Can you process C-41 B/W film in B/W chemicals?

[jasonjoo]

Hey folks,

I picked up a Holga and a few rolls of Ilford XP2 Super 400. Normally I would send off my film to a lab, but I am really itching to get into the dark room. I have no prior experience in there, but a good friend of mine does, and she is willing to teach me the ropes.

That said, I am unsure if the dark room I have access too is for b/w film only, or if it also has the C-41 chemicals. If it does not have the necessary chemicals for developing color film, could I process the XP2 in b/w chemicals? Will I get some weird results?

I leave for Brazil today with my church for a week, so sorry if I do not respond!

Thanks for your help,

Jason

 

[bob100684]

you can, but it won't turn out nearly as well as if you put it through c-41

 

[pkrentz]

XP-2

I have developed XP-1 (4x5) in ABC Pyro and had them turn out very well. Pat

 

[htmlguru4242]

The word is that they turn out OK, but not great.

If you do a search here, you'll see lots of information on this topic.

 

[nicolai]

(there was a url link here which no longer exists) are some examples.

 

[Kilgallb]

Hmm, processing photos from a Holga in less than ideal chemicals that produce less than excellent results. Sounds like what Holga's are all about.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

That's pretty unnecessary. "Excellent" is all in the eyes of the beholder. To me excellent = interesting. Holga cameras produce very interesting photography, in the hands of a skilled user. Why could you not use a Holga to see if C-41 films process well in b&w chemistry?

I think it's encouraging to see that C-41 film can be used for this purpose. I think I'll try some.

- Thomas

Hmm, processing photos from a Holga in less than ideal chemicals that produce less than excellent results. Sounds like what Holga's are all about.

 

[mrtoml]

I processed xp2 in diafine and they turned out much better than i thought.

The ones tagged diafine in this folder:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alt-digital/sets/72157594469510771/

 

[Akki14]

I find c-41 in B&W (or rather in my case, c-22 in B&W) incredibly hard to print with a deep orange mask. It's not easy to scan well either without lots of tweaking. So I'd find it frustrating as a beginning point for darkroom learning but there's nothing to stop you doing it.

 

[r-brian]

The Diafine box has a listing for XP2.

 

[bcostin]

It works ok. I used cheap (expired bulk) color film developed in Diafine for testing cameras of dubious functionality. The particular results depend on the film, but they tend toward grainy and contrasty. As with most things photographic some people like that, some people don't.

I don't do printing but I haven't had any trouble scanning negatives developed this way. You can scan it in as color and correct for the orange cast afterwards, or scan as grayscale and let the scanning software do it.

 

[Kilgallb]

That's pretty unnecessary. "Excellent" is all in the eyes of the beholder. To me excellent = interesting. Holga cameras produce very interesting photography, in the hands of a skilled user. Why could you not use a Holga to see if C-41 films process well in b&w chemistry?

I think it's encouraging to see that C-41 film can be used for this purpose. I think I'll try some.

- Thomas

Sorry, I did not mean it that way. I actually bought a few Holgas when I was a cub leader and let the boys go to town. We had some outdated colour film and the unskilled boys with a fresh view of the world produced some very intersting work.