Brown c41 base?

hamradio · May 2, 2015

Lately I've been messing with a Unicolor c41 kit. The first test was some ecnII Kodak Vision of questionable origin, which came out like total garbage...extremely low color saturation, super grainy, brown crappy looking base. After, I did an old roll of 120 Kodak PRN100. Better, but still had that brownish base. Thinking my technique or chemistry was crap, I ran a roll of Kodak gold 100 through it. Perfect...nice clear orange base, great colors.

Not ready to give up on the motion picture stock yet (since I have over 300' in my freezer...), I tried it a few more times. Different temperatures, removing the remjet at different stages, bracketing exposure three stops in each direction, etc. to try to get a usable neg. Same junk. I ran another roll of the MP stock through 1:100 rodinal, and it worked surprisingly well. Grainy, but very usable negatives with a nice clear orange base.

Am I just dealing with some really old, outdated, nasty stock? I did the BW test, thinking I'd see fog show up on the base, but nothing of the sort was present. When I've sent my worst, oldest c41 film to a lab, it has always come back with at least a nice, clear base, even if the images themselves were more or less junk. Any thoughts on this?

Gerald C Koch · May 2, 2015

Well for starters ECN films are not designed to be developed in C-41 chemicals. In my experience the base color of ECN films is different from that of C-41 films.

http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uplo...t_en_motion_support_processing_h247_h2407.pdf

hamradio · May 2, 2015

Yes, this I realize...however, I'd expect to at least get some usable negs, consistent with what many others running this stuff through c41 chemistry are getting. It must work OK enough, for CineStill has an entire business built on the concept. I'm just puzzled why I'm getting awful dark brown base with terrible, unusable negatives, but suspect the stock is 15 years old and poorly stored.

pbromaghin · May 2, 2015

SSSHHHHH! Don't let PE find out that you are learning C-41 processing with shitty old film like that. It will be like getting yelled at by somebody else's dad.

Seriously, I do see his point. Old, expired film of questionable origin brings way to many variables into the process, especially when one is feeling ones way through something new and complicated. Using Cine film adds even more complications. What did you do about the remjet?

Gerald C Koch · May 2, 2015

The ECN-2 and C-41 processes use different developing agents and therefore produce different color dyes when cross processed. I do not cross process films for this reason so really cannot offer any other help.

Photo Engineer · May 2, 2015

ECN is built to have significantly lower contrast compared to any C41 film.

And if you use outdated film, you get "THE LECTURE".

PE

Gerald C Koch · May 2, 2015

I might also add that I have been consistently underwhelmed by the sample Cinestill photographs I have seen online.

Photo Engineer · May 2, 2015

I'll second that!

Rudeofus · May 2, 2015

Whenever I read the words 'low saturation', 'brown base' and 'massive grain' in one issue report, everyone in this forum should be yelling "it's the BLIX, damnit!!!!", and not engage in random ramblings about outdated film, cross processed ECN-2 or the like.

To the thread starter: try to re-BLIX your negatives and see what you get. When you do this, make sure that your BLIX has at least 38°C/100°F and that you BLIX for at least 10 minutes straight, 15 minutes would be even better. After re-BLIXing do a proper wash and don't forget to STAB before yxou dry the negs.

Sirius Glass · May 2, 2015

Photo Engineer said:
ECN is built to have significantly lower contrast compared to any C41 film.

And if you use outdated film, you get "THE LECTURE".

PE

That is much worse the the GLARE from an elementary school principal! The GLARE can go through solid walls while THE LECTURE can pass through planets!

pbromaghin · May 2, 2015

I would also suggest that the first several feet of a cine recan or short end could easily be bad. Get a few layers into the reel and see if there is a difference.

jsmithphoto1 · Dec 4, 2016

Sorry to bump an old post, but these comments on "The Lecture" and "The Glare" are quite humorous! XD Next, there will be a Documentary on PE called "The Lecturer: What You're Doing Wrong." Or "Kodachrome Is #Dead."

All in fun

Photo Engineer · Dec 4, 2016

We (Bob Shanebrook and I) did that for Inside Analog Photography, but some of the audio recordings were never published.

PE

jsmithphoto1 · Dec 4, 2016

Oh that's not fair

Have you heard from him recently? I enjoyed listening to the phone calls, and still listen to them over every now-and-then.

Gerald C Koch · Dec 4, 2016

hamradio said:
Yes, this I realize...however, I'd expect to at least get some usable negs, consistent with what many others running this stuff through c41 chemistry are getting. It must work OK enough, for CineStill has an entire business built on the concept. I'm just puzzled why I'm getting awful dark brown base with terrible, unusable negatives, but suspect the stock is 15 years old and poorly stored.

You cannot get good results from cross processing color film. The color developing agent used for ECN and C-41 films is different and so are the couplers. The couplers are chosen for the particular developing agent. Using another will cause color changes.

As far as the ""brown base" is concerned it is a color mask formed during development and the color is dependent AGAIN on the developing agent used!

As far as Cinestill is concerned I am underwhelmed by the results I have seen. The examples all have a decided blue bias/cast. To parti9ally get around the color shifts mentioned above they sell a tungsten balanced film for general daylight use. Something that is normally not done without color correcting filters.

If you wish to experiment then fine. BUT if you are serious about your images then use C-41 film with C-41 processing.

Photo Engineer · Dec 4, 2016

jsmithphoto1 said:
Oh that's not fair

Have you heard from him recently? I enjoyed listening to the phone calls, and still listen to them over every now-and-then.

I assume you mean Scott, and the answer is no. As for Bob, we chat or have lunch from time to time. See posted pictures.

PE

iandvaag · Dec 4, 2016

jsmithphoto1 said:
I enjoyed listening to the phone calls, and still listen to them over every now-and-then.

This past summer, I discovered Scott Sheppard's podcast (Inside Analog Photo Radio) and I listened to several episodes which I quite enjoyed. Unfortunately sometime since summer, the links to all the podcasts have been down on every site, including iTunes. I really wish I had downloaded them all during the summer while the links were still working. I've tried to reach out to Scott here and on facebook, but it doesn't seem as though he is active on either site. Do you have a working link to some of the podcasts? If you have a copy of them on your computer, could you send me a PM? I'd really like to listen to them.

If anyone knows how to contact Scott, it would be nice if a few APUG members could pool together a bit of money to cover hosting fees for the podcasts. They seem like an important resource to the APUG community.

Photo Engineer · Dec 4, 2016

Last time I talked to him, he was cheerful but had been quite ill. He sent me a file of one of the last interviews and then vanished. I hope he is well.

PE

flavio81 · Dec 5, 2016

pbromaghin said:
SSSHHHHH! Don't let PE find out that you are learning C-41 processing with shitty old film like that. It will be like getting yelled at by somebody else's dad.

Also never imply that <insert brand name> makes a better film than Kodak or is the most advanced film manufacturer in the world!!

Photo Engineer · Dec 5, 2016

I use Ilford products. What's the big problem?

Flavio, your post is fake news! Sorry!

PE

flavio81 · Dec 5, 2016

Photo Engineer said:
I use Ilford products. What's the big problem?

Flavio, your post is fake news! Sorry!

PE

Fake news is all the rage nowadays!

http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/12/02/502542397/is-being-post-truth-a-new-concept

Rudeofus · Dec 6, 2016

Lucky us there are already fake news articles which tell us how to detect fake news!

jsmithphoto1 · Dec 12, 2016

Photo Engineer said:
I assume you mean Scott, and the answer is no. As for Bob, we chat or have lunch from time to time. See posted pictures.

PE

Thank you! Yes, I do mean Scott. I just learned last night -when I got the hankering to listen to the podcasts- they are unavailable ANYWHERE as Iandvaag stated. I wanted to to "curl up and die" as we say in the South. I can't believe you use Ilford! Gadzooks, Batman! I wish Ilford made a C-41 film. Their black-and-white is just phenomenal. And it should be, that's all they do.

On a side note... just a couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to run into some awesome chick on Craig's List here in Chattanooga that was wanting to sell a bunch of paper and darkroom equipment she acquired. In that stack of paper was a box of (16x20 or 20x24) Ilford RA-4 paper! It's metallic, I believe. I tried to make a test print but that sucked. I had no RA-4 at the time and used C-41 haha. I got results... The paper seemed to still be in usable condition. Hopefully I will find out in the next few weeks, as I am getting my darkroom setup for use! XD

Hmmm... talk about a rabbit trail.

Photo Engineer · Dec 12, 2016

AFAIK, Ilford never made an RA4 paper, let alone a metallic one.

PE

jsmithphoto1 · Dec 12, 2016

I could be just absolutely wrong whether this is RA-4 paper, but it is Ilford color paper

Brown c41 base?

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