Did my first E6 at home, please help identify some stains

Lionel1972 · Jul 4, 2012

Hello all,

Well last weekend I finally managed to do my first E6 dev at home. It went very well for the most part, except on some expired (2002 storage conditions unknown) 4x5 E100VS where some pale bluish stains cover rather large areas. Those don't seem to be there on the fresh Velvia 50 and Astia 100F sheets I processed in the same tank on the same run. Any idea where those stains could come from?

ektachrome · Jul 4, 2012

Hi
It could be the fact you used expired film for this.
When first trying E6 at home, use fresh film first. It reduces confusion.
What were the storage conditions like for the film?
Regards
Ektachrome

LJH · Jul 4, 2012

It looks a bit like flare to me. Is that a possibility given where/when the shot was taken?

Poisson Du Jour · Jul 4, 2012

The palette (colours) appear normal (greens, flowers, colour of the animals), so I consider it might be flare judging by the position of shadows; the noticeable blue tone is characteristic of E6 emulsions where there is a mix of shade and bright sunlight. But all the opinions you read here will be speculative rather than definite, without actually physically examining the tranny!

Velvia stains pinkish when there is a chemical shift, or green (such as very long night exposures). Have you seen this on any of the shots on Velvia from the same or similar position with the sun in front of but just out of range of the lens?
Film that has been subject to cycles of heat and high humidity in other words, damaged, will probably turn up a fault like this. My first (and only!) roll of E100VS came back with a terrible overly brown look about it. However, my own Fuji films have been subject to many cycles of heat, cold and humidity and only ACROS 100 has dared throw up faults that are clearly due to these conditions any problems that I do see with E6 are a result of the lab, which thankfully is free of errors so far!

MonoChrome Freak · Jul 4, 2012

What Developers/kit are you using? I have had similar issues with the Kodak E-6 home dev. kit. When this happened it was a miscalculation on my part, the temperature of the Chemicals fluctuated a bit as the water bath I was using to maintain the temperature cooled of faster then expected. I ended up with blue and pinkish clouds very similar to your picture. On the next run, the chemicals were kept at constant temperature and same batch of film, they came out perfect.

Alex.

Lionel1972 · Jul 4, 2012

Thanks for your replies.
Storage conditions have been unknown prior being aquired by the seller, and then those have not been refrigerated in a while. The stains are not located in the same areas and are more or less visible and extended on different sheets.
I don't think those have to do with flare, as the shapes look much more like stains than flare effects and I'm pretty shure I shot under the shade.
The Velvia sheet doesn't seem stained at all but the stormy sky does appear pinkish, the green fields on the foreground seem exactly the right color for Velvia.
The Astia sheet is an indoor portrait with natural light and looks flawless.

Lionel1972 · Jul 4, 2012

Thanks Alex.
I used Tetenal 1L E6 kit and a Jobo CPE2+.
If the temperature of the baths were in cause, I don't see why my Astia sheet wouldn't show the same problems?

You can check out the Astia sheet on my filckeflu stream, that's the lastest one there.

Lionel1972 · Jul 5, 2012

After thinking the thing over and over, I now have the impression that LJH was right. Maybe it's just flare afterall... . What surprises me is that I never had such severe case of flare with my uncoated 135mm/F4.5 Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar on that same camera. I thought I had been careful to shoot under the shade or at least used the darkslide to shade the lens when shooting.
This Fujinon W 210mm/F5.6 I recently acquired should not be more prone to flare than an 1941 uncoated lens, or am I wrong? I made the lensboard myself though. It has electric black tape on the side which is a bit shiny else nothing shiny facing the belows (only mat brown). I guess I'll have to run test with some paper neg to figure it out.

LJH · Jul 5, 2012

That, in a strange way, is good news!

I guess it's a case of the best case scenario. Shading a lens is so much easier than trying to work out a chemical issue.

Please keep the Forun updated on how you go from here.

Diapositivo · Jul 5, 2012

I had/possibly still have a leak problem with my Bessa. The light enters from the back, it makes a pure blue stripe on the film. I have no idea why only blue light leaks... but it's from the back, the leak disappears when I use the ever-ready case.

Poisson Du Jour · Jul 5, 2012

It still doesn't look like a chemical or processing glitch to me, just flare. Your description of the back of the lensboard sounds warning bells. Take the tape off and use pot black/flat black paint, same with any other interior surface near the lens.
E6 films can show a nasty green cast in black shadow areas caused by sloppy processing, or less commonly blotches or streaks. I have never seen E6 film with a pink or blue fault that can be put down to processing; maybe it's because after the lab's first (and only) fault that being put on notice was enough to keep the quality control on track. It's working: I'm still with them.

Lionel1972 · Jul 6, 2012

I will try to conduct some tests. The Astia indoor portrait with the same lens/lensboard didn't show any flare nor stains. Maybe because the focus distance was shorter, the lensboard was farther away from the film?... It was also completely shaded by the Speed Graphic's bed on portrait position (no rotating back).
Indeed I feel better about my E6 chemical process and also quite happy the problem doesn't seem to come from the expired sheets.

BrendanCarlson · Jul 9, 2012

My guess is flare, I would shoot a couple more sheets and see if you get the same results.

Did my first E6 at home, please help identify some stains

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