E6 Mishap

Hello, Film Friends,

I just tried developing my first roll of e6 film and it did not go well. I tried my best and yet I ended up with what appears to be a positive image but with nothing but a purple cast for color. This makes me think my problem lies exclusively in the color developer process.
I'm using arista rapid e6 chemistry. I tried developing Fuji Provia at 85°F. I ran my tap out till it stabilized at 85° and I had a tub of water with an aquarium heater in it that I let the chemistry bottles float around in to stablize their temperature and I held my Patterson tank in the water during developing.
I'm fairly certain I mixed the chemistry right, the only thing I'm not 100% confident in is that temperature didn't shift throughout the process. I only say that because I didn't have a live readout the whole time.
What I'm curious is: I just want to know if anyone can give any insight as to where I went wrong. I would love to try again but since I don't know exactly what to change on my second go, I don't want to do exactly the same thing and get the same result. Or more frustratingly so: do exactly the same thing (as far as I know) and get a different result!

I have never tried the Arista Kit and never processed at 85°F, but would recommend the following:

1. Run the process at 38°C/100°F next time, that's the recommended temperature for E6
2. Extend E6 CD time to at least 6-8 minutes. E6 CD runs to completion, so there is no such thing as too much CD time. Standard CD times from authentic E6 kits are 6 minutes for fresh chems, no idea how Arista got these rather short times. Maybe it works with some films and not with others.
3. Do the next test with a short clip. If you somehow made an error when mixing your process chems, no amount of fiddling and process changes will yield acceptable results. Expose one whole test roll with the same subject matter, ideally something which also includes some neutral gray area, and use this test roll for making short test clips of about 2-3 frames each. These short clips usually hold on to the spindle even with inversion processing.

I'm a total noob, but looks like your color developer is dead. Even at wrong temp you should get something better. Did you use distilled water in your developers and washes? Was your developing container totally clean?

Here's the process: pre-rinse (1 minute), developer (worked for you), fill up and rinse out container several times at same temp 38*c, colour developer, rinse several times, blix, optional stabilizer.

It looks to me like the process failed after the developer part. Did you rinse several times at the correct temp? Is there any chance your colour developer got contaminated?

Thank you both for your input!

Rudeofus said:

Run the process at 38°C/100°F next time

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I will! I ordered the Tetenal kit that doesn't let you develop any cooler. I got myself an electric burner that can be set to 100ºF so hopefully that will maintain a pot of water that I can hold my tank in whilst also heating the next bottle of chemistry.

Rudeofus said:

Extend E6 CD time to at least 6-8 minutes

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Good to know! I'll let that stuff stew for awhile next time.

1kgcoffee said:

Even at wrong temp you should get something better

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Thats what I would've thought but I wasn't sure. I didn't use distilled water, just tap water. I washed the beakers fairly well, the graduate the color developer was in was previously used for my home-made stop bath for B&W. Perhaps it had residual acidity that killed the developer. I followed the procidures very closely, I think a contaminated color dev is the culprit. Still gonna go with the Tetenal kit and go to 100º, but I also ordered new graduates and bottles.

I have completely separate containers for developers exclusively. No other chemistry ever uses those.

Contamination can happen rather easily, and can be difficult to diagnose.

Also, really completely cleaninr out chemical residues can be a challenge.
Unfortunately, they happily dissolve in any other chemicals where they don't belong.

- Leigh

Leigh B said:

I have completely separate containers for developers exclusively

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I think I learned my lesson there! I was impatient and wanted to tack a whack at it. I've ordered all new graduates and bottles for my e6 chemistry. I gave my current graduates a good bath, do you think that I can still use these for my black and white chemistry? Or should I chuck these and get fresh ones for B&W also? I would imagine the stop bath would be fine but its the dev/fix im worried about.

Hi Troy,

I wouldn't chuck the old containers. Just use them only for stop bath or fixer or Photoflo.

The only stage where I worry about contamination is the developers.
With color work there may be more than one.

- Leigh

I use the same graduates for everything - E6, C41, B&W neg and reversal, everything, just as I do all the tanks, and Lomo spirals, trays, etc. I use regular tap water, never distilled. Maybe I've been lucky, but I've not ever suffered any cross contamination nor development issues that I thought warranted separate equipment for each process, or the use of distilled water. In terms of contamination, I just rinse all out well - not excessively, just a good rinse, and I'm onto the next, so I don't know... unless people don't rinse their stuff out, I don't see how cross contamination is this much of an issue that you need equipment duplication. If it gives extra piece of mind, cool.

My advice would be to maybe watch temps more closely, especially on such a temp dependent process. That is the one thing I am really careful of, although it would seem as if you should have gotten better results regardless.

Arista's E6 kit has "rapid" in the name. That could be why the shorter color developer time. On my directions, it says 4.5 min for this step at 105 deg.

My batch of B&W chemicals was pretty much spent when it came time to mix up the E-6. Since I'm trying to conserve space, three of the four bottles were reused. The Dev for the First Dev, Fix for the Blix, and Wet for the Stabilizer. I figured any difference between these chemicals would be minor. The only thing that wasn't reused was the Stop bottle; the Color Dev was mixed in its own, new bottle. All the E-6 rolls turned out great.