agitation frequency of Blix in E-6 tank processing

I am using the E-6 kit from Freestyle for developing 120 films in my Paterson tank. It calls for 10 minutes of Blix at 105 F.
The general directions for hand tank processing suggests agitation for first 15 secs and then at every 30 secs interval after that.

I have had good results in general maintaining bath temperature and consistency of agitation for all three soups: 1st Dev, Color dev and Blix. I understand that the agitation is important for the first two developers. But since the Blix time is so long I get tired of standing there for 10 mins + and hand agitating every 30 secs. :blink:

So how important is the frequency of agitation during Blix time? Can I reduce to once every minute? Once every 2 mins?

Both bleach and fix go to completion. Frequency of agitation is mostly important for uniformity of processing and to bring fresh chemistry into contact with the emulsion. It is important to agitate, but not according to any particular schedule. I process the bleach and fix in room light by removing the tank lid and using a lifting rod in the reels to raise and rotate them periodically. Likewise within reason, the times are not important but you must process to completion for both.

ok thanks. thats what I thought.
I will reduce the frequency of agitation to once a minute. I will follow your technique of keeping the cap off and raising and rotating the lifting rod for agitation as well. I have experienced that closing the cap on The Paterson tank with the Blix poured in gives off a lot of gas initially. Burping it makes a mess with that red Blix spilling everywhere.

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Originally Posted by mts

Both bleach and fix go to completion. Frequency of agitation is mostly important for uniformity of processing and to bring fresh chemistry into contact with the emulsion. It is important to agitate, but not according to any particular schedule. I process the bleach and fix in room light by removing the tank lid and using a lifting rod in the reels to raise and rotate them periodically. Likewise within reason, the times are not important but you must process to completion for both.

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Are you saying after the color developer step, BEFORE you stop/fix/blix you expose the film to light? I thought you had to stop it first before doing that? And since the blix is both and the color developer is still a developer, isn't that going to cause exposure? Or is there something in the color developer that stops light sensitivity?


~Stone

The Noteworthy Ones - Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1 / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic

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Stone, you must most definitely stop and wash out all FD before you expose the film to light again.

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Originally Posted by Rudeofus

Stone, you must most definitely stop and wash out all FD before you expose the film to light again.

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Yea that's what I thought, So then why is mts saying he does it by room light?

I am assuming I can keep the screw-on lid and agitate by rotating the column during the Blix phase (after the color dev. and wash/stop step). can't I?

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Originally Posted by kmallick

I am assuming I can keep the screw-on lid and agitate by rotating the column during the Blix phase (after the color dev. and wash/stop step). can't I?

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Yes that's certainly true, though personally I find that the rotation method doesn't stir up the chemicals as much, this is less important for the blix I assume, so I wouldn't worry about TOO much uneven stop... but I would add another minute to it personally just to be sure the top portion and bottom are evenly / fully stopped/fixed ... but then I'm probably overly paranoid haha.

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Originally Posted by StoneNYC

Yea that's what I thought, So then why is mts saying he does it by room light?

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IIRC, he does bleach and fix in room light, not the previous steps. Technically he could even do the CD step in room light, only FD, stop and wash need to happen in complete darkness.

Light doesn't matter after the reversal step, because that fully exposes all the halides. Extra exposure makes no difference, so you could do the reversal and everything after (CD, bleach, fix) in light.

As to agitation, bleach+fix are to completion. If you reduce the agitation, you may need to go for a little longer to make sure you don't under-blix. The kits I've worked with (Fuji) recommend continuous agitation and they state slightly longer times for 5/30 agitation patterns.