Alternative E-4 Processing

ektachrome · Jul 17, 2012

Hi guys
I have a roll of Kodak IE which I want to process. I know that E-4 is discontinued, but I still want to use the film.
As well as the Kodak E-4 Formulas (attached), are there any other ways of processing the film in colour.
PE, please help here.
Thanks
Ektachrome

Ian Grant · Jul 17, 2012

For home use you're better with the safer E3 formulae they were totally interchangeable. I'm not sure if I've scanned the formulae but they were well published over the years and worked perfectly. I did quite a bit of E3 processing until Fuji released their E6 films.

Ian

A_Caver · Jul 20, 2012

Alternate Formula

Here is a formula from Grant Haist's book:

Benzyl alcohol 4.71 g
Ethylenediamine, 100% 3.0 g
KI 0.047g
KBr 0.80 g
NaOH 2.05 g
Na2SO3 desiccated 7.60 g
Na3PO4 36.0 g
Citrazinic acid 1.35 g
CD-3 (4-Amino-N-ethyl-N-(B-methanesulfonamidoethyl)-
m-toluidine sesquisulfate monohydrate 10.50 g

Solution containing :
500g 1-hydroxyethylidene-1,1-diphosphonic acid
100g Sn2Cl
H2O to make 1 liter Use 30.0 ml

H2O to make 1 liter

The other solution would be to omit the TBAB from the color developer, and try a reversal bath as follows:

2 minutes instead of light:
Water 1L
HCl 37% Solution 1ml
SnCl2 1g
It is important to make the solution acidic prior to adding the SnCl2, otherwise you will get Sn(OH)2 which is not water soluble.

ektachrome · Jul 20, 2012

Thanks for your replies
Has anyone got an E-2 Formula?
thanks again
Ektachrome

Roger Cole · Jul 20, 2012

What are odds infrared film that old will yield usable results?

I don't know, just asking, but I think B&W infrared is less stable than regular B&W, no? And the regular E4 films weren't exactly stable to begin with.

John Shriver · Jul 22, 2012

You can cross-process it in C-22. There's a C-22 kit someone's trying to sell on eBay for about $45. That's going to be cheaper than buying all the raw chemicals to mix E-3 or E-4.

The Tertiary butyl amine borane (TBAB) in the E-4 color developer is the foggant to "expose" the unexposed silver. It's really very toxic stuff. As others have noted, use E-3 color developer, and precede it by fogging with a photoflood lamp.

But the infrared sensitizing dyes in the film were not very stable chemicals. I'd expect any old infrared film, be it black and white or color, to not have much infrared sensitivity left. No infrared film had good shelf life, which was part of why it was so expensive.

garnmanuk · Jul 22, 2012

Hi,

Some years ago I was given a large number of E-4 35mm Infra-Red Ektachrome films, and I thought they would be ideal for some projects that I had in mind where distorted colour, and prominent grain would enhance the images. I thought I would try processing in E-6 and C-41 at 20˚C (using my Jobo), and after testing arrived at the following:–

E-6
Presoak 1 minute
1st Dev 30 minutes
Rinses 1st at 10 seconds, 2nd at 20 seconds and 3rd at 40 seconds
Reversal Bath 10 minutes
Colour Dev 16 minutes
Pre Bleach 4 minutes
Bleach 10 minutes
Fix 10 minutes
Rinses 1st at 10 seconds, 2nd at 20 seconds, 3rd at 40 seconds, 4th 80 seconds, and
5th 160 seconds
Final Rinse In C-41 Stabiliser

C-41
Presoak 1 minute
Dev 11 to 16 minutes (depending on contrast and ‘wild colour’ required)
Stop 30 seconds
Bleach 10 minutes
Fix 10 minutes
Rinses 1st at 10 seconds, 2nd at 20 seconds, 3rd at 40 seconds, 4th 80 seconds, and
5th 160 seconds
Final Rinse In C-41 Stabiliser

The emulsion is extremely delicate when wet and should not be touched. The processing tank needs careful washing in case tiny bits of emulsion have come off near the edge of the film, which does happen.

I found that a dry preheat gave processing marks, which a presoak avoided.

The C-41 processed film can have strongly saturated colour and high contrast if the dev time is about 16 minutes, and the film prints with an additional 60Y 10M compared with normal colour neg printing filtrations.

The E-6 processed film is quite low in contrast and has an ethereal bluish cast, with pastel colours.

I still have some E-4 35mm Infra-Red Ektachrome films left in the deep freeze and I am planning another project. I recently tested one in C-41 The film was exposed at 64 ASA (with a yellow filter), with bracketing, in clear spring sunlight, gave well exposed negs at 64ASA. (But as with any infra-red film speed depends on the amount of infra-red about) This film was deved for 15 minutes at 20˚C and gave negs that have high contrast and saturation. However, the infra-red effect is not as strong as seen in films processed 5-6 years ago, which confirms John’s point.

Graham Morley

wildbill · Jul 22, 2012

John Shriver said:
I'd expect any old infrared film, be it black and white or color, to not have much infrared sensitivity left. No infrared film had good shelf life, which was part of why it was so expensive.

except for konica 750. I'm shooting rolls which expired 22 yrs ago.

wildbill · Jul 22, 2012

garnmanuk said:
Hi,

Some years ago I was given a large number of E-4 35mm Infra-Red Ektachrome films, and I thought they would be ideal for some projects that I had in mind where distorted colour, and prominent grain would enhance the images. I thought I would try processing in E-6 and C-41 at 20˚C (using my Jobo), and after testing arrived at the following:

E-6
Presoak 1 minute
1st Dev 30 minutes
Rinses 1st at 10 seconds, 2nd at 20 seconds and 3rd at 40 seconds
Reversal Bath 10 minutes
Colour Dev 16 minutes
Pre Bleach 4 minutes
Bleach 10 minutes
Fix 10 minutes
Rinses 1st at 10 seconds, 2nd at 20 seconds, 3rd at 40 seconds, 4th 80 seconds, and
5th 160 seconds
Final Rinse In C-41 Stabiliser

C-41
Presoak 1 minute
Dev 11 to 16 minutes (depending on contrast and wild colour required)
Stop 30 seconds
Bleach 10 minutes
Fix 10 minutes
Rinses 1st at 10 seconds, 2nd at 20 seconds, 3rd at 40 seconds, 4th 80 seconds, and
5th 160 seconds
Final Rinse In C-41 Stabiliser

The emulsion is extremely delicate when wet and should not be touched. The processing tank needs careful washing in case tiny bits of emulsion have come off near the edge of the film, which does happen.

I found that a dry preheat gave processing marks, which a presoak avoided.

The C-41 processed film can have strongly saturated colour and high contrast if the dev time is about 16 minutes, and the film prints with an additional 60Y 10M compared with normal colour neg printing filtrations.

The E-6 processed film is quite low in contrast and has an ethereal bluish cast, with pastel colours.

I still have some E-4 35mm Infra-Red Ektachrome films left in the deep freeze and I am planning another project. I recently tested one in C-41 The film was exposed at 64 ASA (with a yellow filter), with bracketing, in clear spring sunlight, gave well exposed negs at 64ASA. (But as with any infra-red film speed depends on the amount of infra-red about) This film was deved for 15 minutes at 20˚C and gave negs that gave high contrast and saturation. However, the infra-red effect is not as strong as seen in films processed 5-6 years ago, which confirms Johns point.

Graham Morley

I'm interested in this because I have some E-4 EIR as well and started a thread regarding it a few years ago. What I'm not getting is your times. 11 min bleach? 10 min fix?
This makes no sense. I don't see the benefit of doubling the fix time just because it's EIR. Did you just extend those times because of the low temps?

garnmanuk · Jul 22, 2012

wildbill said:
I'm interested in this because I have some E-4 EIR as well and started a thread regarding it a few years ago. What I'm not getting is your times. 11 min bleach? 10 min fix?
This makes no sense. I don't see the benefit of doubling the fix time just because it's EIR. Did you just extend those times because of the low temps?

Hi,

Yes, I increased the Bleach and Fix times because of the low temp. I wanted to ensure that the film was bleached and fixed sufficiently. I was not concerned about giving too much time in the Bleach and Fix, as these steps are to finality. But I was concerned about giving too little time.

Graham Morley

Alternative E-4 Processing

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