Current working chemicals for homebrew C41 on current film

removedacct2 · Nov 20, 2019

Hello all,
I use Compard/Rollei and Tetenal chemistry. They are easy, and work well. I prefer the Compard/Rollei 3 baths (dev, bleach, fix) +stab than the combined blix of the recent simplified Compard kit or Tetenal. I buy from Germany, so Macodirect or Fotoimpex.

- one issue I have is twofold geographical: in Norway

we have an expensive customs barrier
and since the last EU + IATA regulations, the traditional C41 chemistries fall into the "hazardous" category, forbidden of regular airfreight. Interpretation of the directive is lax or strict depending the merchant. The restrictive one allows shipment only into EU, the lax one allows shipment outside EU, in near vicinity. if it isn't airfreight. For instance Macodirect ships to Sweden (EU) but refuses to do so to Norway, despite DHL using the same surface shipment. So they have a restrictive understanding of the directive. Switzerland also is outside EUmpire and is serviced by surface (train/truck) postal service but in that case there's a agreement making an exception to the hazardous shipment directive. In short: legalities created a serious problem.

so, the Compard, or Rollei or Fuji chemistries I like to use can't ship to me anyway. I have a work around: get shipped to a swedish city near norwegian border with a poste restante service, 150 kms from me, and drive pick the parcels there. Because gas and time, I better buy big/many kits at once and stock.

- another issue is that availability at Macodirect and Fotoimpex is irregular

- last, it's good to be able to brew own chemicals from raw products. Much better in order to adjust quantities and/or for replenishments.

so I did comb a bit the net for C41 recipes, preferably with separate bleach and fix. There are recipes of different periods for different films. I am dealing with current films mostly (the usual Ektar, Portra, Lomography).
what about this recipe ?

http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/photo/c41_ra4_chemicals.htm

Anon Ymous · Nov 21, 2019

There are better formulae posted in this forum. Search for those from @stefan4u (C27 and C29), but also from @Photo Engineer.

Rudeofus · Nov 21, 2019

Have you done homebrewing before? Black&white developers or fixers? Do you have at least a precise scale and some kind of pH meter? Have you worked with these before? Do you have economical access to all the raw chems you will need?

Here are instructions for converting a BLIX kit into one with separate bleach&fixer, maybe this would be a good starting point.

removedacct2 · Nov 21, 2019

Rudeofus said:
Have you done homebrewing before? Black&white developers or fixers? Do you have at least a precise scale and some kind of pH meter? Have you worked with these before? Do you have economical access to all the raw chems you will need?

yes I am good with homebrewing and the little technicalities of exact measuring and mixing, temperature control, etc. Have high precision scale, will just need to buy a ph meter.
Raw chemicals easy to get for cheap from Germany, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, etc.

removedacct2 · Nov 21, 2019

Anon Ymous said:
There are better formulae posted in this forum. Search for those from @stefan4u (C27 and C29), but also from @Photo Engineer.

thanks! doing in-forum search then

cmacd123 · Nov 21, 2019

antonio_b said:
so I did comb a bit the net for C41 recipes, preferably with separate bleach and fix. There are recipes of different periods for different films. I am dealing with current films mostly (the usual Ektar, Portra, Lomography).
what about this recipe ?

http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/photo/c41_ra4_chemicals.htm

I did use some of the "Zone V" formulas back in the 80s. the fellow who published them also provided some of the chemicals. like CD4 and in those days their was no reason to not mail anything. the guy was in his 80s back then, so I am sure he is no longer with us. The formulas as published also came with "teaspoon" version, and he sold a set of the same teaspoons that he used. he was also big into using Movie ends, so the formulas may have been attempting to bump up the contrast a touch. My colour vison is not the best, but when I scanned some of those negatives (Eastman color) last year, the pictures looked sane.

Rudeofus · Nov 22, 2019

antonio_b said:
yes I am good with homebrewing and the little technicalities of exact measuring and mixing, temperature control, etc. Have high precision scale, will just need to buy a ph meter.
Raw chemicals easy to get for cheap from Germany, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, etc.

There is a recipe for C-41 in US patent US6649331. Stefan Lange did two changes to this recipe:

slight modifications to the formula to use only chems available to amateurs
more modifications to optimize them for single shot development in a rotary processor.

Stefan's recipes are much under-reported here, but they work really well. He did not do much research into C-41 bleaches, mostly used Ferricyanide bleaches, but you can use my formula here as a starting point:

Water 800ml
Ammonium Ferric EDTA concentrate solution 100ml
Ammonium Bromide 50 g
Mercaptotriazole 0.1 g (bleach accelerator. You must not use more than that or the bleach becomes very weak! )
Ammonia solution 24% 20ml (watch out for the smell)
Water ---> 1000ml, Acetic Acid ---> pH 5.0

As fixer you can use any neutral rapid fixer you can find. If you want to mix yourself, Ryuji Suzuki's Neutral Rapid Fixer or Ron Mowrey's Superfix formula are excellent starting points, or you mix the very strong fixer from the recipe in US6649331.

You will need a final rinse. While C-41 doesn't need Formaldehyde any more, it is the most easily available powerful germicide you can get which stays in there. I recommend Ron Mowrey's final rinse recipe as starting point.

bnxvs · Nov 23, 2019

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/c-42-is-kodaks-home-version-of-c-41.89135/

removedacct2 · Nov 26, 2019

thanks a lot Rudeofus and bnxvs ! this helps tremendously and should be sticked up for the curious in DIY.
so I went reading through the Stefan Lange recipe, easily found in this thread from 2008:
https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/color-negative-developer-near-to-c41.42731/
his "c-27" try at #9
bnxvs your most recent tests looks amazing. Btw, on your august test shots, I can see the presidential palace blue dome and the Bayterek tower. I am not very familiar there, but I spend instead a lot of time in Almaty and in part of western KZ, by Aktobe and between Astrakhan and Karakalpakia.... I always travel with a Salyut, so lot of home development...

my idea is to try first homebrew developer only, and go with Digibase bleach and fix, in order to better isolate possible errors.
Raw or semi-raw (like CD4) will I order from Hamburgs Suvatlar Fototeknik. We are now entering the very busy Advent, so hope to find some free time for this.
Thanks again!

bnxvs · Nov 26, 2019

Good luck with your experiments! It only at first glance seems a bit complicated. I highly recommend buying a simple pH meter. It is a very useful tool for DIY color chemistry.

Current working chemicals for homebrew C41 on current film

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