Developing Kodak Ektacolor 400 Pro Gold.

I picked up a few 120mm rolls of the Kodak Ektacolor 400 Pro Gold. Date is 2000 and no idea how they have been stored.

The oldest roll I ever developed was in a second hand camera I found and still had some pictures from the late 70-ies on them They came out quite grainy, I just developed as per standard procedures with the Tetenal C-41 kit and followed the Tetenal Kit developing times.

Now, is there anything I need to do different when I shoot this roll of Kodak Ektacolor 400? Do some EI correction perhaps or just boxspeed?

And with development, do I prewash? (actually I never prewash color, I don't do that much C-41, not no if needed) and just follow standard development times with the Tetenal Kit, or adjust any of the times cause this is an older film.

Thanks for the help.

I always pre-soak my C-41, that's my habit. I've pulled to as short as 2 minutes (38.7c) to compensate for some shitty film, though tetenal has an ~8min time for lower temp, if you want to do a heavy overexpose + pull, that lower time minus a few min would be the go.

Also I imagine film of that age will need an actual stabiliser in the final bath.

If you got enough rolls of it, a test roll at different exposures in standard processing would help determine if you should try to overexpose and pull.

Athiril said:

Also I imagine film of that age will need an actual stabiliser in the final bath.

Click to expand...

Thanks. But what do you mean with this? The Tetenal Kit has a stab included...

I don't know whats in the Tetenal stabiliser. Stabiliser stabilises the dye in films, C-41 films have had it built in since about 2000 (read this from PE elsewhere on APUG), so they don't need it in that sense, but they need anti-fungal/bacterial and drying agent etc.


Okay I managed to find my old bottle of tetenal colortec stabiliser from the C-41 kit when I had it a few years ago.

It says it's Hexamethylene-Tetramine, so it should be fine as a stabiliser for old films too afaik. Someone else could possibly confirm that. This just effects longetivity of your negs, and how long before they start fading away.

Oh, that last mentioned stuff I have.

Well, I think I should just give it a go instead of philosophing about it