E-6 with old chemistry - can you identify the problem?

anikin · May 10, 2012

I have an old Kodak's 5L E-6 kit which I used to process a couple of 4x5 slides a few weeks ago. Looking at the results below, it's painfully obvious to me that the kit is beyond it's useable life and I should chuck some of the chemicals from it.

My question is, which step of the process caused the problems on this picture and can I salvage some of the chemistry from the kit? I assume the bleach and fix are still OK. At first I thought the first developer is shot because the concentrate was somewhat darker in color, but woudn't that cause the slide to be darker if that happened?

Suggestions please?

Mike Wilde · May 10, 2012

The density is not bad, so the FD is likely ok. The colour saturation is weak, so that points to the Colour developer being pooped out, or not warm enough, or too dilute, or potentially not agitated, or not started? The again not sure if the 5l kit uses starter.

The sky colour - well, is it supposed to be sunset? Or is the film out of date as well, or did it spend a long time between exposure and processing?

The bleach should last.

The reversal bath looks viable

The pre-bleach concentrate is organic, but only longevity should be impacted if it is shot.
You did go straight to pre bleach after CD, then straight to bleach, no?

Fixer usually tells you it is off with an awful sulfur smell and cruddies in the bottle.

Hope there are some clues for you to ponder from my post.

anikin · May 11, 2012

Mike Wilde said:
The density is not bad, so the FD is likely ok. The colour saturation is weak, so that points to the Colour developer being pooped out, or not warm enough, or too dilute, or potentially not agitated, or not started? The again not sure if the 5l kit uses starter.

The sky colour - well, is it supposed to be sunset? Or is the film out of date as well, or did it spend a long time between exposure and processing?

The bleach should last.

The reversal bath looks viable

The pre-bleach concentrate is organic, but only longevity should be impacted if it is shot.
You did go straight to pre bleach after CD, then straight to bleach, no?

Fixer usually tells you it is off with an awful sulfur smell and cruddies in the bottle.

Hope there are some clues for you to ponder from my post.

Hi Mike! Thank you for your input. Looking at the actual slide, it is rather light. And it was a middle of the day so no, the sky color is not right either.

So you think it's the color dev then? It's possible. It was from the bottle I opened quite a while ago... You are probably right. I'll see if I can find some fresh one to try.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Athiril · May 11, 2012

Low dMax.

Assuming your film is fresh and has been stored well, there logically you have first developer contamination with fixer or reversal bath, or you extended first developer time, or the temperature was too high (but these later cases should give lower dMin too).

http://www.kodak.com/global/en/business/retailPhoto/techInfo/zManuals/z119.jhtml?pq-path=12340

anikin · May 11, 2012

Thank you Athiril. These guides are quite useful. I guess I forgot to mention all the details. The film is fresh. Purchased less than 6 months prior to shooting and always kept in the fridge. It's possible the lens shutter is somewhat slow and I overexposed the slide. On the other hand, density of my C-41 and b/w negatives taken
with it look fine. Processing is done in my Phototherm Sidekick. Freshly mixed chemistry with distilled water. I do calibrate temperature regularly with a scientific mercury thermometer. It should be within the spec. The first developer time is definitely correct - it's done by the machine, no chance of a screw-up. I am 99% sure it's the old chemistry. I just need to figure out which of the chemicals I need to replace with the new ones. Maybe I should bite the bullet and get both new first and color developers. What about reversal?

hrst · May 11, 2012

AFAIK, reversal bath CAN face a sudden death that does not look nice. Even if that might not be the case here, I would buy both reversal bath and CD. They are quite critical.

FD goes bad quite slowly, like a BW paper developer -- the slides would turn darker and darker. That's clearly not the case.

If you want to be on the safe side though, only keep fix (if no sulfur smell and yellow precipitate), bleach and final rinse and buy everything else.

Luckily, the bleach is usually the most expensive component and also heaviest to ship, and it does not have any shelf life time limit.

Athiril · May 12, 2012

anikin said:
Thank you Athiril. These guides are quite useful. I guess I forgot to mention all the details. The film is fresh. Purchased less than 6 months prior to shooting and always kept in the fridge. It's possible the lens shutter is somewhat slow and I overexposed the slide. On the other hand, density of my C-41 and b/w negatives taken
with it look fine. Processing is done in my Phototherm Sidekick. Freshly mixed chemistry with distilled water. I do calibrate temperature regularly with a scientific mercury thermometer. It should be within the spec. The first developer time is definitely correct - it's done by the machine, no chance of a screw-up. I am 99% sure it's the old chemistry. I just need to figure out which of the chemicals I need to replace with the new ones. Maybe I should bite the bullet and get both new first and color developers. What about reversal?

It doesn't look like overexposure. Your colour dev might have need time extending if it was unable to run to completion due to being less active than fresh.

It doesn't look like a reversal problem. Have you been replenishing any of the solutions? Or simply re-using them all?

anikin · May 13, 2012

Athiril said:
It doesn't look like overexposure. Your colour dev might have need time extending if it was unable to run to completion due to being less active than fresh.

It doesn't look like a reversal problem. Have you been replenishing any of the solutions? Or simply re-using them all?

No, I did not replenish the solutions. They are all fresh-mixed from the concentrate. That's an interesting idea about extending the color developer time. I think I'll try it next time I process slides.

hrst · May 13, 2012

Usually, chemistry that has gone bad by exceeding its shelf life (not by developing too many films) is already bad beyond any processing time extensions. If you are lucky, you may get better results, but probably not good results still. OTOH, if you don't want to waste your money on testing very volatile chemistry that will go more bad quickly, just buy some fresh chemistry.

anikin · May 14, 2012

hrst,

I hear you. I just wish it were possible to buy proper (non-blix) E-6 chemistry in reasonable volume in the US. We are stuck with either blix-based kit from Arista or have to buy over $500 in chemicals most of which will have to be thrown out unused. And I could not even finish the 5L kit before it went bad.

Eugene.

hrst · May 14, 2012

I haven't seen any reports of real problems with the so called "3-bath" kits. It's more like a theoretical possibility of problems. I had good results with Tetenal "3-bath", but switched to real 7-bath kits (Kodak, then Fujihunt) because they were available to me and I wanted to support producers who do not skip corners without any real reason.

But, if I didn't have a possibility to buy the Real Thing, I would definitely go back to those 4-bath kits.

And, if you worry about the blix, you can still use your existing prebleach, bleach and fix.

E-6 with old chemistry - can you identify the problem?

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