My better half's grandmother died a short time ago, and going through her stuff we found two rolls of 35mm film - one we were able to get developed and the other no one will touch.
I did a search using "process ecn II" and ended up registering on this board hoping that someone could help me.
The roll of film is labeled "Signature" which I am assuming is Montgomery Wards brand name, and has "DX process ecn II" written on it .
My question is this: where in the world can I get this developed to see if there is anything of interest to the family on this film? I live within 100 miles of Denver, so I am assuming any there may be a lab that can process this film there.
I hope someone can point me in the right direction. I think I have my email enabled, so feel free to offer suggestions.
The "Signature" film is from a company called Seattle Film Works (now renamed Photoworks(?) for reasons that will become clear below), who used to sell the respooled movie film and require that the film be returned to them for processing. This was because running the ecn II film through a standard C-41 machine would gum up the machine when the backing dissolved and deposit black goo on all the other rolls running through the machine (!). I do not know whether this is true or not, but all photofinishers policed their incoming 35mm cassettes to see if they were the dreaded Seattle Film Works film. SFW later switched to C-41 film stock, but the die was cast, and photo finishers would not develop rolls of their film even when clearly labeled C-41.
What would lead a company to do such a thing?? Why would people buy into it?
FREE FILM!
The deal was that you would get 2 rolls of film in the mail FOR FREE, and you send them back in a little pouch and get prints AND slides from the same roll! I caught the Seattle Film Works Free Film Fever, got back a set of really washed-out looking prints AND slides, and was immediately cured.
However, my bout of Free Film Fever recurred after they switched to sending FREE C-41 (!!) This led to making requests for free film (which was C-41) and using a photo finisher who would process the C-41 film even though it had the dreaded SFW label that others would not touch. The photo finishers who managed to process E-6 (slide) film in their C-41 machines were good candidates for the SFW C-41 film. But that is another story...
It appears the whole scheme started to fall apart after they started distributing film (for free) that could be processed by anyone and trying to convince people that they HAD to use SFW processing services.
The whole sad story can be found in the archives of photo.net (ahh the pre digital days of photo.net (1996), with Mr. Greenspun spinning yarns and folks coming out of their caves to club each other over the head with their Canon v. Nikon debates).
Last edited by Dug; 06-07-2007 at 07:43 PM.
Reason: Comic timing
A small correction to Dug's post: The "Signature" film is actually from Signature Color, which was a lab that did much the same thing that SFW did. I don't know if they're still in business, but I know that they stopped processing ECN-II film a few years ago, so even if they're still around they won't be much good to O.O.O. I believe SFW/Photoworks also no longer processes ECN-II film. (When both existed, either would process the other's ECN-II film.)
To answer O.O.O.'s question, there are a few places that will still process this film. One is Rocky Mountain Film Lab in Aurora, but they're expensive and they only do runs of ECN-II film every once in a while, so you could wait weeks or even months on the order. The last I heard, Dale Laboratories in Florida would also do ECN-II film, and at lower cost than Rocky Mountain Film Lab, but I haven't checked lately; call or e-mail them to be sure. It's been a while since I used them, but when I did they were a pretty good commercial photofinisher.
I just ran some rolls of kodak 5296 through dip and dunk C41 with the d&d the remjet backing stayed intact and no problems were noticed on the plots-the remjet backing is easily removed with a soak in warm water and a pec pad. The resulting RA4 prints were very low contrast although printing with increased ND on the filter pack yielded some pleasing muted prints-very retro looking-some loss of contrast could be due to the age of the film which is now discontinued-I'll try this again with some fresh short ends-and will make up the some of the above mentioned developer-I also heard mention of using E6 bleach as a substitute as well-which may increase the dmin-and increase contrast a bit.
Sponsored Ad. (Subscribers to APUG
have the option to remove this ad.)
Motion picture film is built to an average contrast of 0.5, while still film is built to an average contrast of 0.6. Motion picture film therefore has an inherent contrast mismatch when printed on normal color papers, as the print film intended for use is much higher in contrast than the current Endura or CA papers.
Yes, CD-n (CD-2, CD-3, CD-4, etc.) are Kodak color developing agents. They've got very long chemical names that would probably be meaningful only to chemists. The photochemical suppliers that sell them (at least, to the general public) don't use the full chemical names; they sell them as CD-3, etc., so just look for that. The last I checked, Art Craft had both CD-3 (used in RA-4, E-6, and ECN-2) and CD-4 (used in C-41).
A quick comment. Phototherm's documentation says explains how to process ECN-2 in their machines using C-41 chemistry. They claim that the anti-halation layer is not a problem in a one-shot processor like a Phototherm because the developer solutions are discarded. This would no doubt work just as well in a Jobo processor.
The dye hues and dye stability would suffer by processing the film in C-41 as the developing agent is incorrect. In addition, REM Jet is removed from the back by a scrubber. If the carbon gets into the swollen gelatin on the front of the film during any processing step, it is locked in place and will leave microscopic black specs in the image.
REM Jet must be removed from the back only with a sponge scrub and then a wash before the film begins processing.
I have seen film ruined by the processing method described by Phototherm. At the time, it was others doing the job though. And, BTW, you may get by with an apparent good image from this, but the test is color quality, keeping of the image, and whether there are any microscopic white dots in the prints.
Linear Mode
