Arista E6 480ml kits, and Paterson Tanks for 120 film

[Luckless]

I have been going back and forth on diving into colour film, and debating taking a dive into it this spring.

One of my biggest hangups to experimenting with colour slides has been reliable sources of chemistry here in Canada, as the online retailers I typically use either list E6 chemistry for in-store pickup only, or have consistently been out of stock any time I've gone to look for it.

However, a local retailer has been keeping a seemingly reliable stock of Arista E6 480ml kits in stock for the last while, and I'm tempted to finally try diving in.

But, as I use Paterson tanks, I'm not sure what would be the most viable and reliable method to use such kits, given that I shoot 120 film, which uses 500ml of chemistry per reel.

- Is the E6 chemistry tolerant of the slight extra dilution required to make up 500ml batches to ensure film coverage, or should I plan to buy and use 2 kits? [Or 3 kits, if I want to use a full litre and my typical two reel developing setup?] From the directions I've read online so far it didn't seem like this was a 'mix-to-stock and dilute-to-working-strength' chemistry.

- For my black and white work I often double-load my reels such that I can develop four rolls of film at a time. Is there any noticeable risk in E6 for doing this? [The kit claims support for up to 4 rolls of 120, with options for extension beyond that, but I've not gotten my hands on those details, and none of the instructions I've read have mentioned 220 film.]

 

[Rudeofus]

Are you 100.0000000% sure, that some essential part of your film roll will not be covered in photographic liquid, if you fill these tanks with only 480ml?

On a side note: dilution from 480ml to 500ml is essentially what happens, if you reuse your chems just once, and many kits allow for reuse up to 3 or 4 times. Carryover from previous bath (typically a wash step) is easily somewhere between 15 and 20 ml. Therefore I would not expect any visible differences if you have to add these extra 20ml of water upfront. Increase FD time by 15 seconds if you are concerned about slightly reduced activity.

 

[Luckless]

Are you 100.0000000% sure, that some essential part of your film roll will not be covered in photographic liquid, if you fill these tanks with only 480ml?

All my tanks are currently loaded with film waiting for me to have a free evening at home, so double checking is kind of difficult, but as far as I remember the film will be covered with less than 500ml of fluid and standard Paterson reels.

If I was 100.000000000% sure whether or not there was an issue or it was a total non-issue, then I'm not sure why I would be asking the question. [Sure, I enjoy reading my own writing at times, but I could probably find a better topic if that's all I wanted to do...]

What I don't know is how that might effect things like local chemistry exhaustion, potential foaming with the E6 developer, or overall evenness of the process. 500ml is what was apparently settled on as 'best practice' for the film, or they would have probably marked it as less... Since I'm kind of cheap, I rather learn from other people's potential mistakes before drifting away from that best practice. Cost of the kit and film is a lot of rolls of what I'm already familiar and happy with, and would rather not spend that only to relearn an 'obvious and dumb mistake' that loads of people online may have been able to tell me.

Haven't found an article that was clearly using the combination of a 480ml kit with 120 reels in the Paterson tanks. [Any I've read with this combo in mind either used a different tank for 120 film, a different volume kit, or were shooting 135 film on the smaller reel.]

 

[Rudeofus]

The reason I asked that question is simple: Jobo also recommends 500ml for their 1520 tank, yet I get flawless results with as little as 450ml. Paterson may well have gone the same route - err a bit to the upper side to make sure it works reliably for everyone.

 

[MattKing]

During the development stage, roll the tank on it's side in a small basin of water at the correct temperature.
Just be sure to put thelid on tightly.

 

[mshchem]

I remember agonizing about this when I was a kid. Kodak sold E4 kits in pint sizes. Me and my Paterson tank. I did the nutty kid thing and bought E3 in half gallon.

I would first check out the minimum to immerse the reel. If you dilute to 500ml with a accurate graduate, I think you would be fine. I have Nalgene graduates.

 

[fs999]

Is it for hand inversion or rotation ? For rotation you need a bit more of the half of the quantity than for hand inversion...

Btw, I looked at the jobo site (www.jobo.com) to look at the minimal quantity and there is a difference between the German page and the English page :

All values are in ml (millilitres)

                                    GERMAN         ENGLISH
                                INV / ROT INV / ROT
Jobo 1510 250 / 140 170 / 140
Jobo 1520 485 / 240 270 / 170
Jobo 1530 725 / 330 700 / 330

I suppose that the German values are the correct ones, as they are printed on the drums...

 

[Luckless]

I would be doing hand inversion for the Paterson tanks. Have been on the fence about switching to a rotation processing setup.

 

[thuggins]

If you can get hold of a Tetenal kit, it is preferable to Arista. The Arista kit has no stabilizer. Fortunately I had it left over from a Tetenal kit, but absent that you would have to mix up your own, which would be a pain. If you got the Tetenal 2.5l kit you could mix up a quart at time instead of just a pint.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

I have been going back and forth on diving into colour film, and debating taking a dive into it this spring.

One of my biggest hangups to experimenting with colour slides has been reliable sources of chemistry here in Canada, as the online retailers I typically use either list E6 chemistry for in-store pickup only, or have consistently been out of stock any time I've gone to look for it.

However, a local retailer has been keeping a seemingly reliable stock of Arista E6 480ml kits in stock for the last while, and I'm tempted to finally try diving in.

But, as I use Paterson tanks, I'm not sure what would be the most viable and reliable method to use such kits, given that I shoot 120 film, which uses 500ml of chemistry per reel.

- Is the E6 chemistry tolerant of the slight extra dilution required to make up 500ml batches to ensure film coverage, or should I plan to buy and use 2 kits? [Or 3 kits, if I want to use a full litre and my typical two reel developing setup?] From the directions I've read online so far it didn't seem like this was a 'mix-to-stock and dilute-to-working-strength' chemistry.

- For my black and white work I often double-load my reels such that I can develop four rolls of film at a time. Is there any noticeable risk in E6 for doing this? [The kit claims support for up to 4 rolls of 120, with options for extension beyond that, but I've not gotten my hands on those details, and none of the instructions I've read have mentioned 220 film.]

I use the Arista kits. 20ml variation will make very little if any noticeable difference at the 480ml volume. Smaller volumes (like 240ml in a Jobo tank) will, but if you're going to mix up the whole thing (yes, it's mix to working strength, so don't do it until you're ready to use it), 20ml isn't a big deal. The directions even say that you can have small variations with no major effect.

 

[Luckless]

Excellent, sounds like good enough input to give me reasonable confidence to roll the dice and see how it goes this spring.

Thanks!

I'll have to dig up some reading material on the stabilizer, but from my initial reading this does not sound overly problematic either way.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Excellent, sounds like good enough input to give me reasonable confidence to roll the dice and see how it goes this spring.

Thanks!

I'll have to dig up some reading material on the stabilizer, but from my initial reading this does not sound overly problematic either way.

For the stabilizer, I use standard C-41 final wash with a small amount of formaldehyde mixed in. PE has described this in other posts, I’m sure you can find it easy enough via search