Hello!
I guess this is most likely directed to Photo Engineer but here goes:
I have a 5"x100' of Aerial MS Ektachrome from 1974. The film itself has survived all those years with grace, it can be exposed at 50ISO and developed into a negative without much problem. As you can guess, the emulsion will partially come off the substrate when ran through E6 - what survives are cyan highlights and a dash of magenta. Yellow floats off completely. And doing room temperature C41 (or ECN2 in my case) still results in a soft emulsion that is extremely easy to damage while wet. Even agitating the developer seems to cause damage.
Now, I experimented with 10ml of 37% formalin and 25g of soda ash dissolved in a liter of water (didn't have the sodium sulphate at hand), that hardened the emulsion plenty BUT as some of you may know, that ties up the magenta coupler, so no magenta dye is formed during development. I have studied the E4 formulas (here: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/cis111/cis111.pdf) for quite a bit now and I see that the aldehyde must be neutralized before the development and the hardening is done in an acidic environment.
My problem here is that I am short on cash most of the time and the process seems to rely on some specific chemicals (having a Kodak something something designation) and I am unable to mix up the right stuff. Could I theoretically make the goo I made earlier more acidic (acetic acid maybe?) and then neutralize it with it something more simple? It would be a shame to let that roll of film to waste, considering how well it has survived.
Thank you for your attention!
Vallo
I guess this is most likely directed to Photo Engineer but here goes:
I have a 5"x100' of Aerial MS Ektachrome from 1974. The film itself has survived all those years with grace, it can be exposed at 50ISO and developed into a negative without much problem. As you can guess, the emulsion will partially come off the substrate when ran through E6 - what survives are cyan highlights and a dash of magenta. Yellow floats off completely. And doing room temperature C41 (or ECN2 in my case) still results in a soft emulsion that is extremely easy to damage while wet. Even agitating the developer seems to cause damage.
Now, I experimented with 10ml of 37% formalin and 25g of soda ash dissolved in a liter of water (didn't have the sodium sulphate at hand), that hardened the emulsion plenty BUT as some of you may know, that ties up the magenta coupler, so no magenta dye is formed during development. I have studied the E4 formulas (here: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/cis111/cis111.pdf) for quite a bit now and I see that the aldehyde must be neutralized before the development and the hardening is done in an acidic environment.
My problem here is that I am short on cash most of the time and the process seems to rely on some specific chemicals (having a Kodak something something designation) and I am unable to mix up the right stuff. Could I theoretically make the goo I made earlier more acidic (acetic acid maybe?) and then neutralize it with it something more simple? It would be a shame to let that roll of film to waste, considering how well it has survived.
Thank you for your attention!
Vallo