Can we develop Movie Ektachrome Film in Nescafe

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Mar 6, 2011

I found short end Ektachrome Movie Film 200 ASA and 500 ASA and thinking to develop in nescafe. Is it possible ? I dont want to preremove the antireflection layer , may be developer smooth it and I can rub under water with my hands .

Umut

removed account4 · Mar 6, 2011

hi umut

i know you can process regular chrome and c41 film in coffee ( you will need to make sure it is robusta coffee, not arabica, ) as well
as sodium carbonate and vit c ... but i am not sure about movie film .. the remjet (?) layer might be hard to remove,
unless you do a long soak, or you use very-dilute household bleach ( after the film is processed ) ... and you will get a black and white image ...
with a yellowish mask that is very hard to print using conventional enlarger+wet darkroom methods.

you could do a clip and process a small amount before you shoot the whole reel/s

good luck !
john

hrst · Mar 7, 2011

NO NO NO, no household bleach. No, you don't need long soaks.

Remjet layer is removed by almost any weak base. Sodium bicarbonate works, borax works, sodium carbonate works... I mostly use bicarbonate.

But you need the mechanical removing. Rubbing under water with fingers works great, BUT you risk having remjet particles that stick to the emulsion side. I have used this procedure:

(1) Soak in warm sodium bicarbonate or sodium carbonate bath (I have used a few tablespoons per 5 liters) for a minute, with gentle agitation
(2) Move the film to a large bucket or sink full of warm water, run the film gently between your fingers
(3) Move to a second bucket with water just like in (2), repeat running between your fingers.

This usually gives satisfactory results with some small remjet specs that are hard to distinguish from the dust and scratches this kind of processing gives you anyway . However, sometimes I have repeated (1)-(3) with new, clean baths after (3).

Developers are alkaline and thus they will also soften the remjet backing. So, even if you had some remjet remaining, developer will get rid of most of it.

Please note that these tips are not for "clean", high-quality process, and will leave some minor defects. If you want to do it correctly, you need to have a special machinery with water sprays and rotating buffers. Carefully oriented water sprays are used also on emulsion side to ensure that the dirty, remjettish water cannot get to the emulsion side.

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Mar 7, 2011

Dear John ,

Thank you for your answer. Do you know Nescafe brand ? Its a powdered and heavily processed coffee which takes seconds to mix in to the water. I dont know what is the equivalent in USA .
I can find it at all markets here and may be its possible to find it at all Europe. May be you are talking about it with robusta coffee ?

What is the fixer recipe for home ? I need a fixer from materials which I can easily find from market or pharmecy. Can anyone help me ?

Thank you ,

Umut

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Mar 7, 2011

Thank you very much hrst.

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Mar 7, 2011

Can I develop with remjet and remove the remjet after the development. And I need Nescafe developer formula , time , heat and home made fixer formula and time , heat.

Umut

nickrapak · Mar 7, 2011

Do you have the process code for these films? If they are more recent (within the last 20 years or so), they are either process VNF-1 or E-6, neither of which uses a rem-jet backing.

hrst · Mar 7, 2011

Fixer is either sodium thiosulphate or ammonium thiosulphate. I THINK they are available for some purposes for pool or aquarium use but are not very widely available for these kind of purposes. But you can try your luck.

You can develop with remjet and remove it afterwards, but you will get remjet particles in your developer and cannot reuse it without high risk of particles sticking to the emulsion of the next film you process. The separate prebath I described above is much much cheaper to change every time.

You can find coffee formulas if you Google for Caffenol or Caffenol C. I'd suggest the version with ascorbic acid (vitamin C) added, because then you will at least have one reliable developing agent in the mix, coffee in itself is quite a big variable.

hrst · Mar 7, 2011

nickrapak said:
they are either process VNF-1 or E-6, neither of which uses a rem-jet backing.

Are you sure? Have you seen unprocessed E6 movie films to check this by yourself? I unfortunately haven't checked it by myself, but Kodak says they HAVE remjet backing, and I'd rather trust them.

Here is a message from Kodak I got forwarded from one guy who asked whether the 5285 Ektachrome 100D could be used in still cameras;

Hi xxxx,

It sounds like you are looking to spool the 100D for use in your still camera. One of the major differences is the anti-halation layer. The motion picture film uses a removable layer called rem-jet. It can only be removed in the motion picture process and will contaminate the still film processing machine chemicals. The other difference is the actual speed of the emulsion. The Motion Picture film is rated with an Exposure Index ( E.I.) the actual speed in terms of still fim is approx. 200 ASA. For these reasons the films are not considered interchangable.
If you would like to purchase a roll of motion picture film please check the kodak web site for the sales rep in your country.

xxxx
Eastman Kodak Company

removed account4 · Mar 7, 2011

hi umut

i just called the folks that make nescafé
they said any of the coffee that says "100% columbian coffee" will be 100% arabica beans
so do not use those coffees. the other ones, the ones that do not say 100% ... will be a blend
of arabica and robusto and would work for your developer.

as hrst suggested there is no "kitchen cabinet fixer" so you will have to try your luck.

with regards to household bleach a fellow i know on flickr uses it often
his household bleach is 5% and he dilutes it further 1:9 ... sorry for the curveball
i didn't know you could just remove it with your fingers ...

good luck !
john

nickrapak · Mar 7, 2011

hrst said:
Are you sure? Have you seen unprocessed E6 movie films to check this by yourself? I unfortunately haven't checked it by myself, but Kodak says they HAVE remjet backing, and I'd rather trust them.

Here is a message from Kodak I got forwarded from one guy who asked whether the 5285 Ektachrome 100D could be used in still cameras;

I'm not completely sure about E-6, but I know there is no remjet backing on any VNF films. I assume that If there was remjet on E-6, it would require a different process name, even if it used the same chemicals, like ME-4 and E-4. VNF film does have an antistatic backing, but it is either water-soluble or completely insoluble (it does not contaminate the chemistry).

yulia_s_rey · Mar 7, 2011

Ektachrome in Nescafe

Hello, this is my first reply on apug. I use KODAK 16mm Ektachrome and Tri-Reversal at work a lot, whenever I do my own test batches I've never had a problem with the anti-scratch layer. Then again I always do at least a 10min final rinse. I have done Double X 16mm in Nescafe just last week and it came out. I will scan it asap but i gotta look thru my recycle bin. Why not shoot in Tri-X or DoubleX since the Caffeic Acid only develops the silver and doesn't affect the dyes (at least from what I've seen in my tests) otherwise, why not try tri-x or dbl-x since it would be less expensive?

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Mar 7, 2011

Yuri ,

Welcome to APUG ! I thinked may be I can get some strange colors. What do I need to add to developer for activate the dyes ?

Best ,

Umut

yulia_s_rey · Mar 7, 2011

Nescafe move over, hello L'Oreal my attempts so far to activate dyes....

Thanks for the welcome! My best results with completely home-made recipes for color in so far have been on c-41 films, still haven't tried it on slide film. Wanted to try that sometime soon.
Dead Link Removed

At this point maybe skip the coffee altogether.
(I got this idea from looking up "C-41 Do it Yourself & Hairdye" and found a group on Flickr, so I can't take the credit) i just used the chemicals/materials I happened to have on hand:

Kodak 200/Lake George, NY 2004-5 and sat in a hot attic until last week)
Small Tank/1 Roll
Developer (Use once, discard)
- 3 Tspns of Sodium Bicarbonate
- 10-11 ml L'Oreal Black Ferria Hairdye
- .5 Tspn of Sodium Metasulphite (Stump-Out)
- 2 drops Rubbing Alcohol 70%
- 1 Drop Photoflo
- 1/8 grm Betadine Iodine Cream
- 1 drop HC-110 (Can be omitted?)
- Water to make 250ml
Stop
-2 Tspns Sodium Metasulphite
-5ml G. Acetic Acid nice
-500ml Water
Bleach-->
Copper Chloride Solution (made with electrosis of copper in salt+h20 solution at 24v DC)
If at best contains some copper chloride)
Any old Fixer will do (I used really exhausted Fixer)

Temperature as close to 100 deg F throughout.
Developed for 15 minutes, gentle 5sec every 3 minutes agitation cycle.
Stop 30seconds
Water Wash 2 min
Bleach 12 min
Water Wash 2 min
Fixer 10 min
Final Wash/Rinse 5min (wiped it w/ a wet sponge to remove excess "grim" left by process)
Hang n' Dry
sorry for the long reply but I figured it might apply, just to note my first try was with just 6-7 ml of Hairdye and Water I let it sit for an hour at 68 deg F and the negs were in color but very thin.

DarkroomExperimente · Mar 7, 2011

why Nescafe?

I always used Folgers instant coffee

removed account4 · Mar 7, 2011

hi darkeroomexperimente

the OP is in turkey, maybe folgers isn't readily available there ...

(nice to see you back ! )
john

yulia_s_rey · Mar 7, 2011

i agree Folgers is the way to go, but I have substituted it with Nescafe when I couldn't find it and even plain espresso coffee from my stovetop espresso maker. I believe its the caffeic acid in the coffee that does the trick since its pretty close to catechol. I once made a silly experiment using infusions of all sorts: plain coffee in water as the control and a dozen other infusions, like rosemary, oregano, and even tobacco in water. Just as I suspected the infusions that contained higher caffeic acid converted the halides. My favorite is Rosemary, I took 6 tspns of rosemary herb let it soak for 6 hours in 10oz water, filtered it and added vit c and washing soda. comes out green-tone, but overall similar to caffenol.

DarkroomExperimente · Mar 7, 2011

I think I also tried Rosemary...I have notes somewhere

is caffeic acid a "polyphenol" ?? I had understood polyphenols were what did the trick

I have a great photo chemistry book that claimed it was the caffeine...but I had my doubts so I tried caffeine+sodium carbonate & nothing happened

now would the haircoloring developer work with a BW film...( since I assume you would have a color dev & color couplers in the dev ) ???

yulia_s_rey · Mar 7, 2011

hi darkroomexperimente, i am very curious as well, I will be trying out just 6ml hairdye/200ml h20 on some Double X right now (I was doing another diy c-41 anyway tonight) will have the results up by twelve. I also read that it was caffeine-then I stumbled upon the caffeic acid wiki were they mention Caffenol, although wiki isn't the best resource out there

DarkroomExperimente · Mar 7, 2011

interesting...I read multiple sources that said it was polyphenols

I had a great time looing at labels in the grocery store ( Whole Foods I think ) looking for chemical names that seemed familiar...or products that bragged about antioxidants...it's really amazing how many common things work...many of the thigs I tried were very weak, but it was amazing to me they worked at all

David Grenet · Mar 8, 2011

hrst said:
Are you sure? Have you seen unprocessed E6 movie films to check this by yourself? I unfortunately haven't checked it by myself, but Kodak says they HAVE remjet backing, and I'd rather trust them.

Here is a message from Kodak I got forwarded from one guy who asked whether the 5285 Ektachrome 100D could be used in still cameras;

I'm afraid the Kodak rep got it wrong. I have a spool of 100D (code 5285, off the top of my head) and it definitely does not have a remjet backing. Not only have I seen the film, but I've used it and my lab (The Lighthouse Lab in Sydney) has processed it for me with no ill effects.

I remember when I was researching before I bought it that I found a reference in Kodak literature to the effect that it had no remjet, but I don't have time to try and find it again...

yulia_s_rey · Mar 8, 2011

the hairdye treatment

for my friend in turkey: to my great fortune i found a spool of undeveloped ektachrome! so i tried it out in 6ml/10oz water hairdye for 40 min at 70 F with minimal stirring, washed, then fixed washed and final rinse and it works! not the best scan (my scanner is horrible) some color information is evident. also as for b&w I took some snaps on old Valca 6 Din Ortho (f5.8/15secs) and developed that in 10ml h20 and 10ml hairdye for 15min at 70 F and it works, but very slowly as my negs were thin & underdeveloped and needed to be scanned at lowest brightness.

DarkroomExperimente · Mar 8, 2011

so this was simply water + hair dye with no other ingredients? wow...fun

yulia_s_rey · Mar 8, 2011

i just eyed it, no strict measurements. and I used water from the tap. I will try longer dev times also see how it works on paper

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Mar 8, 2011

Yurisrey ,

You are one great experimenter and I liked your Empire States Building pictures series very much. Do hairdye mix in to the water homogene ? Why there are blemishes on the negatives ? Empire States pictures looks like cyanotype. Thank you again.

Umut

Can we develop Movie Ektachrome Film in Nescafe

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