Colour Dev

Jessops sold their own brandC41 kit, I'm not sure if it's still available but I have used it and it was OK. They now sell a Nova C41 kit.

Tetenal make the best C41 kit that's currently available in the UK, but you'll have to search for a store that stocks Tetenal chemistry.

Ian

 

Nova Darkroom have Tetenal.

Also you can try the Tetenal website as you can buy off there:

http://www.tetenal.co.uk/darkroom.php?cat_id=42

Matt

 

Graham,

You could also try the Fuji XPress C-41 kit which I use:

http://www.firstcall-photographic.c...s/0/fuji/fuji-c-41-film-x-press-kit-5-litres/

Tom.

 

If you go for the Tetenal kit I can give you any help you need, I use a pack up once a month. Doing your own C41 is very rewarding and pretty straightforward.

http://www.firstcall-photographic.c...nal-colortec-c-41-rapid-negative-kit-1-litre/

 

Start with the Tetenal kit. Either that or go straight to the kodak stuff.

 

Tiberius,

The Kodak C-41 chemicals are not very available in small kit form in the UK. The Fujihunt kit is less expensive than the Tetenal kit and uses separate bleach and fix baths rather than a blix. See references on APUG as to why a blix isn't such a good idea for C-41 processing.

Tom.

 

Does anyone sell the Fuji C-41 Film X-Press Kit, 5 litres in the USA and will ship also?

 

Graham,

If you look on the Firstcall website you'll see that Fujihunt produce a five litre kit for RA-4. The Kodak RA-4 chemistry is the best value though if you get through reasonable volumes.

Fotch,

Are you able to obtain a small Kodak C-41 kit?

Tom.

 

Yes - the Kodak RA4 kit is superb due to its low cost/litre and its packaging whereby there are separate bottles so you don't have to open up one larger one and start the oxidisation process.

 

I'm aware the blix isn't optimal, but the kit does it all and costs $15 US for quite a few rolls.

The kodak stuff is not available in a kit, but it's cheap relatively. It costs only 4-5 times as much as the tetenal kit and does many more rolls of film.

 

Another vote for the Fuji Hunt kit - it's readily available and as noted uses separate bleach and fix.

To buy, any of Silverprint, Firstcall or Calumet UK should see you right.

 

get the fuji kit. C-41 needs a separate bleach and fix, and it seems the tetenal kit doesn't have stabilizer?

 

*NEEDS*?

Interesting opinion - but it it safe to say that there are those here who would disagree. I've worked with both, and from the results, *I* would PREFER combined bleach and fix.

 

I believe its discontinued. In buying the larger quantities, some sites won't ship, if they do its expensive. The local camera store in Kenosha can't or won't order the chemical. Maybe they have to buy a large quantity?

I should try Milwaukee again. Some stores won't but I didn't call them all. Any one from Milwaukee know of a source there?

Thanks

 

I would be concerned of long term fading of colors from using any color development chemicals other than Kodak and Fujihunt brands. C-41 is a proprietary process that Kodak and Fuji cross licensed with each other. There are secret ingredient in Kodak and Fuji's C-41 chemicals that are not possible used by others. The ingredient holds the key to the correct processing of C-41 films. Besides, I found that, as an example, Tetenal C-41 compatible chemicals are actually more expensive than Kodak C-41 chemicals. My local photography supply store sells both. Each time I check them out I never found Tetenal a good choice for me. It is just more expensive than Kodak. You should use Kodak or Fujihunt unless you absolutely can not find them.

Try to locate the regional photo chemical wholesale supplier which supplies all photo labs in your city or region. That's what I do. I then purchase all the chemicals I will use in one to two years. It costs more than $100 one shot out of my pocket. But then I have all I need through the year even into next year. In this case I use only Kodak chemicals. The supplier has plenty of them.

 

There is certainly no question that either Kodak or Fuji C-41 will reproduce 'factory' results but I have not found long-term fading to be a problem for alternative C-41 used with Kodak films going back to Vericolor over 20 years ago. There really is no magic or big secret to C-41 chemistry. You can find tons of information on it in the patent literature at www.uspto.gov In my files I have books containing MacBeth chart negatives processed in alternative chemistry that seem to me to have changed very little with the passing of years.

That is not to say suppliers of packaged chemistry, e.g. Tetenal will do as well as official processing. It is my belief that C-41 chemistry is not proprietary and that the formulae can be obtained and mixed independently without licensing. However, the "official" chemical components are difficult for an individual to obtain. The official chemistry formulations are tailored to machine processing requirements that are not necessarily required for hand processing in small tanks. Pat Dignan and others researched alternative chemistry over twenty years ago and established clearly that perfectly adequate results can be had by mixing your own chemistry.

You might want to look at the Alternative C-41 thread that I started a week or so ago.

 

I am certainly not a chemist nor an expert about C-41 process. So I can not refute on this subject any further. But from reading photo.net and APUG forum entries over the years I got the impression that there are secret proprietary ingredients in the C-41 chemicals. I have a collection of about 3 years of publication of Creative Darkroom & Photo Techniques that had a lot of Digna's articles published in them. I remember Dignan (maybe another author) did say Part A of C-41 developer is where the Kodak secret ingredients are in.

I don't know where you can obtain an official C-41 formula from anywhere. There are alternative formula published from individuals who claim that the formula works. I just don't believe they work as well as official C-41 chemicals. This may be just my opinion. I hope Photo Engineer will be willing to comment on this. I do understand that he would probably not want to comment on specific 3rd party brand chemicals as he was an chemical guru from Kodak. But I hope at least he would be willing to tell if there is any secret ingredient in Kodak's C-41 chemicals. Kodak Final Rinse is one that is proprietary. Kodak's latest color films are coated with specific ingredient that allows them to be bathed with this final rinse without using the traditional harmful Formalin based stabilizer.

 

I believe the author you are referring to is Bertram Miller. In an article written by him he says that C-41 developers he scratched mixed never did equal Kodak Flexicolor developer in terms of sensitometric results. But he found that if he used part A of the Flexicolor developer and mixed it with scratch versions of parts B and C, the sensitometric results equaled Flexicolor developer. This led him to believe that part A had some proprietary or "secret" ingredient(s) not included in scratch formulas since they are not generally known.

But as PE has pointed out, grain and sharpness are also factors in which scratch formulas likely do not match Flexicolor developer due again to missing ingredients. I use both Flexicolor and home-brew scratch chemistry and have found my particular formula to have sensitometric results that are close enough to Flexicolor to satisfy me, and while I don't measure grain and sharpness, visually I am satisfied with the results I get; others might have more stringent requirements. I mostly use Flexicolor, but I want to be prepared for the day it becomes difficult or expensive to get or completely unavailable.

rpc