timlaux

Thank you all. It seems that Bill and Alan have, more or less, come to a similar conclusion that the swelling of the emulsion layers have an effect on the rate of reaction of the development process. Initially, I would have thought the presence of water (swollen film) might lead to over-development if I think of film as a kitchen sponge. A very dry sponge takes a while to initially absorb water and to become saturated. So, I figured dry film might act similarly. However, seems like dry film is pretty hydroscopic so it will tend to suck in developer solution upon contact. In this case, if the film is already pre-saturated with water, then displacing the water with developer requires some time, which may lead to slightly less development..though...how much can it really be?

Hi all, Tonight, I plan on processing with Kodak C-41 chemistry for the first time. I noted that the Kodak z131 manual does not recommend a pre-soak stage for rotary tank processing. While I am using a Paterson tank, I feel their recommendation may still hold. As far as I know, the pre-soak stage is just bring the temperature of the tank and film up to 38C/100F. Here's their recommendation: Some part of the emulsion runs off after the pre-soak. (I think the water is usually a blue-ish color.) On one hand, maybe those chemicals are really inteded to be their during development. On the other hand, seems like it might be good to keep those 'blue chemicals" out of the developer working solution. But, no science to back any of that. Anyone have a more scientific answer? Thanks!

I still have a pending account. This is a very confusing place to me: There seems to be such a big disconnect between the forum and photo sharing end. I was very excited about joining, but am loosing faith. Thanks.

Thank you for the lesson and for sharing your knowledge. I suppose doing process control at home is probably not really worth it, although it may depend on how much you do. In my case, I do not think I will ever exhaust the solutions, as in use up all of the reactants, within the manufacturer stated allowable storage times. If I only shoot 4-6 rolls in an 8 week period, mixing 1L at a time, then most likely will have plenty of overhead, in terms of chemical capacity. That said, I am well aware that the performance of the solutions will be slightly different (worse) after each roll it processes. I can refer to the replenishing rates for a particular system to understand how much to discard and how much to add per roll. While sounds good in theory, I wonder if there's really much use ( in my case ) where I will probably only exhaust about 1/3 of the chemicals' potential before it needs to be discarded due to age.

Also, does anyone have input on whether Stabilizer III (with formalin) has much advantage over the Final Rinse stuff? Not particularly stoked about using formalin in my kitchen, or trying to properly dispose of it. But if negatives only rinsed in Final Rinse are likely to go bad in 10 years then maybe I'll reconsider?

Thank you for your insights Bill. Makes perfect sense about why blix isn't used by commercial processors. I've see people make arguments that "Well the commerical processors use separate bleach and fix baths so it must be technically superior!" and others come back saying "It's not that blix is bad, it's just that it doesn't scale for commercial operations". Interesting points. And I'd agree that my shot looks more underexposed than anything. I remember that I didn't actually meter for that shot in particular,but did a general meter reading a few minutes before to get an idea about the available light. But, I metered for +1 box speed, and it seems like this exposure is maybe at -2 stops underexposed. Having a hard time thinking that I was really off by 4 stops, but who knows.

Honestly that one might just be underexposure. Regardless...I'm planning on re-stocking chemistry soon. I was mostly curious if anyone's used Kodak Flexicolor at home, whether you thought it was worth it, and if the shelf life of the unused chemicals was any good. In part, I think that's mostly been answered. Seems like it should be possible to do Flexicolor at home, just have to commit to shooting a lot of film to make it worth it!

Thanks. Is that Tetenal 4 bath kit really available? I've never seen it. Only the "2-bath" (really a 3-bath) kit. Do you have a link? In general, I think it's okay to "over-blix", right? Is there an upper-limit to how much you might blix passed the time noted on the instructions? Maybe another 30 seconds for a 6:30 Tetenal press C-41 blix? Thanks Glen. I'm just starting to learn about grain vs. dye clouds. My eye isn't really trained enough to know what is metal grain and what is dye cloud. I've attached a clip of an image which it seems most apparent.

I'm using a Fuji X-T30 and Nikkor 105mm f/4 for scanning. I am using the Lightroom plugin Negative Lab Pro with the B&W profile. In general, it does a very good job with auto contrast and producing a very nice histogram. Shadows were muddy and flat and the grain larger than I would've expected for 120 film. Still usable, but just felt like something was a little off. And yes, I won't rule out under development, although this isn't exactly my first rodeo..but it's not like I'm developing every day for a living. I also won't rule out proper exposure in camera. Was not using a camera with a meter or auto-exposure, but as I mentioned, was still metering at +1 box speed. Regardless of whether it was operator error (for this roll) or not, I'm probably going to need to swap out my chemistry soon anyway, as it's pushing about 5 months now. I know people have had reported 1 year or more with properly stored Tetenal, but I wonder how realistic that is. Thanks!

Thank you. Interesting. I hadn't given much thought to the idea that "weak blix makes thin negatives" other than (I think) reading it somewhere else. And by dark, I assume you mean the negatives are dark, not the print/scans? I found this thread on phototrio: Shelf life of Kodak Flexicolor SM Tank chemicals? There are some photos showing the LORR LU dev kit, final rinse, and fix/bleach. Kodak gives them all a 2 year (after manufacturing date) shelf life. To me, if they're willing to give them a 2 year expiration date, without particular storage instructions, then seems like they will hold up pretty well.

Hello Sandy. Sorry to hijack this thread from the OP, but I too have been waiting for approval for over 3 months now. I've tried contacting support via email, but no response. I tried uploading new photos but still pending. Thank you!

Hi all, First off, I'm sorry about the length of this post. If you have any input, or can answer only one question, that would be awesome. I also hope this might be useful to other people reading. I developed 7 rolls over 4 months in my last Tetenal C-41 powder press kit. Once mixed, all solutions were stored in brown glass bottles, in a dark refrigerator, with all air removed by adding marbles to the bottles to displace the air. The density of the last roll was a little bit thin. Could be a little underexposed, but I was already metering for ISO200 on IS400 film (XP-2 Super). So, I have reason to believe the blix might be shot. (3 of those rolls were Portra 800. I've read higher ISO films cause chemicals to wear out sooner.) My main dilemma is that I don't shoot much at all. On average, I shoot about two rolls per month. I'm also the type who likes to develop as I go. I have all the equipment for developing and scanning, so at this point, it still makes more sense for me to continue developing at home, as I can still beat the per roll cost of most labs, and of course, I enjoy the process. I'm between these two systems: Kodak Flexicolor LORR and CineStill CS41 Liquid. --- CineStill CS41 Liquid: Makes 1L Dev A + Dev B + Dev C Blix A + Blix B + Blix C (uses Ferric Ammonium EDTA, apparently better blixing agent than Ferric Sodium EDTA found in powder kits) Stabilizer (Hexamine + Photoflo) $35 shipped Kodak Flexicolor LORR: Makes 5L minimum (Fixer makes 25L, Bleach makes 10L) Kodak Flexicolor LU Developer Replenisher (A+B+C) (to make 5L)- 823 1672 Kodak Flexicolor C-41 Developer Starter LORR (1.2L) - 660 1074 Kodak Flexicolor Bleach III Replenisher (to make 10L) - 660 0258 Kodak Flexicolor C-41 Bleach Starter (1.2L) - 660 1082 Kodak Flexicolor Fixer & Replenisher (to make 25L)- 660 0027 Kodak C-41 Final Rinse & Replenisher (to make 5L) - 867 3170 or (??) Kodak Stabilizer III & Replenisher (to make 19L) - 196 5482 $100-120 shipped --- First of all, do those Flexicolor chemicals look correct? Kodak seems to have discontinued many chemicals. Numbers have changed, and I'm not sure what's what. If I hypothetically only made 5L working solution (even though most of the chemicals support 10-20L+), then the cost is $22/L. To use up (almost) all of the chemicals, I'd need to buy 1 more bottle of Bleach III and 3 more packages of LU developer, which adds about $75 to the price. This allows me to make about 20L of working solution for about $175USD, so the cost is $9/L. However, as I mentioned above that my throughput is quite low. According to Kodak (z131 document), the shelf life of the working solutions of most of their chemicals is about 2 months. One of my main questions is: What is the shelf life of the unmixed chemicals? I plan to only mix 1L at a time. Based on using 1L every 2 months, I will use 6L in a year. It will take me 3.3 years to go through 20L of working solution. Are the chemicals stable enough, unmixed, to last that long? Or am I going to have to toss them sooner? The Bleach III and LU developer I can buy in the future as it's depleted, but how about the other stuff? Another question: For processing new films like Portra, Pro400H, Ektar, XP2-Super, is there still an advantage to using formaldehyde based stabilizer (like Stabilizer III)? Or do most labs/people just use the "new" Kodak Final Rinse only? These two are interchangeable right? From what I understand, the Final Rinse does not include any anti-microbial/anti-fungal ingredient. For the most part, I'm just scanning these and not touching the negatives again. Does anyone have any suggestions or feedback on my proposed methods? What's your experience. Thank you! Tim

Well, it doesn't look so great as a close-up with harsh lighting, but I'm pretty happy with it. This is my repair with 3M 850 tape. A couple of notes: Try to avoid touching the adhesive side of the tape with your fingers. The tape is quite sticky, but it's still tricky to get it to stick to the crusty old bellows material. So, maximize stickiness by minimizing finger contact with the adhesive side. Cut strips of tape a little bit smaller than the width of one fold. (Maybe around 4-5mm.) 3/4" long strips was about right. (I used a 3/4" wide roll.) I started on a fold on the top face of the bellows and stuck half of a strip down. I used closed tweezers and a Q-tip to apply light pressure to the tape to make it stick. Then, I pulled the other half of the strip around the edge of the fold and stuck it down to the side face. Use the tweezers to keep the tape taught as you do this. To keep the tape from coming loose, I applied some tape over the edges of the folds. If experiencing difficulty getting the long strips to stick to the bellows material, try sticking a small square of tape down first, and then sticking the long strips to the starter tape. The tape sticks to itself very well. I recommend applying this repair to both left and right sides of the bellows, even if the majority of the damage is on one side. The additional tape will make the bellows a little bit stiffer. If you apply the tape to one side only, then you'll notice that the folds will not compress equally as you rack the bellows in and out. The untouched side will compress more easily and the newly taped side will resist compression a little more. This may put some additional stress on the bellows, so I think it's probably best to do both sides. Overall, I still have a few minor light leaks, but this definitely helped...It at least got me back to where I started before I ruined it. Thanks everyone.

Thanks for the tips. Yesterday I shined a bright led light into the viewing lens hole and saw no light leaking through the taking lens bellows. The inner bellows and bottom of the outer bellows appear to be in perfect condition. But, the top of the outer bellows looks like it experienced some user abuse and/or some wear due to exposure to the elements (i.e. sun). I’m going to keep my repair attempt “light” this time. You’d think I would’ve learned after my attempted 65mm repair.

Great! Thank you for the wonderful photos and captions. I’ll give it a check. Update on the bellows. Ive scraped/cut away the damaged bellows material. It looks quite a bit worse than when I bought it. (sigh). I am hopeful that some careful rework will get it to a good place. The lesson learned here is to be extremely conservative in the amount of silicone RTV used, and perhaps to allow an even longer set time (48hrs perhaps) I plan to try to repair with the 3M 850 tape. Since the damage is around the bellows’ top two edges (on the corner folds), I’ll have to do some experimenting with the tape to see how to make a good repair.

Thank you for that great information. I’ll have to check it out every once in a while. So far, I’ve only tried shooting on a tripod with this camera. I think I prefer working on a tripod anyway, because it’s challenging enough for me to find focus with the WLF, compared to some other cameras I’ve used. (I prefer split prism.) So, the stability of the tripod is nice.

Any particular part of the glass that is typically more prone to hazing than others? Front elements, rear elements? The guy behind the counter warned me about haze in this lens, though this one looked clean to me (at the moment.) Off-gassing of oils maybe?

Thanks again Orsetto for your advice. I tried a popular recommended repair method with black RTV silicone, while the bellows were extended. I let the silicone cure for about 24 hours before pulling the bellows back in. 48 hour later, I tried racking bellows back out and discovered the folds were practically all stuck to each other now, which I did not expect. So, the holes became bigger holes, unfortunately. The 3M 850 tape suggestion is also one I’ve seen. I’ll consider that next. I think I’ll need to remove the silicone/paper mess with an X-Acto blade first. I am a hands-on electronics engineer by trade, so my confidence for fixing random things is typically pretty high, but in this case, maybe it’s a little too high, as it seems to be getting me into trouble. Thanks.

Or, if anyone has a suggestion for an experienced Mamiya camera repair person/shop in the US, let me know. I’d be happy to send it to them. Thanks.