E-6 First Developer Starter and Conditioner Substitute?

I received some surplus stock Kodak E-6 kits- the replenisher types. Most of the solutions were there. First and Colour developers, bleach, reversal bath, and fixer in unsealed bottles were in the kits. Some were partly opened though, but both developers were still sealed and remain clear.

Missing are the starter solutions for both developers, the prebleach (conditioner?) bath, and the final rinse.

I've made a substitute final rinse using wetting agent with 10% 38% Formaldehyde solution (easy to get here).

For the "conditioner" - which I read somewhere is actually stopbath with some dye preservative and EDTA to "kick" in the FeEDTA bleaching action- I tried to hack my own. 3% Acetic Acid, 10 grams EDTA, and 5ml Formaldehyde in 1000ml solution. The proportions are purely guesswork: the acid concentration was based on the standard stopbath concentration. As for the EDTA, it was a shot in the dark. And adding Formaldehyde was based on information which described that conditioners (now replaced by the prebleach) used before contained some formaldehyde.

Using the developers without the starters resulted in bad trannies. Weak, reddish DMax in the shadows, and a general overdeveloped look overall. I presume that starter solutions are really critical for E6. I've been doing C41 and RA4 for years using developer replenishers without starters in tanks, and got fairly good results.


EDIT/ADD: This is to inquire if substitute formulae are available for the starters and the conditioner/prebleach. Getting E6 chemistry here in Manila is nearly impossible. E6 processing here has totally disappeared.

Disclaimer, below is my subjective and unscientific claims which I find work well for me:

I was missing the C-41 flexicolor developer starter, I estimated a middle figure on comparing figures from various sources and mixed my from part A + extra bromide. It works quite nicely.

I've got some Kodak E-6 CD starter sitting here, however I always have mixed up my own first developer. I haven't used conditioner or pre-bleach, I haven't had problems, I've used first dev (my own, or in other cases Xtol 1+1 40c, 40min), light reversal, colour developer, C-41 bleach (agfa brand), Kodak E-6 fixer, and tetenal stabiliser (for C-41), though now Im onto the bottles of Kodak stabiliser for E-6

1+1+200 is a good ratio for stabiliser (photoflo, 40% formaldehyde, water) if you cant get any official stuff, the stabilsier replenisher doesn't need starter (in fact I dont think there is a starter?).


First developer needs to be run 38c-40c, cold (as I mentioned in pm) just seems to give black slides and if there is any image after bleaching + fixing it has an extremely small density range of top of being really dense over all, regardless of all the countermeasures and solutions I've tried coming up with.

Other stages I've run all 20c till completion and have not noticed a difference (Refer to disclaimer above).

I once forgot to add the starter+water solution to the E-6 CD replenisher, I was re-developing negatives (rodinal first dev, fix, bleach, CD, bleach, fix, stab, etc) and the negs came out simply bright green and red, I didn't bother scanning or printing as they looked horrid.

So I would gather a correct starter for E-6 CD is quite important for useable results, as opposed to my flexicolor which I've taken an educated (educated for me ) guess.


You can try mixing your own starter for the CD, from what I gather you will need acetic acid (cheap white vinegar is somewhere around 3-5% if you cant get glacial shipped as is the case here), and potassium bromide (had a friend from the UK mail me some from Silverprint) and potassium iodide (available on ebay cheaply).

edit: Since you have no reference point, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest this:

(not-verified, mix and use at your own peril, probably missing critical secret ingredients)
First Dev Starter:
Stock cheap white vinegar (or use 5% acetic acid)
220g/L Potassium Bromide
(may benefit from a small amount of benzotriazole)

CD Starter:
Stock Cheap white vinegar
25g/L Potassium Bromide
0.2g/L Potassium Iodide
(do not try adding benzotriazole)
And use 5x as much as specified for offical starter.
or:
25% Acetic Acid
125g/L Potassium Bromide
1.0g/L potassium iodide
and try as normal

Test pH of first dev and CD solutions, adjust.

Edit: I should mention I don't know how well the Kodak bleach will work without conditioner

Thanks Athiril!

When I started doing DIY C41 (only the developer was "official"; the bleach and the fix were home-brews), the developer I used, and still use, is the Developer Replenisher type supplied for labs. Ditto with RA-4. In both film tank and roller-transport processor, the colour developers which went in were essentially full-strength replenisher solutions. I had the notion that the replenisher solutions could be tamed by throwing in a few strips of old photographic paper or even film. When these materials developed, the "hot" components could be tempered and the reaction products would be left in the brew to make it into a tank solution.

After seeing what happened with my trial E6 runs and comparing the results to what the visual assesment charts said, it was obvious that the "hot", unseasoned starter-less replenisher developer solutions created too much action.

AFAIK, the other solutions can be used as is, without starters. The bleach will perhaps initially be a tad stronger than it should, but over-bleaching is perhaps an impossibility.

The three bath E6 kits I used ages ago never had a prebleach dye preservative step. Or did they? Photo Engineer has mentioned many times before that the preservative in the prebleach/conditioner served to make the dyes more stable in during the bleaching process, where the components may destroy them partly.

Glacial Acetic Acid, Formaldehyde, and Potassium Bromide qre quite easy to get here.

I mis-placed a decimal in the CD starter, edited

The home made conditioner can be just plain Na2EDTA at about 10 g/l, but NO formalin in it. The pH should be similar to the bleach pH.

If you do this, you must then put Formalin into the Stabilizer. Stabilizer is 10 ml of 37% Formalin in 1 L of normally diluted Photo Flo. Never put plain Formalin into the prebleach. It will tend to deactivate the bleach and fix and become inactive itself. Formalin reacts with the Ammonium ions in these solutions. They use a special form of Formalin called a Bisulfite Adduct that protects the Formalin and causes no odor.

PE

Just checked the Stabilizer III and Replenisher bottle, reckons it's 10% formaldehyde and 3% methanol, which makes 50L of stabiliser solution, the bottle itself is approximately 1 litre iirc if that helps

Yes, the Stabilizer contains Formalin, but the newer Final Rinse does not and if you omit the Adduct in the pre-Bleach, you need Formalin somewhere.

PE

Thanks for the replies.

@PE, can Na4EDTA be used instead of Na2EDTA? The tetra-variety is the type I can get here.

First Dev Starter:
Stock cheap white vinegar (or use 5% acetic acid)
220g/L Potassium Bromide
(may benefit from a small amount of benzotriazole)

CD Starter:
Stock Cheap white vinegar
25g/L Potassium Bromide
0.2g/L Potassium Iodide
(do not try adding benzotriazole)
And use 5x as much as specified for offical starter.
or:
25% Acetic Acid
125g/L Potassium Bromide
1.0g/L potassium iodide
and try as normal

Click to expand...

@Athiril

I suppose that the above developer starter formula are stock solutions? And to be added in the same way as the original starters are?
Eg, 5ml of the starter + 150ml water, then added to 850ml replenisher solution?

That's correct, or 25ml for the vinegar version.

It's just a general guideline to get you going with no access to dev starters.

ZorkiKat said:

Thanks for the replies.

@PE, can Na4EDTA be used instead of Na2EDTA? The tetra-variety is the type I can get here.

Click to expand...

Actually, any EDTA salt mix can be used such as EDTA Acid, NaEDTA, Na2EDTA or Na4EDTA. The pH will have to be adjusted accordingly with each one though. I have found that the Na2EDTA is the most useful, that is all.

PE

Thanks again for the replies. I'll brew the starter and conditioner standby's and put them in the process. Will report back the results.

Sorry, the resource is not at hand to quote it verbatim, but I recall that the Kodak E-6 manual mentions that CD starter can be made from FD starter, and acetic acid. The Z-119 manual has it in there somewhere.

Thanks Mike. I've downloaded the Z-119 manuals (pamphlets 1 to 15). Haven't gone through all of them yet.