one more process. 

You don't really want to try this. The image comes out all pointillistic... 

That's not helping Francois.

[Francois]

I know... (nudge nudge) 

[Indofunk]

Ok, here's another way I'm bad at C41. When I process 2 rolls in my 2-roll Paterson tank, the top roll usually has a slightly underdeveloped band at the top. At first I thought this was because the developer loses some volume after repeated uses, so i kept topping it off to 500mL, which should completely cover both rolls. But the problem remained. Then I realized that my hot water bath wasn't coming up to the height of the top roll, and I thought I had the problem licked. But even with the water level much higher than that of the top roll, I still had the same problem So now I'm thinking maybe I'm not agitating enough? For a 3:15 dev cycle I invert for the first 30 seconds, then once a minute, which only comes out to 3 inversion cycles total. Should I try more?

[jharr]

The Unicolor instructions say to agitate for the first 10sec, then 4 inversions every 30sec. That isn't enough time for anything to cool down sufficiently to slow development at the top. I think the Paterson tanks require 290mL per 35mm roll, so 500mL is not enough volume. See HERE.

[Indofunk]

The Unicolor instructions say to agitate for the first 10sec, then 4 inversions every 30sec. That isn't enough time for anything to cool down sufficiently to slow development at the top. I think the Paterson tanks require 290mL per 35mm roll, so 500mL is not enough volume. See HERE.

That's weird, I've processed 2 B&W rolls at a time in 500mL of liquid and they've come out fine. Furthermore, I've dropped 2 empty reels on the central spool into the tank with 500mL of water and visually observed that the water level was above the top reel.

However, I shall try the next run with 580mL and see what happens

[Adam Doe]

Yep, 290ml per 35mm roll in a Paterson. I usually just make it 300ml per roll and an even liter for three rolls. Of course I'm only doing B&W but volume is volume is volume.

[Indofunk]

Wait, I think we're talking about different Patersons here. Mine only holds a max of 2 rolls. Though I guess they're all the same diameter, so the volumes should be the same.

[Francois]

OK, Has anyone noticed that 290ml x 2 = 580ml ?
So 500ml is very insufficient to cover the whole thing.

Also, you could try the log roll agitation method. This was the technique recommended by Kodak in the 70's.
You fill the sink with water at the right temperature. You put the tank in it and just send it spinning on its side. This could help even-out the chemistry on the whole film.

[gsgary]

What about if you play it some of your punk infused jazz trumpet

[Adam Doe]

Or develop in the trumpet, drain chemistry through the spit valve and control agitation via embouchure.

[Indofunk]

Or develop in the trumpet, drain chemistry through the spit valve and control agitation via embouchure.

WIN

[Indofunk]

Next I'm going to try to develop the trumpet, agitate using a Marshall fullstack on 11, and scan using Alice Cooper's disemboweled eyes.

[Francois]

And if you ever want a black trumpet, strip away all the oil and wax and soak it in selenium toner. It turns the brass jet black.