Colour Film, B&W Chems?

[hoffy]

OK, this is going to seem like a total newbie question, well, because it is (for this kind of thing anyway), but.....

Is it at all possible to process Colour film (either positive or negative) in B&W Chems (I am currently using Ilford LC-29)? What kind of results would I expect? Would it contiminate chems (such a Fixer), that I wish to keep and re-use for B&W processing?

Any advice would be great!

 

[srs5694]

Yes, you can process color film in B&W chemicals. That's one of several types of cross-processing -- other common ones being color print (C-41) in reversal (E-6) chemicals or slide (E-6) film in print (C-41) chemicals.

When you process either color print or color slide film in B&W chemicals, you'll get a B&W negative (unless of course you do B&W reversal processing). I've never done it myself, but my understanding is that most color print films produce a B&W negative with a dense orange mask, but slide film produces a less pronounced mask.

I don't recall hearing about problems with fixer when doing cross processing, but I can't say with certainty that there won't be problems. If you want to try it and you're concerned about this, just wait until your fixer is nearly exhausted and do your cross processing as the last roll in that batch; or set aside some fixer to use only for your cross-processing experiments.

 

[hoffy]

Cheers and thanks! I might just give it a shot. I have quite a few rolls of out of date film (mainly Fuji Superia and Sensia). I also wanted to use a roll to test some drying methods (I am still getting marks on my film).

 

[keithwms]

Why not cut up a bit of exposed film and test it.

About the drying marks, do you use photoflo?

 

[hoffy]

Why not cut up a bit of exposed film and test it.

About the drying marks, do you use photoflo?

No, I cannot get photoflo locally. I am using Ilfotol with Demineralised water. I am just trying to work out how much Ilfotol I should be using.

 

[JRieke]

Does it matter what developer you use then? How do you determine the developing time?

 

[Photo Engineer]

See here:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)