I offer to show results of my experiments with color developer dilution

A lot of this is over my head but the image colors render a very unique look that I like a lot so I wanted to read further in.

The only thing I can comment on is your mention of skipping the bleach step which I wanted to confirm is correct that some movies are made that way it is commonly called "bleach bypass" and gives a very high contrast image that some "gritty" movies like but it's also hard to get away with because the studios don't want to take the financial risk. If the movie looks bad with the bleach bypass'd film, they can't fix it in post or edit it out, it's the final film so it not often done.

Anyway congrats this is nice. You're in NY? The places in the images remind me of places I walk a lot when I'm in Manhattan.

Thanks and good luck and keep on learning and experimenting this is all very interesting.


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

StoneNYC: No, I am 90 miles south of NYC, in Philadelphia. But I lived in New York City from 1971 to 1983 when it did not cost so much to merely breathe.

Skipping the bleach step is only one way of deviating from the standard aesthetic. It is a way to be 'creative' with color processes. In these pictures I did NOT omit the bleach step.

Seriously, in opposing the theoretically limited ways of being able to create color images anew (unlike with the more variable B&W process) you really can deviate from this mantra and develop the negative more or less in order to change the contrast. I find no color crossover per se but, beware, if you get TOO contrasty you get an exaggeration of hues, like in taking a picture of a sunlit scene you will get shadows that look TOO blue. If you do not develop the negative enough, you end up with a dingy, muddy print that captures all the detail but offers no 'life'. This endless expeirmenting would cost a king's ransom if I did not make 'tests' using only about one inch of film carefully placed upon the camera's film aperature gate. I then process in a plastic film can in total darkness (with color film, especially, I trust nothing with regard to fogging). I also load my 35mm cameras in total darkness using tape wrapped around the take up spool and extening onto the emulsion at the start of the film), without a film leader. This allows me to 'waste' only about one inch of film per 'load' and, importantly, does not force me to wait until the roll is finished in order to process what I want to process. I have cut down reels to smaller sizes in order to accommodate the shorter lengths and use smaller containers than the standard tank. I am frugal, let it be said. I MUST be frugal, let it be said!!!

Generally, developing the negative a bit more gives purer colors. Once, for an experiment I took a picture of a color swatch and underexposed about three stops. I then gave about four TIMES the development time to the negative. Honestly, I have never seen purer, bolder colors in my life as a result. BUT... if the 'scene' had been of the standard variety it would have looked terrible with totally black shadows and 'poster paint' color in what was recorded. This is an extreme example but offers a window onto the possibilties.

Back in 1966 during the first few years of starting darkroom (I started in 1964 at 14) I asked the store clerk if it was possible to do color because he had chemicals there. He said that it was but 'don't attempt this' because you would never be able to hold the temp to within 1/4 degree. I now know that he destroyed my desire then and there (I was brought up to be obsessively obedient and would NEVER dream of disagreeing with an adult!) and I held for over a decade that the world would come to an end if I dared deviate from the Yellow Father's mandated prescription. Now, I know that, for generally acceptable results, there is much room for deviation with both time and temperature. In fact, early color processes (Ansco Printon, late 1940s) offered a considerable RANGE of temperatures and those temperatures were ambient!

I am not challenging the lab quality that Kodak and PE insist upon. I am simply saying that if my photos are acceptible then: 1) the world will not come to an end if you deviate and 2) you might actually like the results. Few people actually WANT what is ACTUALLY presented in the scene. Low contrast scenes generally benefit, aestheticlly, from enhanced contrast and somewhat bolder colors. In summation, color accuracy and contrast accuracy are mere tools in forging the optimal visual result.

Perhaps my being forced to be so 'obedient' caused me to result in being such a 'deviant'! - David Lyga

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RPC

You have not shown any sensitometric results. It is difficult to judge where scans and monitors are involved. You need to run control strips through your processes which I believe would show they are out of spec.

Along similar lines, I have tried Patrick Dignan's divided low temperature C-41 developer and while some prints made from the negatives developed in it would probably look acceptable to some, the sensitometric results clearly showed crossover in the negatives and was visible to me in the prints. In your case you may also have retained silver.

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I ran densitometeic tests on this process as compared to the standard process a few months ago and posted the results here. They show significant deviation in color and contrast when compared to identical images using the standard processes.

I've not done any "real" photography, nor posted here, in three years. But I started thinking about doing some color neg, which had become my combo color/B&W media. One size fits anything I want to do. I used to take my C-41 to Wolfe Camera, or Walgreens, or my kitchen sink and then scan the negs. Wolfe closed a month ago, and Walgreens and CVS now do C-41 off site with a five day turn around!

I've putzed with C-41 processing for years, but my controls weren't fine enough for consistent quality. Just for fun, never important stuff. But this one shot process gives me hope for many reasons. Obviously, the lower temperature and longer development times give more time/temp tolerance. But I'm also intrigued with more accurate one shot processing vs. "rolls per" with more time. Your observations about bromide accumulation is brilliant and probably correct.

One of the things many have us have loved about B&W is that we can play with such materials over a wide exposure and development times for different results. It sounds like such traditional variables are in hand with C-41 with your system. That severe under exposure with push processing sounds yummy!

I will be doing a cut and paste of your hard work and keeping it in a document format on my hard drive.

re PET bottles. You may want to reconsider using PET. There have been many discussion on this board over the years about oxygen permeability with PET. I have observed that factory filled water or soda bottles that I never got around to using start collapsing after a year as water molecules inside osmote to the atmosphere. Maybe oxygen isn't moving the other way, but why take a chance?

Thanks for giving me hope!

Paul

A half teaspoon is 2.45 ml. Close enough or round up a bit.

There's a HUGE amount of info here, as forewarned. There is also a lack of continuity in presentation, as we bounce from developers, to bleach/fix, to RA4, etc. If one's only interest (who, me?) is one shot processing in C-41, there's a lot of advice to pull out of the thread in a number of places.

Not all of us will use Kodak materials, so some of us will have to foray into alternative brands, Unicolor, Arista, Tetenol, and Compard/Rollie. But obviously that's our burden. I know that what is presented is the summation of many, many hours of work by the OP.

Here is what I'm seeing as a "cut to the chase" instructions for the C-41 part. I'm going to presume that one wants some volume of developer for one's tank, SS or plastic.:

1. Mix your developer of whatever brand to a stock solution.

2. Knowing how much developer you need for your tank, divide by 15.

3. Take that quantity of of developer and add some sodium carbonate at these ratios: For 1 liter, 3ml volume or a rounded half tsp. Of course, from there, lesser amounts or working developer, less carbonate. I know from my previous work in B&W, this isn't precision stuff. (The carbonate boost is a good catch by the OP for diluted developing.)

4. Follow advice for time/temp: 12-15 minutes with continuous or intermittent agitation at 90 degrees F, or 18 minutes at 180 degrees F, or 8 minutes at 100 degrees F.

I did like the discovery of the immateriality of bleach/fix sequence. I'll probably start doing a hard ammonium thiosulfate fix and follow with whatever blix I'm using.

Is that it? Did I miss or miscalculate anything?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Paul Verizzo

There's a HUGE amount of info here, as forewarned. There is also a lack of continuity in presentation, as we bounce from developers, to bleach/fix, to RA4, etc. If one's only interest (who, me?) is one shot processing in C-41, there's a lot of advice to pull out of the thread in a number of places.

Not all of us will use Kodak materials, so some of us will have to foray into alternative brands, Unicolor, Arista, Tetenol, and Compard/Rollie. But obviously that's our burden. I know that what is presented is the summation of many, many hours of work by the OP.

Here is what I'm seeing as a "cut to the chase" instructions for the C-41 part. I'm going to presume that one wants some volume of developer for one's tank, SS or plastic.:

1. Mix your developer of whatever brand to a stock solution.

2. Knowing how much developer you need for your tank, divide by 15.

3. Take that quantity of of developer and add some sodium carbonate at these ratios: For 1 liter, 3ml volume or a rounded half tsp. Of course, from there, lesser amounts or working developer, less carbonate. I know from my previous work in B&W, this isn't precision stuff. (The carbonate boost is a good catch by the OP for diluted developing.)

4. Follow advice for time/temp: 12-15 minutes with continuous or intermittent agitation at 90 degrees F, or 18 minutes at 180 degrees F, or 8 minutes at 100 degrees F.

I did like the discovery of the immateriality of bleach/fix sequence. I'll probably start doing a hard ammonium thiosulfate fix and follow with whatever blix I'm using.

Is that it? Did I miss or miscalculate anything?

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Check your degrees and times... 180° at 18 minutes?


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

I prefer my color film overcooked............

Thanks/sorry.

Paul, you said 180 degrees F for 18 minutes. That will cook the film. Use 80 degrees at 18 minutes. When I said 12 to 15 minutes at 90F the default is 12 minutes. 15 minutes will be quite contrasty. (In fact, maybe you will find 12 min at 90F to be too contrasty: don't worship what I say. Experiment.)

About PET plastic: you are not completely wrong. One interesting thing I observed with these bottles is that if you put dry powder (any kind) into a dry bottle and then place the bottle in liquid, after a few weeks the powder will be damp! But....seemingly NOT the other way around. (Or does evaporation take place and quickly dry up: I think so, Paul.) If there is developer in the bottle and you keep the bottle in a dry environment, the developer will stay fine. Why? Here's why: (again, always the caveat) I have stored the developer concentrates for months and months and, you know, after that time and without ever opening the bottle, there is a slight space between the top of the liquid and the top of the rim. Apparently, some tiny amount has evaporated! But, the concentrate is fine because as it evaporated (osmosis) it left no oxygen in its wake! If the bottle is opened, at this point, letting oxygen in, I would add the marbles. True and I am glad you brought up this 'minor' point, Paul: glass is always the BEST, but PET works within the parameters.

I would imagine that other manufacturers' color developers would also work if you dilute 1 + 14 and add the carbonate. Test a small amount (pro-rated of course) and see.

Yes, format-wise I could have been a tiny bit more organized with my 'rant' but it is all there and written in understandable, unambiguous language. Thank you for noticing all these things, Paul. - David Lyga

The time/temp was obviously a finger error. You must have missed my response to another poster.

Today I looked at many C-41 chemistries, Unicolor powdered, Arista (Unicolor liquid I figured out), Rollei, Tetenal Rapid, and (hold on, rodeo fans) Flexicolor. Holy moly. What a mish mosh.

What Flexicolor products are you using and where are you getting them from? And how are you calculating dilution and rolls per quart/liter?

The closest thing I can see for an amateur user are the Flexicolor SM F1 an F2 kits. With lots of inter-googling I did find that one kit of F1 and F2 would process 240 (??) 24 exposure rolls. Since each kit seems to be available for $30-40, this would be outstanding on a cost per roll basis.

What say you?