8mm Color Reversal and Rewind Tank

All:

With the prices of regular 8mm film and processing climbing I'm considering developing my own. I have developed many rolls of 35mm using one of the popular C41 chemistry kits with great success. I have never used the E6 process or developed movie film. I will be using a Morse G3 rewind tank and one of the E6 chemistry kits. My questions are:

- Reading the instructions for the kits available I notice there is no reversal step where the film is re exposed to light for reversal after the first developer. Is this correct? Does the new chemistry somehow negate the requirement for this step? The morse tank even has a window to re expose the film.

- The instructions for these kits do not address the use of a rewind tank. I have read however that rewind tanks require longer times for each step. Can anyone clarify this? Is there any published set of times for these tanks or standard compensations? I'd really like to use a lomo spiral tank but all of the ones I see online are rediculously expensive and many are incomplete.

Any my help or recommendations are appreciated.

Thanks

Tom

have you considered the Russian
LOMO movie tanks?

cmacd123 said:

have you considered the Russian
LOMO movie tanks?

Click to expand...

The OP has actually already written that the LOMO tanks which he has seen online seem expensive and/or incomplete. However, I would agree that the LOMO would be worth considering, even if it cost a bit more to get a good example....I had a friend who used one regularly and very successfully for 8mm B&W reversal some years ago, and I would think that it would be simply a matter of "following instructions" with the E6 kit rather than potentially wasting a lot of time, and possibly, materials in testing with the Morse tank.

(And, yes, E6 uses a chemical reversal, so no second exposure is needed.)

Thanks Rallwayman. I agree, the lomo tank is definitely the way to go. It is very frustrating, all the ones i have looked at on the auction site are missing the spacers required for 8mm or 16mm. They are only useful for super 8 without them. I'll keep looking, I'm sure there are some complete ones out there. Many of the ones I have seen that are complete are insanely expensive. Amazing.

Where are you getting color reversal film for 8mm?

I'm getting it (ASA200) from two places: John Schwind at international film brokers and dwaynes in kansas. I get the color processed at dwaynes and B&W at Yale. Do you have other sources?

tom

I'll have to get me some of that ASAP. I haven't shot color in years. I have one of those Russian tanks and need to give it a try my self.

Rewind Tank processing usually triples the amount of time for each solution. This is based on a number of transfers from one spool to the other in the tank, wound so that each transfer or pass averages 1 minute. If you are only going to process a short roll such as 25ft/30ft Double 8mm, you can wind this smaller amount much quicker and thus can do a pass from one reel to the other in less than 30 seconds quite easily. This means you can shorten the rewind processing time, if using the recommended time of 2 cranks per second, to half the rewind normal time, which would be double the spiral reel time or thereabouts. However, a 25ft roll will transfer in a pass quite rapidly, and could be done in a span of 15 seconds. Doing this, would allow you to process a given single roll at virtually the same times as in a spiral reel or other full immersion method process. Your hands will get tired of course. Make sure to first prewash the film at 100 F to 104 F first for about 2 to 5 minutes, which will heat up the tank and film etc to temp. Make sure to be generous in your washes between chemical steps as well. Good luck and have fun!