E-6 Chemical Reuse (Arista)

[abruzzi]

I’m sorry if this is a little basic. For my stash of 30 year old Ektachrome of unknown history, I decided to try home development, first with a control roll of fresh Velvia, then on all the expired rolls. I was reading the instruction for the Arista 1 quart kit, and after each run, they say to add 4% to the first developer time. My plan was to mix up the full quart for each chemical, and put them each in a 1 quart bottle, so there was minimal air contact. Then when I was ready to develop pour out 400-500ml—the amount my tanks require—then after developing, pour them back in 1 quart bottle with the unused chemical.

It seems like that would mean that after each roll, the developer would be half as exhausted as if I kept the 500ml separate and ran more rolls off of it. I don’t want to screw up my processing by playing fast and loose with the instructions, but keeping the used portion separate would require buying a lot more containers, or buying the smaller kit, which is much more expensive per roll. Should I do what I plan and add 2% after each roll, or should I keep the used chemicals separate from the fresh chemicals?

If the latter will a half full quart sized bottle of first developer spoil quicker than a full full bottle?

 

[grainyvision]

I hate reusing chemicals if I don't have to. If you have some HC-110 laying around, you can substitute the first developer in E-6 kits for around $0.40 per roll and use HC-110 solution A as a one-shot first developer. It of course is non-standard, though it should only affect contrast and not cause any color shifts. I've only tried this using HC-110 as the first developer, and then substituting C-41 chemicals for the E-6 kit for the color development and bleach/fix portion, but in theory it should work the same. At least in this experience, I get slides that look fairly close to proper processing with very slightly less density and very slight color casts (and these effects I blame on using C-41 color developer). Contrast etc looks good.

Basically, the recipe is mix HC-110 solution A (31ml of HC-110 concentrate to make 500ml of developer). Then, heat it to 102F with the rest of your chemicals. And then you have two agitation options. First one for slightly more contrast: 10s initially, 4x agitations every 30s, 6:30 minute total. For slightly less: 30s initial, 4x agitations every minute, 6:45 minutes total. Make sure to control temperature with as much precision as you would standard E-6 first developer.

 

[abruzzi]

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't reuse any of the B&W developers, but I've never used HC-110, only Rodinal and Xtol. I think for this, I'm somewhat hesitant to experiment too much. These kits are packages for reuse, and the quart kit claims it does 8 rolls with +4% after each use. I'm mostly wondering what the best/simplest way to deal with that is. I never developed any kind of color before.

 

[Rudeofus]

HC-110 is a PQ type developer, and AFAIK it does not have a specific Bromide to Iodide ratio to get the color balance correct. It's Hydroquinone component will give less sharpness than the HQMS in regular E6 FD. If abruzzi is already concerned about reusing proper E6 chemistry, then HC-110 is probably not the right direction to go.

Here is what happens as you reuse E6 FD:

1. If you prewash your E6 films, you effectively dilute your E6 FD with the carryover water. In my experience E6 FD's activity is very proportional to its concentration, and an empty Jobo 1510 alone carries over about 10 - 15 ml.
2. Obviously some HQMS gets used up during development, but E6 FD is quite concentrated to begin with, so developer exhaustion should not be that much unless you go far beyond the 12 rolls per liter.
3. After a few weeks E6 FD tends to lose activity from aerial oxidation, depending of course on storage conditions.

The typical sign of exhausted/weakened E6 FD are somewhat darker slides, there is no such thing as sudden death of E6 FD. If you process batches one after another, you should get a quick handle by how much you need to increase FD time to get your slides right. There is typically also quite some leeway, by how much your slides can be darker or brighter before it becomes noticeable. You'll probably be surprised how weak the effect from one or two reuses really is, and the cost savings are substantial.

 

[thuggins]

I have not used the Arista kit, but it appears to be similar to the Tetenal which I have used many times. Tetenal says you can get 6 rolls per 500ml mix, increasing first developer time by ~4% after the first two and again after the second two. I always get at least 8 rolls and usually 10 out of each mix (it depends on how much time I want to spend on the last two). The time of every step (1DEV, CDEV, and BLIX) are increased proportionally. There has never been an issue with the 10th roll.

Ten rolls means the kit is about 5 weeks old or so by the last usage. Again, there has never been an issue with the 10th roll.