E-6 without reversal?

markbarendt · Apr 8, 2010

Okay my searches aren't cutting it here and I don't have the chemicals to play with this or I would.

Here's the deal, I may be getting some expired Velvia as part of a package deal with some other stuff I actually want and I already have some expired Provia in the freezer.

If this deal works out I'll either need to find a way to use it all or sell it all.

Standard process RA-4 paper and chems are the destination.

I know I can cross process E-6 film in a C-41 process and get negatives, which is what I want, but C-41 will get me non-standard colors.

Has anyone tried E-6 processing without the reversal step?

If so

Did you get a negative that was printable at a normal color balance?

or

Are there other options for getting printable negs?

Photo Engineer · Apr 8, 2010

Yes, you can do it without reversal. You will get very weird results that look somewhat solarized.

There are examples in some Kodak data books.

PE

markbarendt · Apr 8, 2010

Photo Engineer said:
You will get very weird results that look somewhat solarized.

Thanks PE

Doesn't sound like it's worth worth buying the E-6 chems then.

DanielStone · Apr 8, 2010

if you want regular e-6 results, get the chems then , or if you want *possibly* weirder results, use some expired e-6 chems

-Dan

markbarendt · Apr 8, 2010

Hey Dan,

I want negatives that are printable with normal colors.

Athiril · Apr 9, 2010

Here is one with a tonne of scanner noise, because I developed it in Diafine, then fix, bleach, and colour re-develop. (Astia)

Cant put the shadows up as the shadows start from zero density basically (lottsa scanner noise like a mobile phone cam in the dark from Epson's expensive top range of "amazing" and "professional" scanners ).

Anyway, but to me it appears a normal negative without any mask, but with strong colour, I would suggest you could do it, you just would need to sandwich a piece of bleach and fixed C41 film against it (or unexposed, developed, bleached and fixed C41 film) to add with the mask.. or put it in front of the backlight. That'd be a start.

markbarendt · Apr 9, 2010

Encouraging!

Athiril said:
I developed it in Diafine, then fix, bleach, and colour re-develop. (Astia)

Since the standard E-6 1st developer is just a special B&W mix the Diafine news is no surprise.

What is interesting is that, instead of just skipping the reversal step you replaced the reversal step with fix and bleach.

Got lots of fix and I will have lots of bleach shortly.

A couple questions pop into my head.

Why bleach before the color develop?

Which color developer did you use? (C-41 or E-6)

Athiril said:
Anyway, but to me it appears a normal negative without any mask, but with strong colour, I would suggest you could do it, you just would need to sandwich a piece of bleach and fixed C41 film against it (or unexposed, developed, bleached and fixed C41 film) to add with the mask.. or put it in front of the backlight. That'd be a start.

I have played successfully with printing normal black and white films (Delta/HP-5) on RA-4 paper, the filter pack was thick but workable, so I'm not too worried about the orange mask. Using a piece of film as you suggest sounds workable too.

Athiril · Apr 9, 2010

Using a fix, then bleach before colour develop makes a colour negative using a b&w first developer step, instead of a positive. For good results of a positive, I've found the first dev needs to be hot ~39c like normal, otherwise even with a good b&w neg developed, the positives tend to have an extremely dense base/fog to them on top of the image.

For that particular image I think I just used E-6 colour developer, I've used CD-4 on others (C-41), results on E-6 film should be more or less the same, I've developed colour slides using Xtol as the first dev (40c), with C-41 as the colour developer, and the colours were fairly accurate then too.

Reversal works like this as you know:
b&w develop makes a silver b&w neg (on all colour layers) with no dye formation.
reversal exposure or fogging.
colour developer develops exposed undeveloped silver halide (positive) and oxidises simultaneously to form colour dye through the silver it develops as a mask.
bleach to convert metallic silver to silver halide.
fix to remove silver halide.

The other process I use works like this:
B&W first dev to make silver neg.
Fix to remove remaining silver halide, leaves onloy b&w neg.
Bleach to convert developed silver back to silver halides, which just leaves a negative image 'mask' of undeveloped silver halide.
Exposure of silver halide to light to make it easily developable.
Colour Developer to re-develop the negative image and form a colour negative.
Bleach to convert again silver back to silver halide
Fix to remove silver halide to leave no image apart from the colour dye.

You can skip the last 2 steps for a bleach-bypass effect.

Either way, this method allows to set tonality and contrast via first developer which the image forms through in a colour negative process, you could make a high contrast developer if you wish.. or have compensating effects (which the direct 2-bath C-41 should as well).

Rodinal 1+100 for 1 hour works very well with this. I found the "Diafine" (mixed up from a recipe posted on here) to be a tad thin for the first developer, maybe need to make it slightly stronger, or run it through twice etc.

Here is one when I first started.. is Rodinal 1+25 + ~5g of table salt (non-iodised) in 300ml solution on expired supermarket C-41 film, re-developed using the above process, with E-6 Colour Developer as the colour developer (which gives a green base, C-41 would probably keep it the normal colour base).

markbarendt · Apr 9, 2010

A fresh question first, did you rate the film at box speed?

Athiril said:
For good results of a positive, I've found the first dev needs to be hot ~39c like normal, otherwise even with a good b&w neg developed, the positives tend to have an extremely dense base/fog to them on top of the image.

Good info. I have no problem with using the normal 100f or better and I have plenty of Xtol, just need to work out the right times.

Did you per chance start at 3'15" with that hot Xtol?

Athiril said:
For that particular image I think I just used E-6 colour developer, I've used CD-4 on others (C-41), results on E-6 film should be more or less the same, I've developed colour slides using Xtol as the first dev (40c), with C-41 as the colour developer, and the colours were fairly accurate then too.

I've got the C-41 developer so I'll be starting there. Life will be simpler if I can avoid E-6 specific chems.

Athiril said:
works like this:
B&W first dev to make silver neg.
Fix to remove remaining silver halide, leaves only b&w neg.
Bleach to convert developed silver back to silver halides, which just leaves a negative image 'mask' of undeveloped silver halide.
Exposure of silver halide to light to make it easily developable.
Colour Developer to re-develop the negative image and form a colour negative.
Bleach to convert again silver back to silver halide
Fix to remove silver halide to leave no image apart from the colour dye.

You can skip the last 2 steps for a bleach-bypass effect.

I assume that normal times for the ancillary processes are sufficient, is that correct?

2F/2F · Apr 9, 2010

markbarendt said:
Hey Dan,

I want negatives that are printable with normal colors.

Then make Ilfochrome prints. Get it while it's hot! It won't be around forever! It is available from Freestyle.

markbarendt · Apr 9, 2010

2F/2F said:
Then make Ilfochrome prints. Get it while it's hot! It won't be around forever! It is available from Freestyle.

:rolleyes:

Yeah I thought of that, too spendy to set up a whole new line of materials.

2F/2F · Apr 9, 2010

$90 for two liters of chemistry and $90 for 25 sheets of 8x10 or $275 for 50 sheets of 11x14 is spendy...however, how much will you spend on film, chemistry, paper, chemicals, and your personal time doing what you are planning, and still not ever get it quite "normal" looking (which is what you stated that you want).

Experimenting and alternative processes are great, and I hope you fire away and let us know all about what happens...but for your listed criterion ("...printable with normal colors"), Ilfochrome is the way...and if no one buys it, it will no longer even be a way.

Athiril · Apr 9, 2010

markbarendt said:
A fresh question first, did you rate the film at box speed?

Yes was box speed (ISO 200), dev time for that one was about 8min 30sec iirc, ISO 800 also comes out well, slower than box speed, not so much.

markbarendt said:
Good info. I have no problem with using the normal 100f or better and I have plenty of Xtol, just need to work out the right times.

Did you per chance start at 3'15" with that hot Xtol?

From memory, it was Xtol 1+1, 40c, 40min, as opposed to simply being able to make a good b&w negative @ room temp with Xtol 1+1, which is about 8 minutes. I'm not sure why this is. Rodinal was the same, for positives, it took 1+50, 40c, 2 hours 20 min with agitation, no standing (though that was on C-41 film, might be a bit much for E-6 film).

markbarendt said:
I've got the C-41 developer so I'll be starting there. Life will be simpler if I can avoid E-6 specific chems.

I assume that normal times for the ancillary processes are sufficient, is that correct?

Yep normal times, I usually let my bleach and fix sit for a fair bit longer processing @ room temp instead of hot just to make sure.

The first fix step in re-developing for colour negs is critical to a good picture.

markbarendt · Apr 10, 2010

Athiril said:
From memory, it was Xtol 1+1, 40c, 40min, as opposed to simply being able to make a good b&w negative @ room temp with Xtol 1+1, which is about 8 minutes. I'm not sure why this is. Rodinal was the same, for positives, it took 1+50, 40c, 2 hours 20 min with agitation, no standing (though that was on C-41 film, might be a bit much for E-6 film).

40 minutes is a lot of time.

I may have to consider getting a normal Kodak one-shot E-6 kit and just replacing the reversal step with fix and bleach steps.

markbarendt · Apr 10, 2010

2F/2F said:
Ilfochrome is the way...and if no one buys it, it will no longer even be a way.

I feel your pain 2F/2F.

DanielStone · Apr 10, 2010

mark, I was joking about the expired chems. I knew you wanted accurate color, just 'pulling' your leg

-Dan

nickandre · Apr 10, 2010

You can replace the reversal bath with a bright light if that's what you're asking. You can replace the E6 bleach with C41 bleach and use a regular b+w developer. Of course it's $50 for a 5 liter kit...

markbarendt · Apr 10, 2010

tiberiustibz said:
You can replace the reversal bath with a bright light if that's what you're asking. You can replace the E6 bleach with C41 bleach and use a regular b+w developer. Of course it's $50 for a 5 liter kit...

Replacement of equivalent steps isn't the issue, and buying a 5 liter E-6 kit isn't a problem if that's what I need.

This is probably a good place to summarize.

I see several possible routes to E-6 negatives they each essentially start this way:

Develop as B&W, (E-6 first developer, Xtol, Rodinal, HC-110 or ...)
fix as B&W, (washes away the "positive" silver)
then bleach (to get the silver halides back)

From here there are several possible options.

A) expose to light and process as a normal C-41.

B1) expose to light then pick up and complete the normal E-6 process starting with the color developer step.

B2) Pick up and complete the normal E-6 process in the chemical reversal step, no light.

I'm including "B2" as an option because the E-6 color developer is dependent on some carry over to activate the color developer. Don't know if this is workable or not.

"A" is the option I'd prefer to use.

Athiril · Apr 10, 2010

I use exposure to light with E-6 Colour Developer made from Kodak E-6 Colour Developer Replenisher + Starter, have not had problems with that.

Kloppervok · May 30, 2010

So, to be clear, the Kodak Reversal Bath is superfluous, as i can just fog it myself, correct?

However, what is the difference between the E6 Color Developer and the C-41 Developer?

Is there a way to modify/eliminate the Pre-Bleach step?

thisismyname09 · May 31, 2010

Kloppervok said:
So, to be clear, the Kodak Reversal Bath is superfluous, as i can just fog it myself, correct?

However, what is the difference between the E6 Color Developer and the C-41 Developer?

Is there a way to modify/eliminate the Pre-Bleach step?

I think you can just expose the film to light in place of a reversal bath; it should have the same effect.

C-41 developer uses CD-4 as the main developing agent. E6 (and RA-4) developer uses CD-3.

I don't think some of the cheap 3-bath E-6 kits include a pre-bleach step. It can probably be omitted if you bleach for long enough and/or use everything one-shot. I honestly wouldn't know though.

Athiril · May 31, 2010

Kloppervok said:
So, to be clear, the Kodak Reversal Bath is superfluous, as i can just fog it myself, correct?

However, what is the difference between the E6 Color Developer and the C-41 Developer?

Is there a way to modify/eliminate the Pre-Bleach step?

Yes, I havent any trouble using the exposing to light metho for any of the non-standard ways of processing way, as well as regular E-6 'standard' processing.

I also have no trouble using regular C-41 bleach with it, I dont have any pre-bleach step.

Though with this film that I just developed (old 50D), I did a stabiliser step before the bleach.

Kloppervok · May 31, 2010

Can someone else chime in a tell me why CD3 > CD4 when it comes to E6?

I did a stabiliser step before the bleach.

What is the purpose of doing such a thing?

Since C-41 bleach works, can I also guess that home made ferricyanide bleach would also be acceptable?

Photo Engineer · May 31, 2010

The E6 color developer composition is totally different than the C41 color developer to begin with. The E6 color developer is intended to go to completion, is high solvent, and has a lot of competer in it to adjust image quality. CD3 in addition, forms narrow band dyes with the right absorption to give pleasing colors to the human eye while CD4 gives broader band dyes.

Finally, the color couplers chosen for E6 films are designed to have maximum stability with CD3 while C41 films have maximum stability with CD4.

This is not a simple thing so even though you can cross process, the results are subtly different than desired.

PE

thisismyname09 · May 31, 2010

Kloppervok said:
Since C-41 bleach works, can I also guess that home made ferricyanide bleach would also be acceptable?

I've used ferricyanide with C-41, so it should work with E-6. However, you must, before and after, rinse very well; you will get horrible stains if you don't. In addition to the rinse, you should use a sulfite clearing bath before the bleach.

E-6 without reversal?

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency