Kodak Flexicolor C-41 chemistry

[epatsellis]

Pvia,
At one time Don Bryant assembled all the pertinent C41 documents into one, I have a mirror of it at http://www.eriepatsellis.com/z131.pdf , hope that helps make thing clearer.

[CorreCaminos]

Thanks for all the replies, which made the process a lot more understandable for me. I'll be ordering the chemicals shortly and giving it a go.

[Tim Gray]

Are you ordering from Adorama?

[CorreCaminos]

Yes, I was planning on getting the C-41 chemicals from Adorama. I usually get my supplies from B&H but they won't ship some of the chemicals. Anything I should know about Adorama?

[Tim Gray]

No, just curious. I've been wanted to try my hand at C41 at home (in small tanks) but always run into the same thing you are. What chemicals to order. When I think I've finally figured it out, I can't ever seem to find a place to order them from that stocks it all. I know Adorama ships, but for some reason I thought they didn't stock all of what I needed...

[mtjade2007]

It's good to hear you guys are going to take the plunge into C-41 home processing. It is really easier than most people thought. Just a reminder here that only the very first step, the color development step, is critical. You will want to time as close to 3 minutes and 15 seconds as possible. But if it turns out to be 5 seconds longer your negative will come out as good as you can expect. You will want to temper the developer at 100 degree F and keep it at the same throughout that 3 minutes and 15 seconds. However, I always temper the developer at 103 - 105 degrees to begin with. My bathroom sink is filled with water at about 102 degrees. My film tank remains in the sink during the development step. At the end of the development step the water temperature usually is a few degrees lower. So my film is practically processed in a temperature starting from about 102 degrees then ends at about 98 degrees. It has never hurt my negatives.

All the remaining steps can be done with ease. Temperature of bleach, fix and final rinse can be within 80 - 100 degrees. Time for bleach, fix and final rinse is not critical. A few minutes longer than specified in the instruction will not hurt anything. In fact I sometime bleach and fix my negatives for 10 minutes each becuase I reuse my bleach and fix. If my phone rings in the middle of bleaching or fixing I will answer the phone.

The developer is also the only chemical that will not last. I keep my mixed developer in 500 ml bottles (JOBO bottles) full with minimum air in it. The mixed developer can last over 2 months this way in my experience. But I always mix my developer in concentrated volume. My developer package is supposed to make 10 liter of developer. I always mix it to 2.5 liter and store it in 5 500 ml bottles. Each time when I use it I will take one bottle and add water to make 2 liters of working developer. The unused developer concentrate in 500 ml bottles can last easily over 2 months. I use JOBO bottles because they are know to be able to keep oxygen from breathing through the plastic. Most HPDE bottles are not good for storing developer despite they are brown bottles.

PE has advised to pre wet the film before the development step. I tried it and liked it too. It helps to bring the film up to the development temperature before the developer is poured into the tank.

[Tim Gray]

Do you do this by hand? I'd like someday to buy a PhotoTherm unit for this, but don't have the funds or the space currently. So I'll be doing this by hand in stainless tanks.

Also thinking about ordering the Trebla FilmPac kit from labdepot.com. All you need for a ton of rolls for $70 sounds like a good deal to me.

[srs5694]

Tim, I'm one who processes by hand in SS or plastic tanks (I've used both). The biggest hassle to this is just setting up the water bath. I don't have a heater for this task, so I regulate temperature by dumping some water and adding more that's warmer or cooler. It takes a few minutes to get the chemicals to the right temperature, so I usually start that before loading the film into the developing tank. With any luck, I'll then find that the temperature in the bath is reasonably close to 100F, so I dump some of that water into the tank to bring the film and tank up to temperature, then adjust and wait for the developer to reach 100F. When I use tanks that permit temperature reading during development, I find very little drift ofter the course of development -- maybe 0.1C or 0.2C at most. The temperature drops more during the bleaching, rinsing, and fixing stages, but as noted above, that's not as critical.

[Tim Gray]

Ok cool. I plan on doing this in a cooler with a fish tank heater. Or something like one. I was just worried about the pouring the developer in and out of the tanks with such a short development time.

[mtjade2007]

Before I bought my JOBO processor I did it with stainless steel tank by hand too. Tempering the developer is the difficult part. The developer temperature gets raised while the water bath temperature gets lowered. It takes a while and there is little control of temperature change. My JOBO processor takes 10 seconds to pour in and another 10 seconds to drain out the developer. This 20 seconds is included in the 3 minute 15 second development time.