E6 development by inspection

A friend handed me a few rolls of 120 film as I volunteered to process for him, and I pointed out “oh and this one's a slide, I think I have a little Tetenal kit left.” He looks at his Rolleiflex 2.8f and then at the Provia 100f says he has no idea it was slide film, when he shot it, and thinks he probably shot it at ISO 400. Or maybe 100. Probably 400. No he has no idea.

What I think I’m going to do is (I’m using a Jobo) develop to ISO 100, then fully stop. Then pull out the film and using a dim light see, if there’s any image formed on the first frame. If it’s really dark, wash it a few more times, then back in the developer another 5m. If not, I’ll just blix and pretty sure there’s no major damage as long as the stop bath has done it’s work.

Thoughts?

There are some E-6 films, which have an antihalation layer made from colloidal silver. These films will look mostly black until they have gone through bleach&fix or BLIX. If this film was shot at ISO400, you will get awful slides no matter what you do, therefore I'd develop them for EI100 and hope for the best. If it is absolutely important, that at least some kind of discernible image matter appears regardless of exposure, you can consider developing the film as color negative. This procedure would allow you to push real hard, yet preserve scanable highlights.

@Rudeofus, I was worried about antihalation being a problem... and Interesting about the collodial silver antihalation layer, I didn't know about that. Fuji's datasheets that I found don't provide any hints. I read a forum post saying that the developer (or prewash) in a Provia 100F process turns pink, which suggests the antihalation is largely washed out in the first step.

If I don't bother with inspection, I think I'd probably split the difference, and push to ISO 200. I've seen test results with Provia 100 pushed to 400 and it actually pushes surprisingly well. At least better than if left to it's own devices at 100. But where's the fun in that? I think my friend's not expecting much.

Also worth mentioning, the end result he's looking for is good scans, he isn't planning to project. That might buy him a teeny bit of latitude.

When film is made, emulsion sensitivity does not always end up accurate. Therefore film makers make a master roll with slightly higher than spec sensitivity, then evaluate a test strip from that roll, then coat color adjustment layers onto the master roll. The result is a carefully color balanced film, and strange colors washing off in the first process step. The latter is what you see in the wash water. Antihalation dyes, used by some films, would have to be black, not green or magenta.

I agree with your proposed strategy to push by one stop and fix the results after scanning, this is the most likely path to usable images.

Wow, I had no idea about that! So that color (pink in the case of that forum) was a spray on adjustment, like putting on makeup. How interesting!

OK, +1 it is

Provia will push to 400 with no problems. But you won't be able to tell anything "by inspection". Increase the 1st dev time by 25%, i.e. about 7 mins 50 secs if the chemicals are brand new. You'll get a useable image whether it was shot at 100 or 400.

I got to wonder... Who has a Rolleiflex f2.8 and doesn't know what kind of film he's using?

It’s easy to see how it happens if you only shoot one roll per month.

I happened to be at Freestyle today and they had these new Cinestill chemicals. I haven’t found much about them but discovered there’s a D9 DynamiChrome first developer which can deliver 9 stops latitude in lieu of the normal 6 stop. Now that seems worth a shot!

Edit: I recall hearing about a new E6 chemical kit coming out, these are purportedly made out of Rochester, NY.