Help finding E-6 chemicals

[RobertoMiglioli]

Hello. This is my first thread on apug. I live in Brazil and things here are getting bad for home-developing. Three-bath Tetenal Kits are ridiculously overpriced (near 4x its cost in Europe) and are mostly out of sale in stores. Last time I ordered a Kit I waited for 8 months just to know that they were all sold in the first day.

So me and a group of friends are now doing our own chemicals. For B&W it was very easy, but for E-6 it has been a harsh task.

We can´t find CD-2 and CD-4 developing agents and a special kind of phenidone: 4-hydroxymethyl-4-methyl-1-phenyl-3-pyrazolidinone.

Can you help me find a company to suply this products? My e-mail is roberto@outex.com.

Thanks in advance. Best Regards.

[mts]

If I recall correctly you need CD-3 for E6 and you likely won't be able to find a source for HQ-monosulfate. There have been several replies here to alternatives for E6 but official E6 is hard to duplicate with current chemical suppliers. CD-4 will work, but is not optimal for permanence of dies and for getting color balance exactly correct.

[StoneNYC]

Have you tried ordering from the states? As un USA.

"Arista E-6" or "Arista Rapid E-6" they have a 3 bath kit that's reusable with calculations for extending the use of the chemicals for multiple rolls.

Good Luck!

[polyglot]

As I recall (from an ancient APUG thread), Brazil has ridiculous import tariffs. So while shipping a kit in is probably physically possible, it might be prohibitively expensive. My guess is that the OP would hope to source raw chemistry far cheaper than a kit, despite the high tariffs.

I personally use the Fuji 5L kits from Ag Photo in the UK and have them shipped to AU. Comes out to about $200 for 50 rolls, but that's 1/3 of the price of walking into a lab and we don't have import tariffs on photo chemistry except 10% GST on packages over $1000.

[Rudeofus]

The "special kind of phenidone" you refer to is Kodak's "Dimezone S" and it works like Phenidone but needs about twice the amount per volume. Its main advantage is that it is stable in alkaline environment, but if you use the working solution on the same day, for all practical purposes Phenidone works just as well.

As far as CD-3 (the one you want for E6) is concerned, this should be fairly easy to obtain since RA4 also uses it, and RA4 is also used for making digital prints.

[RobertoMiglioli]

If I recall correctly you need CD-3 for E6 and you likely won't be able to find a source for HQ-monosulfate. There have been several replies here to alternatives for E6 but official E6 is hard to duplicate with current chemical suppliers. CD-4 will work, but is not optimal for permanence of dies and for getting color balance exactly correct.

I received your formulary. Thank you and congratulations! It´s an amazing piece of work. I will talk to my friends and will reply you as soon as I have something done.

You say "Note also that the latent image properties for reversal films are not long lived". On "latent image" you say the film BEFORE developing? Is that it? If so I may have a problem because since the E-6 developing costs skyrocketed in Brazil I stopped sending the films to develop and keep them frozen (-18°C).

I have films from 2 years ago. Do you think I may lose something because of the age?

Thank you.

[RobertoMiglioli]

Yes, I tried from Freestyle, but:

"NOTE: This item is classified as ORMD. Due to shipping regulations these items can only be shipped via Ground in the Continental United States. ORMD items cannot be shipped to PO boxes."

Link here.

Thank you.

[wogster]

Yes, I tried from Freestyle, but:

"NOTE: This item is classified as ORMD. Due to shipping regulations these items can only be shipped via Ground in the Continental United States. ORMD items cannot be shipped to PO boxes."

Link here.

Thank you.

Many colour photo chemicals are classed as dangerous goods or ORMD, this means international shipping is much more difficult, you need special paperwork and you need to have arrangements in place to get spills contained and cleaned up en route. That's fine if your Kodak or Fujifilm, but not if your someone else. You can always do some digging, I found this in about 8 seconds. It's the distributor for Fujifilm products in Brazil, try contacting them and see if they can help you out.

[RobertoMiglioli]

As I recall (from an ancient APUG thread), Brazil has ridiculous import tariffs. So while shipping a kit in is probably physically possible, it might be prohibitively expensive. My guess is that the OP would hope to source raw chemistry far cheaper than a kit, despite the high tariffs.

I personally use the Fuji 5L kits from Ag Photo in the UK and have them shipped to AU. Comes out to about $200 for 50 rolls, but that's 1/3 of the price of walking into a lab and we don't have import tariffs on photo chemistry except 10% GST on packages over $1000.

It is true. Import taxes doubles (actually, it´s a bit more) the price of the good + freight. And that´s why we are trying to make our own chemicals.

[RobertoMiglioli]

The "special kind of phenidone" you refer to is Kodak's "Dimezone S" and it works like Phenidone but needs about twice the amount per volume. Its main advantage is that it is stable in alkaline environment, but if you use the working solution on the same day, for all practical purposes Phenidone works just as well.

Really?! So you mean that if I use regular phenidone I must use the solution within a day? How long will it last? Is it possivel to use regular phenidone and keep the working solution on low temperature to make it lasts longer? How cold should it be?

As far as CD-3 (the one you want for E6) is concerned, this should be fairly easy to obtain since RA4 also uses it, and RA4 is also used for making digital prints.

As far as I know it is CD-2 and CD-4, but I´m not positive sure. Probably you are right.

Thank you for this information. They were certainly very helpfull.