C41 Developing at home

<p>I am wondering if any members have used the Tetenal and Rollei Digibase C41 kits and how they compare?</p>

<p>The Tetenal is a 3-bath kit but the Rollei Digibase is a 6 or 7 parts. Does that suggest the Digibase is better?</p>

<p>I think the Tetenal you refer to is dev, blix, and stabilizer. It's typically thought of as a two-bath kit though. The Rollei is only different in that the bleach and fix are separate and in theory, should yield negatives with more of the silver removed in fixing. That means they should last longer. Tetenal does make a 3-bath E-6 kit but that's for slide film.</p>

<p>I use the Tetenal for C-41 and it works great. Ridiculously long shelf life when mixed, especially if you're willing to lose a tiny bit of quality as it ages. The 1 Liter kit is supposed to be good for 8-10 rolls but I've used it for at least three times that, and as most of my negatives are scanned and seldom printed, the small loss in quality can be corrected digitally if need be.</p>

<p>I agree on the shelf life of Tetenal when mixed. I don't remember when I mixed it, I just use it:) And as with Patrick S the maximum number of films figure is passed long ago. Even from start I usually have to do some colour/hue correction so I don't mind a bit of post-processing.<br>

Haven't tried the Rollei kit though.</p>

<p>Only Fuji-Hunt and Kodak know the "real" C-41 formula, which is a shared trade secret between Fuji and Kodak. The Rollei kit is repackaged Fuji-Hunt. Photographers Formulary kit is repackaged Kodak.<br>

Any other kit will not produce the full capabilities of the film, you won't get optimal inter-layer effects, etc. You'll still get color pictures, but you won't get the most out of your film. It's not "bad", but it's not optimal.<br>

The other problem with the other kits is that they use "blix", which is one mixture that is both bleach and fix. There's no way to make a "blix" that isn't in a violent struggle of self-destruction. They do that because they were originally formulated as "press" kits, for working press photographers who needed to process film in a hurry in the field. The life of the solutions wasn't important in this application. Quick mixing, and quick processing, were the design goals.<br>

There have been complaints about poor packaging of the Rollei kits, leaking bottles, oxidized chemicals. This hasn't been a problem with the Photographers Formulary kit.</p>

<p>I use the uni-color kit from Freestyle and mostly have great sucess with it. The one liter kit costs US $18 and will give you at least 10 films. Long shelf life with this one as well.</p>

<p>I use the C-41 Tetenal Press Kit to develop all my color negative film in my Rokunar Universal Development Tank. <a href="http://imagepro.photography.com/index?site_id=7940&page_id=182841&preview=true">Here</a> is how I do it.</p>

<p>I've been using the Tetenal C41 and E6 kits for a while. Both great and really easy to use, I've got some lovely stuff out of them. Once the C41 needs to be replenished I will go for the more expensive kodak/fuji chemicals to see if they are worth the extra.</p>