C-41 in Australia

[OldBikerPete]

Bleach, fix and stabiliser last indefinitely - but not made-up blix. I made up a batch of these 12 months ago and I'm about to re-use them with complete confidence.

Peter.

[SMBooth]

Sounds interesting at this point, what do "we" do for developer. Can it be brought in smaller volumes?

[Athiril]

Sounds interesting at this point, what do "we" do for developer. Can it be brought in smaller volumes?

10L of Flexicolor LORR replenisher is $46 from Vanbar, its about 280 rolls worth of replenishment. Vanbar should be adding LORR starter to their site soon too since a friend is special ordering it.

If you want just 1L of working solution, come see me

[Athiril]

I have been using Jobo CPE-2 and home-grown chemicals on 5x4 C-41 for a few years now and have enough ingredients to keep me going for a while - especially developer.
However JDPhotochem Canada has gone belly-up and I don't know where to get ingredients any more. Vanbar have some but I'm thinking.
Are there enough interested in C-41 here to group buy minilab chems. and split them among us - for bleach, fix and stabiliser - ie the chemicals which will keep a while on the shelf - everything except the developer? It's likely to be substantially cheaper then Tetenal.

Peter.

PS I have always pre-washed at 100F for 5 minutes in the CPE-2. Gelatin - even modern emulsions swell slightly, opening pores on wetting and I have always believed that the first couple of rotations in the CPE-2 do not wet the film evenly. If your first wetting agent is developer, I believe that means that your development will be uneven.

I've got 200L worth or so, they are in small quantities enough to not need to group buy from vanbar.

Use E-6 fixer from Vanbar, it is $6 for 10L worth, it's dilution is 1+9. Bleach is pricier. There are several other sites other than Vanbar for chems in Australia that I know of.

The only thing needing group buying from Vanbar would be bleach if you want C-41 bleach (which I'm using atm). There are alternatives though.

[Athiril]

Interested - but my main concern in all this is longevity of chems - particularly when opened to take out enough for a single run.

Opened but unused Tetenal concentrates last a very long time, they lasted over a year.

Concentrates last from my experience (as long as you don't allow contamination back in - if you pour too much out, don't pour it back in the bottle). Developer parts are acidic and preserved. Working solution is what will go off given the chance, though it still lasts a good amount of time.

Kodak concentrates - I received expired (in 2005) E-6 colour developer, still like new.

[postalman]

Is this the place to ask about who develops (at a good price)? I'm rather intimidated by the investment required in chemicals and hardware by C41 and E6 and I'd like to get my feet wet with someone else developing to remove some variables as a beginner, but $10/roll is just insulting when in the US it can be done for $1/roll.
Wembley photographics advertise $2.50/roll 120, but I'm in Sydney and they're in Perth. Any suggestions? Mailing would be OK for me.

[Athiril]

Well I'm in Melb, so not really close by, but I do C-41 at $5/roll for any roll format, $6.50/roll for E-6 for any roll format, $3/roll for B&W any roll format. Yet to establish ECN-2 pricing.