Anyone got an E6 brew?

David Nardi · Mar 18, 2011

I am looking for alternatives since the demise of Kodak's much loved 5L E6 kit. The price point of the 5L kit was the best around, it was easy to buy locally, and the consistent, clean, beautiful results spoke for themselves. Over the years I saved $1000's and beat the labs in quality and turnaround.

I know there are other commercial E6 options out there for the home developer with plenty of answers via other threads in this forum, but I'd like to ask if anyone has tried to 'brew' their own E6.

The Watkins Factor (http://www.opie.net/orphy/photo/dr/wkft-e6.html) is the closest brew I have come to that piqued my interest for making my own E6 from raw chemicals. However, the only step that bothers me is the reversal step. Watkins suggests to remove the film from the film drum and literally expose it to light (hard for me to do when using automated processors - Jobo ATL's). I would prefer it to be a chemical fogging procedure as in any commercial E6 kit.

Are there any photo chemists out there that have a solution for this? Is it too complex to achieve? Seems strange since Watkins has a recipe for all other solutions. I guess I can try to get a hold of Mr. Watkins himself.

Ian Grant · Mar 18, 2011

There was a formula in the BJP Annuals that worked perfectly I used it in the 80's for a short time, I'm not sure if I have the colour sections scanned here, all my post WWII Almanacs & Annuals are in the UK at the moment. Will look later.

One large UK lab Munns brothers used to make up all their own colour chemistry it saved them a fortune.

Ian

Update - PDF would be on it's way with very detailed Formula, instructions etc, need an email address .

hrst · Mar 18, 2011

The Watkins Factor recipes are wrong. This is the problem with most color formulas published, they are somewhat approximations that will give almost the same results but not quite.

However, it seems that the more correct (?) E6 formulas are posted here: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

As you can see they differ in many aspects, not only in the main developing agent that is different .

minesix66 · Mar 18, 2011

On the Largeformat photography forum, people are trying to get a bulk order from Fuji. Check there.

kb3lms · Mar 18, 2011

Could that PDF with the formulas be made generally available?

wildbill · Mar 18, 2011

I've been doing a little research as well. Sounds like CD3 isn't that easy to come by.

minesix66 said:
On the Largeformat photography forum, people are trying to get a bulk order from Fuji. Check there.

or (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Ian Grant · Mar 18, 2011

kb3lms said:
Could that PDF with the formulas be made generally available?

Not as is on a Public forum.

If I retyped it or OCR'ed it yes (it's not very easy to OCR) and gave full citations to the original, but the publication is still in copyright. Should add it's very detailed, not like the ersatz versions, has the reversal baths, conditioning baths etc, correct chemicals, with alternative 1st dev and Bleach.

Ian

Mike Wilde · Mar 18, 2011

>Sounds like CD3 isn't that easy to come by.

About 4-5 years ago I bought a pound of CD-3 from Artcraft for about $75, I recall, when they were in a small town outside of Albany NY USA, or nearby. I am not sure if they have moved.

The stuff was posted to me, and about three weeks later a second package arrived with a second pound and a note that the first shipment may have been a bit old so he shipped me some fresh stuff. No charge for the second shipment requested.

I still have a bunch of each batch; I use the old' for DIY print developers, and the 'newer' for E-6 experiments.

Contact me if anyone wants a small sample of say 15 -25g to experiment with before committing to buying a larger batch. I likely have the rest of the DIY chemistry.

Dave Nardi:

I am short of time to fully experiment, and have a good stock of viable Kodak 6 step e-6 at the moment to keep me going for the short term.

Get in touch if you need supplies to fiddle with.

hrst · Mar 18, 2011

kb3lms said:
Could that PDF with the formulas be made generally available?

They were all in the thread I gave URL to . Apparently they are copied from the article in question.

Ian Grant · Mar 18, 2011

hrst said:
They were all in the thread I gave URL to . Apparently they are copied from the article in question.

Saves someone retyping

Perhaps someone should put them all together in the articles section.

The pages of text and particularly the first section on the chemicals used for colour processing are rather important. From memory a German photo-chemist was behind the colour formulae published in the BJP.

Ian

wildbill · Mar 18, 2011

wildbill said:
I've been doing a little research as well. Sounds like CD3 isn't that easy to come by.

Correction, Artcraft chemicals has it on their site.

David Nardi · Mar 19, 2011

My email address is david@davidnardi.com

Thanks for all the replies. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

David

Ian Grant · Mar 19, 2011

Done

Ian

Athiril · Mar 21, 2011

Mike Wilde said:
>Sounds like CD3 isn't that easy to come by.

About 4-5 years ago I bought a pound of CD-3 from Artcraft for about $75, I recall, when they were in a small town outside of Albany NY USA, or nearby. I am not sure if they have moved.

The stuff was posted to me, and about three weeks later a second package arrived with a second pound and a note that the first shipment may have been a bit old so he shipped me some fresh stuff. No charge for the second shipment requested.

I still have a bunch of each batch; I use the old' for DIY print developers, and the 'newer' for E-6 experiments.

Contact me if anyone wants a small sample of say 15 -25g to experiment with before committing to buying a larger batch. I likely have the rest of the DIY chemistry.

Dave Nardi:

I am short of time to fully experiment, and have a good stock of viable Kodak 6 step e-6 at the moment to keep me going for the short term.

Get in touch if you need supplies to fiddle with.

Artcraft no longer ships some things outside the US, CD-3 is on the ORMD, and has been the entire time apparently that he was shipping it around.

Anyone got an E6 brew?

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