E6 - a few last questions before start procesing.

I will start doing E6 development at home, but I still have a few questions and considerations that I hope you can help clarifying. For the last three years I have done all b/w film development myself, which I feel confident with. The reasoning behind start doing E6 myself is that I expect that the films will be less scratched during the development compared to have the development done in a lab (at least that is my experience from b/w) and that it will be less expensive for bigger formats (4x5). Also no risk of the film disappears when sending forth and back to the lab.

I use a JOBO CPE processor (without a lift) for b/w development and would like to do the same for E6. The E6 films I use are:
Kodak Elitechrome 100, 200 and 400 in 135 format
Kodak Ektachrome 100 G in 120 and 4x5 format

Usually I shoot between 15 and 30 rolls of E6 a year and have therefore bought the Tetenal 1 litre E6 kit based on the assumption that a 5 litre kit will expire before I can use all of it.

Can there be found a timer app for development of E6 similar to the massive development app? I think that would be helpful.
Is gas expansion during the process a problem if I’m going to use my old JOBO 1000 tank that doesn’t have the flexible membrane in the lid?
Can I use demineralised water as the last rinse step to avoid stains from tap water?
Other things, which I should consider before starting?

Thanks in advance!

I am a little surprised at your film choice because as far as I am aware Kodak do not make any E6 slide films at all.

I use the Tetenal E6 1 ltr kits only because the 5 litre kits are too large for my through put. I only expose a fraction of the film you use. However the problem of the kit deterioration is limited to the 1st developer and this will go 'off' quite quickly.

There is a way around this if you buy the 5 litre kit and that is to decant the 1st developer into small dark brown glass bottles (I buy mine for C41 developer from the local pharmacy and use 100cc size)). In glass, the developer will stay fresh for longer than in the original plastic, even part used bottles.

Or going back to the 'old days' use a trick to preserve developers, after taking out the amount of developer you need, replace the liquid with small glass beads to bring the level back up to the top of the bottle. The beads can be washed repeatedly and used again and again.

henbo said:

Usually I shoot between 15 and 30 rolls of E6 a year and have therefore bought the Tetenal 1 litre E6 kit based on the assumption that a 5 litre kit will expire before I can use all of it.

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At least in Central Europe the 5l kit costs only about twice of what the 1l kit costs, so with 30 rolls you may still be cheaper with the 5l kit, and that doesn't even yet account for what BMbikerider correctly stated about splitting up the kit. If you get some protective gas to fill the partially used bottles you don't even have to use extra bottles.

henbo said:

Is gas expansion during the process a problem if I’m going to use my old JOBO 1000 tank that doesn’t have the flexible membrane in the lid?

Click to expand...

I have seen the lid "pop" when I poured in the BLIX, so be careful with that step.

henbo said:

Can I use demineralised water as the last rinse step to avoid stains from tap water?

Click to expand...

As PhotoEngineer has stated multiple times: do not rinse after the STAB bath. I do recommend you setup the STAB with demineralized water, though.

henbo said:

Other things, which I should consider before starting?

Click to expand...

Don't worry too much that things can go wrong, the process is very robust to parameter variations and our eyes see much less than these dreaded control strips.

I also use my CPE without the lift for BW film procession, but for E6 I preferred using the lift. Times were short enough and I was nervous enough that I was more comfortable using the lift to add chem while rotating and to drain.

Here is something we published about why a lift might help:
http://www.catlabs.info/why-do-i-need-a-jobo-lift

All that said - an easy way to overcome pressure buildup in blix or beach stage is to use a cog lid type drum. As you will only be using the min amount per reel in the tank, the fluid will not pour out while rolling. You can get a proper size rubber stopper if you want to invert once or twice before setting the drum in the machine, then remove the stopper once you are ready.

BMbikerider said:

I am a little surprised at your film choice because as far as I am aware Kodak do not make any E6 slide films at all.

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Just before Kodak announced that they would discontinue the Elitechrome 100 I decided to stockpile some of the film, and a few months ago I was lucky to be able to buy some fresh Kodak Ektachrome from US as well, so I will not run out of Kodak E6 for the next couple of years, but I don't have much space left in the refrigiator for the stuff they call food.

BMbikerider said:

There is a way around this if you buy the 5 litre kit and that is to decant the 1st developer into small dark brown glass bottles (I buy mine for C41 developer from the local pharmacy and use 100cc size)). In glass, the developer will stay fresh for longer than in the original plastic, even part used bottles.

Or going back to the 'old days' use a trick to preserve developers, after taking out the amount of developer you need, replace the liquid with small glass beads to bring the level back up to the top of the bottle. The beads can be washed repeatedly and used again and again.

Click to expand...

Nice ideas, thanks for sharing.

Rudeofus said:

At least in Central Europe the 5l kit costs only about twice of what the 1l kit costs, so with 30 rolls you may still be cheaper with the 5l kit, and that doesn't even yet account for what BMbikerider correctly stated about splitting up the kit. If you get some protective gas to fill the partially used bottles you don't even have to use extra bottles.

I have seen the lid "pop" when I poured in the BLIX, so be careful with that step.

As PhotoEngineer has stated multiple times: do not rinse after the STAB bath. I do recommend you setup the STAB with demineralized water, though.

Don't worry too much that things can go wrong, the process is very robust to parameter variations and our eyes see much less than these dreaded control strips.

Click to expand...

I have ordered two 1 litre kits for now and if I'm going to be succesfull, I will maybe order two kits more, and then I can start decanting a 5 litre kit into the four 1 litre kits. And thanks for the warning regarding the BLIX step. I will also make sure to read the instructions carefully about the STAB bath, thanks for the heads up. I also ordered some protective gas.

Good luck. I'm certain you'll be successful.

After having developed the first four rolls of E6, I just wanted to thank all of you for your input and encouragement!

The results were good, and I'm already planning to do the next batch during this weekend. It was a bit scary to look at the films in wet condition, but the results came out fine in the end. I found a nice app called "Develop!" by Bigredpepper which I set up with the times from Tetenals specification. I ran two batches of two films and used the original times stated for the first developer and not the 7 minutes for the rotary processor.
One of the things that I hoped for was to be able to reduce scratches, and based on the results it seems like big success.

Here is a photo from one of the films.



Thanks again!

henbo said:

Can there be found a timer app for development of E6 similar to the massive development app? I think that would be helpful.

Click to expand...

I have not seen a app specifically for developing E6 film but then why would you need a separate app. When I develop E6 I just take any development set up in massive dev chart and modify it for the times you need for the E6. You can fully change all the times and set it for 2 part developers. Any steps like stop bath that are not needed just set for 0 time, and use the fix time for the blix time.

Yeah I usually hack up a custom development profile for MDC to support E6. The developer for MDC is actually quite reasonably and perhaps we should put it out there that it would be good to have C-41/E-6 "modes" (although C-41 is the most simple and might not warrant it's own mode, but it would be good to have a "standard" profile).

Aside from that - great results! Exactly the kind of thing we love to see here: someone taking it upon themselves to do it on their own and arriving at a great first effort.

clayne said:

Yeah I usually hack up a custom development profile for MDC to support E6.

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I found the free app called Develop! and created times for first/second batch and another set of times for third/fourth rolls - very convenient imo.

clayne said:

Aside from that - great results! Exactly the kind of thing we love to see here: someone taking it upon themselves to do it on their own and arriving at a great first effort.

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot. I have now developed my first 12 rolls of E6 and only had some minor problems, like a small spider that decided to get into the development tank at some point in time (bad decision btw ), causing a small spot at the frame at one of my films.