Develop color film in B&W chemistry?

Markus B · May 25, 2007

Hello.

I have two old (20 years) Kodacolor Gold 200 in 110-format that I want to test in my pocket instamtic. However I haven't find any lab in Sweden that still process 100-film and since I don't develop C41 myself I wonder if it is possible to develope it in B&W chemistry (HC-110)?

ann · May 25, 2007

for what this is worth, several years ago i had a student develop some black and white c41 film in hc110. Very strange looking negatives, but printable.

i wouild give it a try, nothing too lose and you will discover if the shutter is working.

Rolleiflexible · May 25, 2007

Try Diafine. Diafine will give you printable negatives. There's a fellow here named Nicolai who cross-processes C41 and E6 films in Diafine with interesting results. Here are links to some of his stuff:

http://flickr.com/photos/nicolai_g/62287070/ (Astia in Diafine)
Dead Link Removed (Portra 400CN in Diafine)

Diafine is the miracle developer. Give it a try.

Sanders

bcostin · May 25, 2007

I've used Diafine to develop a few rolls of C-41 and it works ok. In fact I was thinking of doing this for the exact same reason, using some expired 126 film in a Retina Instamatic Reflex. The results of C-41 developed in B&W chemistry are usually rather grainy. I understand the dark orange film base can complicate making wet prints (I use a film scanner with all my negatives so I wouldn't know.)

Lopaka · May 25, 2007

I have gotten printable results in HC-110. I don't remember the times, I did it by inspection. The orange mask created no issues printing on graded paper. I don't know how MG would respond to it. The negs were just a bit on the low contrast side.

Bob

htmlguru4242 · May 25, 2007

I've seen this done with 35mm color film (recently) in HC-110, and it comes out rather nicely.

I've tried it with D-76, and it comes out, but doesn't work well.

As to printing, the ones I saw came out OK on graded paper, though, as mentioned, the contrast is on the low side. On VC paper (Ilford Multigrade was used), the results were extremely inconsistent, but muddy and very limited in contrast overall.

On a somewhat different note, CORRECTLY (color) processed C-41 comes out really nicely on the same paper. It's a tad low in contrast, but, IMO, it looks really good.

Markus B · May 25, 2007

Ok, sounds like i'm going to try it

Diafine sound fun, but I dosen't seems to be avaliable in Sweden. So I probably have to buy it from germany or UK if I want to test it.

However is it anyone who have an idea of which developemt time I should use (5, 10, 20 minutes?) and at which temperature?

Jennifer · May 25, 2007

Hi,
I tried this a very.....long time ago. I used Microdol-X at 68 deg. I do not remember the time tho. I do remember the negs looked ok, but had a orange cast. And the orange cast was a good safelight color as I layed one in a contact printer for a good 10 min, and no print. Perhaps this had something to do with the film at that time.

Jennifer

Snapshot · May 26, 2007

Has anyone tried to process XP2 using B&W chemistry?

htmlguru4242 · May 26, 2007

Snapshot, I've done XP2 in D-76 and TMax developer, treating it as if it was Tri-X pushed to 1600 as far as times go. The results were ok.

I also developed it in B&W and then ran it through C-41 to get slides. The slides were greenish, but sort of came out.

In B&W chems, it comes out OK, though there is a slight color cast to the base. (This was a year or two ago, I don't remember what color it was, but it wasn't bad.) I also seem to recall them taking forever to fix out. I did not try to print them, but from the looks of the negatives, they would've printed ok. Although it came out, it certainly would've been much much better when processed correctly.

Fotohuis · May 26, 2007

I have two old (20 years) Kodacolor Gold 200 in 110-format that I want to test in my pocket instamtic.

Do you have a suitable reel (and tank) to develop in?

The DIY C41 development is not really difficult, certainly not if you want to see some 'test results' only. In that case a temperature deviation of some more degrees will give you always much better results than a lousy B&W development.

Markus B · May 26, 2007

Well, I'm a bit absent-minded. I didn't realised that my reel only took 126/135/127/120 film (standard paterson) until I hade popped up the film

I'll try to process C41 by myself in the future, but I can't really afford the kit at the moment.

Develop color film in B&W chemistry?

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