C-41 party in Adelaide!

[polyglot]

I have more C-41 chems mixed up than I need right now. In 8 weeks time, I'm going to Europe for 6 weeks, so it would be good to make use of those chemicals before they go off, say a weekend in mid- to early-August.

Do we have any takers for coming round to my place to develop colour-neg film on the cheap? I'll fire up the CPP-2 in the morning, people come around about 10:00 and we process film, eat lunch and talk crap all afternoon. Cost will be $3/roll and BYO food/drink. I can do 135, 120, 220 and (maybe by then) 4x5".

I also have a Nikon 8000 so there should be opportunity to scan one or two particularly good frames that people might have, but not the time for whole rolls.

Given that you've got about six weeks to shoot, who's in?

 

[Athiril]

I'll take a road trip just for the Nikon 8000!

 

[hoffy]

Sounds like an interesting concept. Not sure on the dates, but I am definitely interested.

 

[markbarendt]

Sounds fun but the commute would be a bit long for me.

 

[polyglot]

I'll take a road trip just for the Nikon 8000!

Is not for sale!

 

[Athiril]

I meant to bring a USB and scan a few negs haha, while stopping at the great ocean road along the way

 

[cluttered]

Do we have any takers for coming round to my place to develop colour-neg film on the cheap?

That sounds fantastic!

Whilst I'm comfortable developing B&W, I'm a complete newbie with C41. Is your offer to do the developing for us, or to tell us what to do while we use your chemicals/equipment, or some other variant?

Anyway, put me down for a tentative two people (myself and my better half), depending on the date/time.

 

[polyglot]

Whilst I'm comfortable developing B&W, I'm a complete newbie with C41. Is your offer to do the developing for us, or to tell us what to do while we use your chemicals/equipment, or some other variant?

Anyway, put me down for a tentative two people (myself and my better half), depending on the date/time.

Whichever you like, really. We'll be using my CPP-2, which is a cheesy plastic contraption and a bit delicate but not hard to operate as long as you're gentle with it and don't dump my chems into the wrong bottle. You can certainly do your own loading onto the reels and take the risk (Jobo 2-series spirals are even more annoying than Paterson) of crinkling the film for yourself!

I'll have about 15 rolls worth of developer capacity to use up, so it matters not so much how many people there are but how many rolls you all bring. A handful is cool, a bag of 20 each isn't. I have 3 spirals so can theoretically do up to 6 rolls at once by double-loading but I haven't tried that yet; you're welcome to try it.

How about we set a tentative date for the 6th of August unless someone vehemently prefers the 7th? The following weekend is out for me due to booked events and after that I'm likely to be pretty busy with travel preparations.

 

[cluttered]

How about we set a tentative date for the 6th of August unless someone vehemently prefers the 7th?

Either option works for me. I'll make a note of the 6th, unless you advise otherwise.

 

[Athiril]

polygot, I can bring you some replenisher if you need it, actually, would you like some ECN-2 developer and a couple rolls of 50D?

 

[polyglot]

polygot, I can bring you some replenisher if you need it, actually, would you like some ECN-2 developer and a couple rolls of 50D?

You're quite welcome to make the roadtrip, though it's a pretty epic trip to make when I know you've been doing this stuff longer than I have! If you just want a couple of things scanned, you could post them to me with a return bag.

What sort of replenisher are we talking about? I'm not planning on moving into ECN or movie film though as I don't even have a 35mm body any more.

 

[Athiril]

C-41 replenisher, I got tonnes. I could bring a liter of ECN-2, and a couple rolls of 50D for you to try, same bleach and fix as your C-41.

I want to go on a landscape trip too

 

[NDP_2010]

nice idea! I would definately come if I wasnt in NSW

 

[polyglot]

Everyone who is serious about coming, please PM or email me. There's one and a half weeks to go and I need to know how many rolls/sheets people want to bring.

My 3010 has arrived and appears to be working (I've done 4 sheets in it) so 4x5 is definitely on the table too. Likewise, I plan to clean the optics on my SprintScan 45U this weekend so might be able to make non-streaky 4x5 scans, but no promises on that front.

The drying cabinet is also completed and tested; it's good for 8 (slanted) to 16 (vertical) rolls of 120 and completes in about 1-2 hours. Won't fit 35mm or 220 though, so you small-format people will need to take your chances with dust in the wardrobe.

 

[polyglot]

There were four of us souping stuff today, quite the congenial crowd with plenty to talk about. 12 rolls were processed, including an experiment with bleach-bypass that came out with a remarkably dark brown mask. Looks like I have a lot of scanning to do this week!

 

[cluttered]

It was a pleasant afternoon, and quite educational for this C41 newbie Thanks to Polyglot for his generosity and hospitality.

My test roll of Portra 400 (120 format) came out well. Scanned it last night with good results even though I'm still getting up to speed with this new scanner.

 

[polyglot]

So, the bleach-bypass experiment worked (thumbnail is link to higher res):

That one was normal exposure and have development pulled by one stop. I have a few others with normal exposure and development; they're crazy-dense but worked just as well in terms of high contrast and low saturation. The only drawback is scanning them: the dense brown base means that they take literally 10x as much exposure in the scanner, which means it takes about 30-40 minutes for it to scan just one 6x7 frame! I will of course do one in real RA4 once I get the chemicals but I don't even have the darkroom finished yet

And if you browse backwards from there (to about 2008/08/01), you'll find a bunch of other shots processed normally in C41 that day.