3 bath E6: Tetenal or Fuji?

Boggy1 · Jul 7, 2010

Hi there!

For the past few months I've been exclusively using Tetenal chemistry, both their C41 and E6 kits. Now I am looking to develop a larger batch of slides, and I am wondering if I should stick with Tetenal or migrate over to Fuji.

I am going to need around 5L of kit, and this would mean the tetenal option would be slightly more expencive. However I have had good results in the past from using tetenal (although my Velvia 50 felt a bit cold), and the user guide does suggest it can develop more film than Fuji's offering.

However, since I will be developing Fuji's Velvia 100f, I am wondering if it would be more suitable to use Fuji's own brand. Would there be any noticable difference between the two kits? Can anybody give any first experience on both?

Thankyou!

srs5694 · Jul 7, 2010

AFAIK, Fuji offers a 6-bath E-6 kit but not a 3-bath kit; however, I'm not positive of that. If I'm right, though, I'd go with the Fuji simply because a 6-bath kit is likely to produce better and more archival results. My own experience (with Kodak 6-bath, Patterson 3-bath, and Freestyle's house-brand 3-bath) is that the 6-bath kit produced noticeably better results. My E-6 film isn't yet old enough for archival issues to be apparent, though.

Boggy1 · Jul 7, 2010

also have a habit of getting into things right as they get canned- Kodachrome andlaroids. I know its better to have love and lost than to have never loved at all, but according to Ag Photographic, it looks as if Kodak is dropping their 6 bath kits. So it looks as if its a debate over who's 3 bath kit does the job better, Tetenal or Fuji.

ZorkiKat · Jul 8, 2010

srs5694 said:
AFAIK, Fuji offers a 6-bath E-6 kit but not a 3-bath kit; however, I'm not positive of that. If I'm right, though, I'd go with the Fuji simply because a 6-bath kit is likely to produce better and more archival results. My own experience (with Kodak 6-bath, Patterson 3-bath, and Freestyle's house-brand 3-bath) is that the 6-bath kit produced noticeably better results. My E-6 film isn't yet old enough for archival issues to be apparent, though.

+1 for the 6 bath kit. Or at least one which has separate bleach and fix baths, as well as stabiliser.

The first E6 developing I did was more than 20 years ago. I've tried 3 solution kits (Agfachrome and Photocolor [UK]), and 'proper' E6 kits with 6 solutions.

The 3 bath kits lacked a stabiliser. Their instructions did say about using standard wetting agent/Photoflo solution at the end of the process. But nothing about a final or stabilising bath with formaldehyde.

Looking at the chromes 2 decades later, many of those developed in the 3-bath kits are now mostly magenta mush. Yet trannies of the same brand yet developed in the 'proper' kits -those with formaldehyde stabilisers- are still brilliant and retain good colour. These trannies and slides are stored in envelopes in the dark.

Stabilisers and preservatives like formaldehyde appear to be critical to making the colour dyes fast and last in time.

Ian Grant · Jul 8, 2010

The Tetenal 3 bath kit is excellent, I've used 3 bath E6 kits since their introduction by Photo Technolgy, the Chrome 6 kits gave results equal to any commercial lab, and none of my images have suffered as a consequence.

There may well have been substandard 3 bath kits but the Tetenal product is not one of them,

Ian

Rudeofus · Jul 8, 2010

Ian Grant said:
There may well have been substandard 3 bath kits but the Tetenal product is not one of them

If the stabilizing bath is a determining factor: the Tetenal 3 bath kit includes one.

Boggy1 · Jul 8, 2010

Ian Grant said:
There may well have been substandard 3 bath kits but the Tetenal product is not one of them,

Rudeofus said:
If the stabilizing bath is a determining factor: the Tetenal 3 bath kit includes one.

Thank you for your help, I'm definitely considering going back to Tetenal, since I have had some very good results from them before, this time I will be using their stabiliser bath. Because I had never really taken to photography serious before (before now it was more a matter of getting a passing grade), I never really looked into how archival my work was. I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that a lot of my work up until now has been with the mentality that as long as it lasted until I got my grade, then it was archival enough. :rolleyes:

Zorkikat, I wish that I could have a chance to experiment with the 6 bath kit, but unfortunately as I previously said, it looks as if its all coming to an end for the home-user. All my regular haunts which deliver to the United Kingdom have withdrawn their Kodak kits. Below however, I have found some more encouraging support to Tetenal's 3 bath kit. Perhaps not the most scientific, but I'm sure we can all pretend that the plural of anecdote is data!

http://www.photographicage.com/content/issues/volume_01/issue_06/review_txt_3.htm

http://www.photographicage.com/cont...ssue_07/review_2.htm?results=review_txt_3.htm

Is there anyone out there to complete our set and tell me how they found the Fuji 3-bath E6 kit?

nworth · Jul 13, 2010

I've used the Tetnal 3 bath kit. It works well, although the resulting transparencies are a bit more dense and have slightly different color characteristics that film processed with a 6 bath kit. This is no doubt due to the blix in the 3 bath kit, which does not clear the silver as effectively as the separate bleach and fix in the other kits. The additional steps for the 6 bath kits are really very simple and do not add significantly to the total processing time. I would recommend using one of them (Tetnal, Fuji, or Kodak) for best results.

Boggy1 · Jul 13, 2010

Unfortunately, I don't have anywhere to source a 6 bath kit from, since all my frequent haunts have appeared to have stopped carrying it- maybe it is true that Kodak have discontinued it. It seems that the main two problems with a 3-bath process is the lack of stabiliser and the use of blix. I know that my work around for the stabiliser would be to make sure that I use the 4th stabilising bath included, but that still leaves me with blix. It seems that its problem is how inefficient it is- so would extra time remedy this?

Tom Kershaw · Jul 13, 2010

Boggy1 said:
Unfortunately, I don't have anywhere to source a 6 bath kit from, since all my frequent haunts have appeared to have stopped carrying it- maybe it is true that Kodak have discontinued it. It seems that the main two problems with a 3-bath process is the lack of stabiliser and the use of blix. I know that my work around for the stabiliser would be to make sure that I use the 4th stabilising bath included, but that still leaves me with blix. It seems that its problem is how inefficient it is- so would extra time remedy this?

See: http://www.ag-photographic.co.uk/fuji-hunt-chrome6-e6-kit-5l-1758-p.asp

Tom

Boggy1 · Jul 15, 2010

Oh! Well, that's new! But could we leave the 6 bath kit aside for the moment?

I really am not experienced enough to deal with so many chemicals. Whilst to you all, it would seem as if the 6 bath is just as easy as the 3 bath, but to me if it gets far too complicated and costly, then I might be more economical to try Jessops instead- they were able to process a roll of slides for £4 for me- I don't know if that included mounts or not, since I wanted them in a strip.

Sorry guys, but the 3 bath + stabiliser is the way for me. Perhaps if I stumble across a Jobo ATL 1500 then I'll be more than happy to just pour the chemicals in and let it go, but right now with all the labour, both manual and mental, the 6 bath process is out of both my depth and price range.

So, I've heard many recommendations about the Tetenal Kit (which I'm quite partial to myself), but has anyone here used the Fuji 3 bath kit?

3 bath E6: Tetenal or Fuji?

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