E-6 of Fuji Chrome films in Jobo ATL-2300 - Newb

[jerry2]

Hi Everyone.... new Jobo atl-2300 owner.... I have some questions (well actually, a lot of questions).

Background: my ONLY use for the ATL 2300 is for E-6, 120/220, 45, 810 of FUJI films, not Kodak. My goal is to

get perfectly developed color, contrast, exposure, etc. So I will surely use the 6 step process for better

control. Volume will vary to continued use all day to, a few rolls, or a few sheets on some days. The goal

is perfect processing, and to that end, I am not concerned about chemistry cost... if consistency comes at the

price of single-use chemicals, then so be it.

 

 

I will number the questions so hopefully these who know some answers can easily respond by number. There

seems to be a lot of knowledge on this forum, but still some issues over chemistry....... hopefully by clarifying

my goals, you can help me hone in on whats best. Since I have no prior E-6 processing experience, I am

desperate for knowledge. Here is my strategies (all up for debate) and Questions.... TYIA

 

 

1) For 810 film the consensus is the Expert drum J3005, so I will order one exclusive for 810 film. For 4x5

sheets, J3010 Expert drum, 10 sheets. Foot pump for both.

 

 

2) I assume if I run less than max. number of sheets, I just use less chemistry and the development will still

be consistent?

 

 

3) For 120/220, I am confused between the 1500/2500 series tanks. It seems the 2500 series tanks suggest using

1250ml chemicals, but the ATL 2300 only allows use up to 1000ml per tank ?? Or is this mis leading? Others

have advised the 2500 series tanks are more desirable.

 

 

4) How is the qnty of film best handled, i.e. 2 rolls vs. 10 rolls of 120? Is this nothing more than an

adjustment of chemistry?

 

 

5) Other than the kodak manual on their e-6 chemistry, is there a good book to teach the basics, or maybe

details of e-6 processing?

 

 

6) What is chemical life, unopened bottles? open bottles? Does it make sense to transfer large volumes into

smaller containers to keep bottles full, i.e no air?

 

 

7) Processing only Fuji chrome films, I assume its best to use Fuji chemistry? Where to buy? I am in west

coast USA.

 

 

8) I assume running test strips is good safety check.... where do I get the strips and how often do I need to

run them?

 

 

9) How do users deal with waste chemicals when you are not in a commercial environment?

 

 

Any additional contributions would be much appreciated. Again, TYIA..

[john_shriver]

There are two minimums on chemistry. The first is the minimum that a particular drum requires. Then there's the minimum per 80 square inches of film.

 

You want to study the Kodak Z-series manual on E-6, and understand it cold.

 

Fuji film should process fine in Kodak chemicals. They cross-license and share secrets.

 

I have no idea where you would get Fuji control strips, but Kodak ones are readily available. Unless you have a proper densitometer, they aren't that important. Also, unless you plan to replenish, they aren't that valuable.

 

Fixer is the primary polluting waste chemical -- because it has silver in it. Simplest way to separate the filter is to add steel wool, the silver plates out on it.

[tin_ho]

I own an ATL-2300 too and have developed some E-6 but mostly C-41 films with Kodak chemicals. I process 2 rolls of 220 at a time using 1500series tanks and use about 800 ml of chemicals. This is a bit more than the minimum suggested by Jobo or Kodak publications. When I used less I never got satisfactory results. I mostly process C-41 now. I always use more juice than the suggested minimum. I have found that this is necessary to achieve the best that I expected. Whenever I used less or reused the chemicals my results were poor.

 

Yes, ATL-2300 can process with a max of 1000 ml of chemical only. The chemical tanks are 1000 ml in size. The processor is programed to pump a max of 1000 ml only.

 

ATL-2300 is a professional model. You will need constant cold and hot water supply. The hot water supply needs to be tempered to 100 degree F. This is only required for E-6 process though. I do not have a tempering bath to constantly supply this hot water to my ATL-2300 so I now seldom process E-6 any more.

 

Using a control strip to test your chemical is not going to be much useful. If you do not pump enough chemicals for your quantity of films the process will still fail. You won't have such failure in testing a control strip because to process a control strip you will likely pump more than enough chemicals. I found that I always get excellent result by processing one 220 and one 120 rolls or less films.If I process 2 rolls of 220 I will need to be careful to make sure the films get enough juice to work on them.

[g._armour_van_horn]

If you can adjust the timing, bump the color dev time, I've been using 6 minutes for ages and all my intermittent problems went away once I did. I'd say go ahead and use the first four solutions one-shot, it's too much of a hassle to figure out replenishment on a processor like this.

 

However, half the total dollars go for the bleach, and it lasts for ages. Get an aquarium pump and bubble air through your stock bottle for an hour a day (you can get little time switches for $5 at the hardware store). The working bath solution for bleach is basically half water and half bleach replenisher, plus a little starter. Once you have a jug of that going, replenish with 12ml of replenisher per 135-36 roll. Unless you manage to get dirt in there, I don't know any good reason you couldn't keep a gallon going for years. Just to be ultra certain for archival purposes, I run the bleach for 10 minutes instead of 6.

 

Fixer lasts a long time and is capable of handling a lot more film than the developer. When I was using a JOBO I saved the fixer, then mixed about 2/3 used and 1/3 fresh fixer for each batch. Again, I bump that from 4 minutes to 6, again as archival insurance if anything else wasn't quite optimal.

 

Remember that after the First Dev, everything else is run to completion, which means that you can add time as a safety factor without any risk. (Okay, an extra 48 hours in the bleach might lead to reticulation, but an extra ten minutes in every bath wouldn't if the temps were maintained.)

 

I wouldn't worry about control strips in one-shot processing. What on earth are you going to learn from them?

 

Fuji chemicals are easier to measure. For example, to make a half liter of Color Dev from Kodak concentrates you need 85ml of part A, 21.25 ml of part B, and 2.5ml of starter. With Fuji it's 100ml each of A and B, and the same starter. (The starters are interchangeable between the two brands, per my Fuji tech rep and confirmed by my own experience.)

 

I buy by chemistry from Kull Photo (www.kullphoto.com) at Kent. They ship promptly via UPS and I get everything the day after I order it here on Whidbey Island, if you're in California it might take another day or two. They stock Fuji Hunt, Kodak, and Russell, all of which seem to behave the same. Like everyone else they're struggling with the transition to digital, but they seem to be committed to taking care of us relics and Larry really knows what he's doing on the darkroom side after years of serving labs in the PNW. Highly recommended, feel free to mention my name.

 

Van

[jerry2]

John, i am in the process of learning the Kodak Z e-6 manuals....thanks for the steel wool tip.

 

Van, from what i read, fuji films require extra developer time, i will surely experiment with this variable. Not sure I will mess with replenishing the bleach, at least for now. Great tip on easier mixing of the Fuji chemicals... thanks! I am curious about this archival issue. These chromes need to be ultra archival. Can you explain how more time with the bleach / fixer increases archival characteristic of the processed film? What is optimal time? I am curious if most labs run the fixer / bleach long enough to hit these max. archival times? Any good resources on this archival issues for e-6?

 

I am still confused which drums to buy for the atl-2300 to process 120 film. Jobo literature says the 2300 processes up to 10 rolls of 120, however, when you look at the tanks, 10 rolls takes over 1000ml of chemistry, above the 1000mm limit of the 2300. I assume it must have been a mistake, and the 2300 can only process 8 rolls max?

 

Pros / Cons for the 1500 series drums vs. 2500 series for 120? Stainless reels vs. plastic?

[g._armour_van_horn]

Bill, I got the impression here that Fuji needed extra time, and it turns out that this is flat out wrong. It's a reflection of the way the original Velvia handled. A lot of shooters found it to be on the slow side. Some set their cameras to shoot it at 40, some bumped the FirstDev time to 6:30, which is basically the same thing. So now I've got a processor that is programmed to run FirstDev at 6:30 and have to manually over-ride it for every single roll I process. Note that I've heard no mention of the current Velvia running on the slow side, that only came up with the original, which was discontinued and brought back after much hue and cry.

 

Kodak Z-119-10.pdf calls for 6 minutes for bleach, I run it to 10 just to be sure. Kodak calls for 4 for the fix, and I stick with this. My processor was originally programmed to only run 3, and I know that you can get visible clearing in 2, so when I had the custom program done for my machine I just went with 4.

 

You absolutely want to replenish the bleach. Take a look at the prices on the individual concentrates and add up the set. You'll find that the bleach is at least half of the total. Switching from one-shot to replenished on the bleach will, by itself, cut your chemical cost by almost half. I try to keep my chemical consumption down to the minimum needed for quality results just out of a sense of stewardship, but I really get inspired when the resources I'm conserving are coming out of my own pocket and expensive!

 

If you don't want to stretch the fixer the way I used to, it's so cheap that it won't hurt you any. BTW, dump the steel wool, and any bleach you decide to throw out, around the base of the nearest hydrangea bush. (Pink ones will love the iron and respond with more intense color next year, don't do it to the blue ones.)

 

One of the old Kodak hands here said that the combined effluent from E-6 made a decent mild fertilizer for the garden. To take any pressure off the septic system, when my waste carboy is full I dump it down the drain if it's dark and rainy, but if I think about it during the day I just go empty it on the yard. It certainly doesn't slow the weeds down any!

 

I can't help on the drums and reels, I only ran 35mm and the occasional 6cm roll film, for which the 1500-series was fine. I didn't know there were stainless reels available until I had put my JOBO in storage. I believe the SS reels are from Hewes, which probably means they are wonderful, but I've never used them. If you go searching for them, remember that they're British, so they call them spirals instead of reels. (They also won't know about 4x5 film, only 5x4 film is offered in the UK.)

 

Van

[jerry2]

> I got the impression here that Fuji needed extra time, and it turns out that this is flat out wrong. It's a reflection of the way the original Velvia handled.

 

Van, you could be right..... however, I have read MANY references that state that ProviaF, Astia and Velvia all need to be adjusted accordingly, vs. Kodak chrome films.... Astia requiring the least amount of added time, next Provia then Velvia.

[jerry2]

Van, just going through the forums, here is some of the bits and peices that turn up...

 

> JOBO recommends increasing the first development time of the E6 process by 16% for Fuji films. This has worked fine for me using the Kodak E6 kit.

 

 

> I use 6.5 minutes for Kodak film with the Kodak E6 kit using the JOBO. The extra 30 seconds (6.5 vs 6) is because of the rotary processor. The additional 16% extra time is for Fuji film, which translates to a first developer time of 7.5 minutes.

 

 

> So for rotary processing, we consider 6:30 to be normal for Kodak and

Agfa films. We bring this up, because we find that for virtually all

Fuji films (with 1 exception) the first developer time is even longer.

It is necessary to increase the 1st developer time by another 16%,

bringing us to 7:30 as a normal rotary time for all Fujichromes except

for Astia. We found that 8%, or a total time of 7:00, was enough of an

increase to get normal densities with this film.

 

All these 1st developer time recommendations are based on exposing the

film at its manufacturer-rated ISO speed. If you are modifying the speed

for any special reason, then you may need to do some testing to find the

correct developing time for your needs. However, according to Kodak, a

1st developer time between 5:30 and 7:30 is reasonable.

 

 

Does any of this make sense?

[g._armour_van_horn]

Well, in Kodak's Z119 publication, there is a separate PDF file for each style of processor, and they all say exactly the same thing for FirstDev time. I would have assumed that the extra agitation in rotary-tube processors balanced the lower solution volumes available.

 

If I souped Astia at 7:30 the slides would look pretty anemic, they were a bit on the light side (i.e., numerous clients were requesting that I underexpose their files) when I ran it at 6:30.

 

I'd be curious about the age of those messages and the equipment they represented. You, of course, can set any development schedule that gives you what you need, but 7:30 is almost a full-stop push.

 

Van

[jerry2]

Van, thanks for the input.... the messages were not that old, within a few years IIRC....

 

and yes, these comments were all about rotary style processors.... I will be experimenting shortly... thanks again...

[dennis_ng]

<p>I found that 6:30 is not enough time using ATL1500 and 120/8x10 and Velvia 50. You need at least 7 and I goes with 7:30. It seems much better result. Full stop push programme in my ATL1500 is 8:30 in the Jobo. I programme it to be 7:30 for my fuji.</p>