At home development of Tri-x Super 8

[mistercody]

Hi all,

I've been searching and searching, but I cannot find anything that seems to help me out. I am considering getting into filming Super 8 and using Kodak #7266 Tri-x reversal film. I am only going to start buying equipment if I know I can develop this at home as I do with my standard black and white negative film. I see that this is a reversal process, and though trickier looking, I think I can get it down if I have the supplies. The developer needed is D94a, but I do not see this for sale, and see that some people make it themselves. Is there anywhere to buy this?

I also hear about people developing it as a negative using Dektol or D-76, etc. and then inverting it post. Is this viable or is the reversal process preferred?

If anyone could point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it. I love the look of Super 8 and would love to try it if not overly difficult. I'd end up recording the results on a projection screen for digitizing.

Thanks,

Cody

 

[Sonicmook56]

I'm very interested in this as well. The film center down the street did a class on DIY super 8 film developing, but unfortunately for me it was booked up before I even knew about it. I think they were using plain old buckets with the film placed in the bottom, maybe under a green safelight with consistent agitation.

 

[mistercody]

I saw something about the bucket type of development, but that leads to (sometimes wanted) film scratches. I'm hoping to find a way to get a modestly clean look. I don't mind imperfections, but I'll limit it as much as I can

 

[Jerevan]

There is an APUG cine forum somewhere here. I don't know anything about it, but check if there's any info there.

 

[holmburgers]

You can get reels for 8mm and 16mm (as in, they can do both) by LOMO. They're about 100 bucks on eBay if I'm not mistaken. Reversal processing isn't all that difficult, and many different developers could be used. D-76, Dektol, HC-110, etc. There are lots of threads on APUG that deal with it, and quite a few articles as well.

In a nutshell.... you have a 1st developer that dev's the negative image, then you bleach this (potassium dichromate & sulfuric acid for instance) which removes the negative image and then there's a clearing bath of sodium bisulfite (I believe) to get out the chemicals, and then you expose the roll to light (totally fog it) and this exposes the remaining silver. Some people use a chemical foggant, which has been discussed in a recent thread called "Stannous Chloride Foggant Recipe" or something. The 2nd exposure exposes the positive image only, since the negative image has been removed in the bleach. The 2nd developer brings out this image, and then a wash. Apparently no fixer is required because you've already gotten rid of the other silver.

Reversing it in post is certainly an option, but it would be fun to watch the movies by projection as well. Hollar back if you can't find the threads and I'll post some links.

 

[johnielvis]

done it both ways

first thing you need is somethign to develop it with---I made an "inverted drum" that fits INSIDE a cibachrome 16x20 drum....I think this was 4 inch pvc i made it out of--and cut pieces of fiberglass tent pole and two vacuum cleaner belts---thick type to provide clearance so the film emulsion doesn't touch the outside drum while rolling--a whole roll of super 8 JUST fits inside--and the 2 cups of the cibachrome drum provides enough chemistry to develop the whole roll of super 8----

I used d-19 to develop --- straight d-19 for 6' about
bleached with dichromate bleach
re-exposed
re-developed
fixed (there's always a bit that even the developer can't develop)...then wash on the inverted drum and photoflo in the drum...dried by stringing it in my apartment--from one end of a room to the other and then back...worked perfectly.

 

[Mike Wilde]

I have a vintage bakelite manual rewind type of tank that was gifted to me. I would guess it dates to the early 50's. I think it is made by a firm by Morse. I will have more info to dig up, scan and post if you PM me. It will do 100' of film at a time.

It is adaptable to 8mm, 16 mm and 35mm. I got it to develop shots from a long roll film camera. The book that is with it gives guidance as to time, speed of crank, and formulae of developers for different vintage b&w films.

I have dabbled with reversal b&w processing in the past on short paterson rolls. Most of the time it was d-19 with a measured amount of pottasium thoicyanate as a first developer (becomes D-68 I think) Then permanganate or dichromate bleach. Dichromate can be reusable; I used the bleach from a sepia toner formula I have as a usual stock solution. Permanganate- well it did not work as well for me.

I have also got half way though a DIY telecine unit project. I fed a variable speed film projector a 20W 12V halogen bulb in lieu of the usual 250W bulb. It was a Eumig, and I recall it had a low voltage bulb supply to start with. I fired it into a pair of matched convex ( or was it one?) lenses from a theatrical elipsoidal spot (from an old Strand uni that was being tossed when its lamp was no longer made.)

Then I would line up the camcorder to look right into the gate of the projector. I filed the gate to get the full frame, and then would focus the camcorder to capture all of the frame. The next step was to wait for a decent cheap digital camera to come my way and then look into DVD authoring. I have many hours of double 8 Kodachome from both my Father and somewhat less from my Grandfather in law to convert and I am wanting to skip the analog to VHS, since it appears to be now a dead option to the relatives I want to gift this project's outcomes to.

I based the conversion on a Hacked magazine article from maybe 2002 which used a cam in the projector to trigger a repurposed mouse actuation button to do frame captures from a web cam used as the digital input device. I never figired out how the jpeg's were stitched in software to make the thing re-amimate in the digital world.

 

[ic-racer]

I never figired out how the jpeg's were stitched in software to make the thing re-amimate in the digital world.

That is actually the easy part. The stop-frame animation crowd uses digital still cameras producing a series of jpegs, so search under animation software.

 

[bdilgard]

Here is the thread - (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

I shot Super 8 for my submission to the "One Day on Earth 10/10/10" project and used the develop as negative in a bucket (2 quart SS tank in this case) approach - http://www.vimeo.com/16604931