Any suggestion before I try C-41 film development at home?

marciofs · Sep 28, 2018

I am very prolific developing b&w film negative but it's the first time I'm going to try C-41 on my own at home.

What I got is:
2L Tetenal C-41 development chemistry kit.
120 Kodak Ektar 100.

Thedevelopment tools I got are the same I use for black and white:
Film development reel tank.
Thermometer.
Vinil Gloves,
Timer.

My main doubt is about health and safety. When I did it once at a shop 10 years ago I was instructed to wear a mask, but I know many people don't. I plan to develop at my kitchen or bathroom using the stove to warm up the chemistry, so any health advice would be appreciated.

I haven't exposed the negative yet. I'm going out to photograph this weekend. So any advice and ideas on exposures and development agitation or time to get better colours with Tetenal chemistry and Ektar 100 is also very welcome.

Thanks in advance.

trendland · Sep 28, 2018

I just recieved a Film from the lab wich was much older I doubt before.
It wasn't a "forgotten" Film from last summer holiday - it was a Film from last decade and that was to much for that emulsion.
Massivest color casts I ever saw in live. So the Film must have an expired age of more than 15 years.
But I did not remember to have such old Films forgotten to develope.
It must be a Film with not that age.
Perhaps the lab made massive failure?
Think about that and be not afraid of doing c41 development. Make your experience and love to learn about having a misstake. That's the real currency of darkroom work.
with regards

MattKing · Sep 28, 2018

Use the stove or other heat source to warm up a big batch of tempering water.
Use the tempering water in something like a small cooler to warm up the chemicals.
Gloves are a good idea. Good ventilation is much more important and useful than a mask.
If you can work using something like a large developing tray to catch any drips or spills it will make cleanup much easier, and it is important that cleanup in a kitchen or bathroom area be fairly thorough.
That being said, normal and reasonable care should be sufficient.

trendland · Sep 28, 2018

Forgetting to state c41 is standard developing (LOOK at your Tetenal Instruktion) so a standard exposure is not a so bad idea.
The RISC on your healthy is depending on the time you will spent in darkroom with c41 chemicals.
So if you will do this over 12 hours a day and 20 days/month you will need a more efficiency
protection in comparison to a workflow of having one c41 develope Film every 2 month/6times a year.
But I would not recommand (from the last example) to have no protection.
Do not eat, smoke,drink in darkroom and do not use stuff for chemicals wich are also used for food
is the absolut beginning roul. The rest is depending on you. Let c41 bleach not come on your skin
the Rest of c41 stuff shoult not come in your eyes.
with regards

RPC · Sep 28, 2018

In general, color chemistry is not much different or more harmful than b&w chemistry. If there were such different concerns for color chemistry, there would be lots of warnings in the photographic community and literature, but there isn't. Both can be used safely with equal diligence. A mask is not necessary, but good ventilation is advised for both.

marciofs · Sep 28, 2018

MattKing said:
Use the stove or other heat source to warm up a big batch of tempering water.
Use the tempering water in something like a small cooler to warm up the chemicals.
Gloves are a good idea. Good ventilation is much more important and useful than a mask.
If you can work using something like a large developing tray to catch any drips or spills it will make cleanup much easier, and it is important that cleanup in a kitchen or bathroom area be fairly thorough.
That being said, normal and reasonable care should be sufficient.

Thanks for the advice.

One question. how would you describe good ventilation?
In the winter doors and windows will be closed. Since I live in a one room apartment, I think about after the developing to open the window for 10min in the winter, just as I do after shower and after cooking to avoid mold on the walls.

I have in mind to place and do everything in the shower box, so when done with developing I just switch on the shower and wash the the area with plaint of water.

marciofs · Sep 28, 2018

trendland said:
Forgetting to state c41 is standard developing (LOOK at your Tetenal Instruktion) so a standard exposure is not a so bad idea.
The RISC on your healthy is depending on the time you will spent in darkroom with c41 chemicals.
So if you will do this over 12 hours a day and 20 days/month you will need a more efficiency
protection in comparison to a workflow of having one c41 develope Film every 2 month/6times a year.
But I would not recommand (from the last example) to have no protection.
Do not eat, smoke,drink in darkroom and do not use stuff for chemicals wich are also used for food
is the absolut beginning roul. The rest is depending on you. Let c41 bleach not come on your skin
the Rest of c41 stuff shoult not come in your eyes.
with regards

Thank you very much for bring it up.
I will probably do it once or twice a month I guess.
There was a time that I was developing b&w film negatives every weekend, sometimes twice a week.

marciofs · Sep 28, 2018

RPC said:
In general, color chemistry is not much different or more harmful than b&w chemistry. If there were such different concerns for color chemistry, there would be lots of warnings in the photographic community and literature, but there isn't. Both can be used safely with equal diligence. A mask is not necessary, but good ventilation is advised for both.

Thanks.

RPC · Sep 28, 2018

I think the biggest concern for ventilation is when mixing the chemistry. Just open a nearby window or turn on an exhaust fan. The processing is done in a tank so you are not as exposed.

MattKing · Sep 28, 2018

marciofs said:
Thanks for the advice.

One question. how would you describe good ventilation?
In the winter doors and windows will be closed. Since I live in a one room apartment, I think about after the developing to open the window for 10min in the winter, just as I do after shower and after cooking to avoid mold on the walls.

I have in mind to place and do everything in the shower box, so when done with developing I just switch on the shower and wash the the area with plaint of water.

Do you have a ventilation extraction fan for either or both of the bath room or above the stove?
Otherwise I'd recommend opening the window for at least part of the process - say during the bleach stage.

Sirius Glass · Sep 28, 2018

Fumes are not a problem. Good temperature control is. I suggest that you watch for a Jobo processor that you can afford so that you can get consistent C-41, E-6 and black & white film development. I do more black & white film development than I do C-41.

mklw1954 · Sep 28, 2018

Some easy precautions that are worth doing, besides just working carefully:
- Download and read the Safety Data Sheets for the items you are using so you'd know what to do in the event you spill anything on yourself or on counters/floor.
- Wear lab goggles to protect your eyes, nitrile gloves for your fingers/hands, wear a long sleeve shirt.
- Provide some ventilation. For a mask to be effective, it would have to utilize a cartridge that would adsorb the specific organic and inorganic volatile chemicals given off; I've never seen a list of these so it's not clear what to use. A simple dust mask would provide no protection against gaseous substances. Therefore, some ventilation should be used. In warmer weather open a window and use a fan to direct air in your breathing zone to the outside. In colder weather, cracking a window and using a small personal fan to direct air in the breathing zone to the outside might take away enough of the chemicals.
- Also, placing or even just laying caps on bottles, even when emptied during processing, and on spent chemical containers, helps to reduce chemicals in the breathing zone.

Sounds like a lot to do but it's simple and is easily incorporated into the developing routine.

marciofs · Sep 28, 2018

MattKing said:
Do you have a ventilation extraction fan for either or both of the bath room or above the stove?
Otherwise I'd recommend opening the window for at least part of the process - say during the bleach stage.

In the bathroom there is a small ventilation hole on the ceiling. It has no fan.

In the kitchen there is a ventilation extraction fan above the stove. but if I can I rather do it in the bathroom.

marciofs · Sep 28, 2018

mklw1954 said:
Some easy precautions that are worth doing, besides just working carefully:
- Download and read the Safety Data Sheets for the items you are using so you'd know what to do in the event you spill anything on yourself or on counters/floor.
- Wear lab goggles to protect your eyes, nitrile gloves for your fingers/hands, wear a long sleeve shirt.
- Provide some ventilation. For a mask to be effective, it would have to utilize a cartridge that would adsorb the specific organic and inorganic volatile chemicals given off; I've never seen a list of these so it's not clear what to use. A simple dust mask would provide no protection against gaseous substances. Therefore, some ventilation should be used. In warmer weather open a window and use a fan to direct air in your breathing zone to the outside. In colder weather, cracking a window and using a small personal fan to direct air in the breathing zone to the outside might take away enough of the chemicals.
- Also, placing or even just laying caps on bottles, even when emptied during processing, and on spent chemical containers, helps to reduce chemicals in the breathing zone.

Sounds like a lot to do but it's simple and is easily incorporated into the developing routine.

I will do that.
Thanks.

jamesaz · Sep 29, 2018

Just follow mixing instructions that come with the kit. Developer temperature is the most critical part of the process. Heat the amount you need to use, along with the water presoak to slightly higher than what the instructions call for as there is some loss of heat in the pouring. The bleach temperature is not as important, so a bit cooler temp is nothing to panic about. Wearing nitrile gloves is a good idea. It's really like other film processing in that achieving the optimum outcome is possible, but rare and you have to mess up quite badly to not get something usable. Have fun & good luck. It's only photography.

marciofs · Sep 30, 2018

I guess I was over paranoiac because I searched some videos on YouTube and very few people use gloves when developing and not any other protective equipment at all. And many people develop the film negatives besides their crockery and kitchen paper towel.
I will always use gloves and remove any kitchen stuff from the area when developing my film negatives, but I guess it is not as dangerous as worried about.

Sirius Glass · Sep 30, 2018

Since you already do black & white film, after the first time you do C-41, you will wonder why you waited so long.

jamesaz · Sep 30, 2018

marciofs said:
I guess I was over paranoiac because I searched some videos on YouTube and very few people use gloves when developing and not any other protective equipment at all. And many people develop the film negatives besides their crockery and kitchen paper towel.
I will always use gloves and remove any kitchen stuff from the area when developing my film negatives, but I guess it is not as dangerous as worried about.

Yeah, the main reason I use the gloves are because my tanks (SS) can leak and the stuff is creepy feeling when it gets on my hands. It's not dangerous if you just use common sense precautions.

marciofs · Sep 30, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
Since you already do black & white film, after the first time you do C-41, you will wonder why you waited so long.

I am already wondering about it.
I was expecting have the film negative ready to develop today (Sunday), but I guess because the colour negatives are much more expensive to purchase and because I am shooting 6x9, I am being much more selective on what to shoot. So I went to a park and shot only 5 frames. With me also had 35mm camera loaded with a black and white film negative and I shot at least 10 frames with it.
So I guess shooting colour filme will slow me down even more which I see as a positive thing.

russell_w_b · Sep 30, 2018

I started developing C-41 a few weeks ago and it seems to work fine. I use a Tetenal kit in my Paterson tank and do it at 30 degrees C for 8 mins (will increase this time later in accordance with the recommendations). But I'm going flat-out on 120 and 35mm colour so I get the chemicals used up before they go off! Then I'll be back to B&W for a bit. For my next trick I'm going to try to get two 120 films on my Paterson reel with a small bit of the tape that joins the film to the backing paper, to maximise the bangs for my buck.

Old Tin Barn by Russell W Barnes, on Flickr

marciofs · Oct 2, 2018

I finally did it and looks like I did fine. I developed for 8min with 30ºc.

The day was too dark for a ISO 100 so they are shaky.

I don't like much the colours except on the photo with the log.
The camera was a Voigtländer Bessa I

On this one I learned the self-timing of my camera is not working right... But I like it

marciofs · Oct 2, 2018

russell_w_b said:
I started developing C-41 a few weeks ago and it seems to work fine. I use a Tetenal kit in my Paterson tank and do it at 30 degrees C for 8 mins (will increase this time later in accordance with the recommendations). But I'm going flat-out on 120 and 35mm colour so I get the chemicals used up before they go off! Then I'll be back to B&W for a bit. For my next trick I'm going to try to get two 120 films on my Paterson reel with a small bit of the tape that joins the film to the backing paper, to maximise the bangs for my buck.

Old Tin Barn by Russell W Barnes, on Flickr

Why don't you buy a longer tank which you can load two 120 reels?

I like the colours you got.

pentaxuser · Oct 2, 2018

The colours look OK to me as well. I mean OK in the sense that they look authentic. If colours are authentic then I do not know what else you can ask for. The other benefit is that despite developing at 30C which is a big help for newcomers who worry about maintaining 37.7C you have not got any of the dreaded colour casts that some will say often occur unless the temperature is within 0.2 degrees C of the so-called prescribed temperature of 37.7 C.

pentaxuser

marciofs · Oct 2, 2018

pentaxuser said:
The colours look OK to me as well. I mean OK in the sense that they look authentic. If colours are authentic then I do not know what else you can ask for. The other benefit is that despite developing at 30C which is a big help for newcomers who worry about maintaining 37.7C you have not got any of the dreaded colour casts that some will say often occur unless the temperature is within 0.2 degrees C of the so-called prescribed temperature of 37.7 C.

pentaxuser

When I said I don't like much the colours I was refering to the film negative colours (Ekter 100).
Thanks for the feed back.

Wallendo · Oct 2, 2018

I'm glad I started home development before finding APUG, or I likely would have been scared away from such a finicky and dangerous activity .

Film development can be as precise or as easy as the user wishes. There are people here who develop film with the same industrial precision as the people at Leitz who engineered and manufactured their Leicas. Others used the same care as the people who stamped out their Dianas.
Perfect technique can produce perfect development and good enough technique can produce good enough results. My philosophy is to start simple and then refine the process.
The chemicals involved in processing will for the most part be inside a sealed bottle or capped development tank, and most home users are using small quantities of chemistry. In the OP's case, leaving the bathroom door open with the kitchen fan on should be adequate ventilation.

Any suggestion before I try C-41 film development at home?

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Any suggestion before I try C-41 film development at home?

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