E6 on Rotary

Bob Carnie · Oct 13, 2013

I am interested in doing some cross process C41 in E6 Chemistry.

Anyone processing E6 on a rotary and any tips or experiences you want to share.
I have only done E6 myself in the 80's and it was on a huge Refrema dip and dunk.

I am most interested in huge pushes of Fuji 160 colour negative .

BMbikerider · Oct 13, 2013

I have only done E6 in a rotary and for me it is completely safe, but a bit boring to do. I use a JOBO processor, unfortunately only the CPE2 version and not the larger one with more bottle space for water rinses.

I don't know what processing kit you will be using but the latest from Jobo on their website suggests different 1st processing times for FUJI film and any other film not made by FUJI. I use a Tetenal kit and I give the 1st development 7.5 mins if I use FUJI and 6.5 mins for any others. (as per the Jobo guide).

The only certain other E6 film at present apart from FUJI seems to be the one marketed under the Rollie banner. Agfa Precisa has made a come back and as this is supposed to be reincarnated Fuji Sensia. I have processed two cassettes of this, one at the 7.5 min time and the 2nd at the 6.5 min time. I can say the 7.5 min time gave by far the best results with the other processing time the slides were more saturated but had a magenta cast.

wildbill · Oct 13, 2013

bob, I do it all the time and I don't treat it any differently than any other process.
preheat the film-filled drum on the machine.
I set my temp slightly higher than 38 degrees and always leave it at that.
don't do the final rinse in your drums as it's said to not wash out well.

Roger Cole · Oct 13, 2013

Precisa is Provia not, unfortunately, Sensia. It's still a good bargain price wise compared to "labeled as Provia" but I'd love to have a more moderate contrast E6 film available. I've almost shot up my frozen stock of E100G.

polyglot · Oct 13, 2013

I do E6 in a CPP2, but I've not tried it for cross-processing; there's a section in my FAQ that explains how I do it (including prewashes, etc), but it's not much more than following the (Fuji 5L kit) instructions with some recommendations gathered here from PE etc.

What's your reasoning for using E6 instead of C41 to do your massive push? Do you still want a negative, or are you aiming for a strangely coloured positive? Were you planning on using E6 CD as the only developer, followed by bleach+fix? I'm not sure what the activity level of E6 CD is nor what would be a good processing time for it as first dev since it's designed to run approximately to completion. Colours will be strange, what with it being CD3 instead of CD4.

Bob Carnie · Oct 14, 2013

I am looking for a strangely coloured Positive.... In the 80's when I mangaged a E6 lab, this was all the rage for fashion with some very lovely results.
I am really into solarization and how it works with colour and BW, this massive push effect really messes up the colour pallette and different C41 films will give
different effects.

All my colour work now and in the future**personal** is going to be tri colour pigment prints over pt pd, I am making a rather large collection of images to work in this process.
I am aware that it will take me years to get perfect colour balance prints, so rather than fight it , I have made images less than perfect in colour / contrast which will allow me to work away and play without the snobs looking at my balance and say *** hey I can do this better colour on my inkjet paper*** which would then force me to reply ***go f... yourself*** .
I have purchased camera film and ortho film off different sources and have proven to myself that I can make separation negatives for the colour and also pretty wicked pt pd base negatives... Using old style registration systems and NuArks with pigments I plan to go to hog heaven and make colour prints till the day I die.

If you go to www.patersoncarnie.ca and look in the colour section of my side of the site you will see where I am going.. The prints are a bit less saturated than what you see on screen...

These C41 in E6 images have this look , but I can control the colour pallette and be complimentary to what I already am working on. My next shooting sessions will be guitars dipticked together by using an old Graflex which has been juried rigged with two lenses, so I get doubles, which is in my still life metal series.

I have a Fuji Account and can have E6 chemicals in here tommorow but before I do that I am interested in hearing what others are doing and any hints before I start.

thanks

Bob

polyglot said:
I do E6 in a CPP2, but I've not tried it for cross-processing; there's a section in my FAQ that explains how I do it (including prewashes, etc), but it's not much more than following the (Fuji 5L kit) instructions with some recommendations gathered here from PE etc.

What's your reasoning for using E6 instead of C41 to do your massive push? Do you still want a negative, or are you aiming for a strangely coloured positive? Were you planning on using E6 CD as the only developer, followed by bleach+fix? I'm not sure what the activity level of E6 CD is nor what would be a good processing time for it as first dev since it's designed to run approximately to completion. Colours will be strange, what with it being CD3 instead of CD4.

Bob Carnie · Oct 14, 2013

Thanks- I never wash on machine, the jobo basically sits over my sink and I have a wash system going while I am processing the next batch.

I am thinking my pushes may be an issue for exhaustion of the chemistry.
this is an issue with PMK on rotary, and I fixed the issue by splitting the developer into two distinct baths , I am thinking
this may be the case with what I plan to do.

Why are you using a higher temp?

wildbill said:
bob, I do it all the time and I don't treat it any differently than any other process.
preheat the film-filled drum on the machine.
I set my temp slightly higher than 38 degrees and always leave it at that.
don't do the final rinse in your drums as it's said to not wash out well.

polyglot · Oct 14, 2013

I'd suggest getting the Fuji 5L kit (if they stock it locally) and giving it a bash. Since you have a CPP3, not much is going to go wrong if you follow the instructions. Since your end result is going to be non-standard anyway, I suspect that any little subtleties of running traditional E6 that we could maybe tell you are not really going to be relevant.

Something you might want to play with is changing the pH of the CD step. That gives you hue shifts with E6 film, with the axis of the shift depending on which film you use. I think most Fujichromes shift along the blue/yellow axis with pH and the Kodaks do something else. Might be interesting, but it is a global hue shift rather than the subtle realignment of colours you get with cross processing.

Have you considered using Digibase film? It's C41 with a clear base, no orange mask. Might make a less-obviously-crazy positive but still with some clearly unusual colours. And there's that recently-released Lomo fake-IR stuff which has the green-sensitive dye coupled to the wrong channel; might be even more (?) interesting if cross-processed.

Bob Carnie · Oct 14, 2013

Interesting you mention the ph of the CD ... a great way to colour correct I would say, and who would know what I am doing.. good tip.

I think Ron M would give me the mad chemist award, I think he would cringe with all the adaptations.

I am only interested in the Fuji films.. basically a supply thing ** my lab purchases direct and the Fuji Headquarters is 30 min away.We have a fantastic relationship with them and Kodak has pretty much given up the ghost in my neck of the woods. I like to buy in bulk and our discount is great comfort. Introducing other Manufacture films right now is not in my plans , as I will exhaust my options with the Fuji Product.

I use FP4 for all my black and white, and do plan to get some ortho 25 so I can solarize in red safelight and see my effect immediately.. ie pull the neg sooner or later.. I do this with my paper prints all the time ...

I will need to figure out which Fuji film works best for the E6 application. but once I get the right one I plan to stick with it. I only use 4x5 for this application and I am pretty liberal with the amount of film I will shoot in a given three day period...

polyglot said:
I'd suggest getting the Fuji 5L kit (if they stock it locally) and giving it a bash. Since you have a CPP3, not much is going to go wrong if you follow the instructions. Since your end result is going to be non-standard anyway, I suspect that any little subtleties of running traditional E6 that we could maybe tell you are not really going to be relevant.

Something you might want to play with is changing the pH of the CD step. That gives you hue shifts with E6 film, with the axis of the shift depending on which film you use. I think most Fujichromes shift along the blue/yellow axis with pH and the Kodaks do something else. Might be interesting, but it is a global hue shift rather than the subtle realignment of colours you get with cross processing.

Have you considered using Digibase film? It's C41 with a clear base, no orange mask. Might make a less-obviously-crazy positive but still with some clearly unusual colours. And there's that recently-released Lomo fake-IR stuff which has the green-sensitive dye coupled to the wrong channel; might be even more (?) interesting if cross-processed.

wildbill · Oct 14, 2013

bob, the little graduates (which I use for rinses only) don't get up to 38 degrees if the machine is set for that. I imagine that the temp in the drum doesn't get to 38 either. As long as you always use the same temp, you'll get consistent results. I have guts from an old cpa that I mounted into a cooler that I use for heating things up as well since I don't have a thermostat controlled faucet.
I mix my chems, put the 1 liter bottles into the machine, and fire it up for about 2 hours to get everything up to temp.

Bob Carnie · Oct 14, 2013

Makes sense , I will set the temp up a degree or two as well. The new CPP3 is pretty good at keeping the temp up so I will need to play with this a bit.

But as you say if you are consistent, and you see where I am going with it , just keeping things the same will work.

How about Expert drums and quantity of chems.. also I plan to really push the development stage up to 4 stops so what about exhaustion issues of the developer? I am thinking of a two stage developer to compensate for the huge push.

A 4 stop push is what was required on a Refemana to get the look I am after btw.

wildbill said:
bob, the little graduates (which I use for rinses only) don't get up to 38 degrees if the machine is set for that. I imagine that the temp in the drum doesn't get to 38 either. As long as you always use the same temp, you'll get consistent results. I have guts from an old cpa that I mounted into a cooler that I use for heating things up as well since I don't have a thermostat controlled faucet.
I mix my chems, put the 1 liter bottles into the machine, and fire it up for about 2 hours to get everything up to temp.

wildbill · Oct 14, 2013

I get good results even with as little as 250ml per 10 sheets of 4x5 in my 3010 drum. I usually use 500ml to be safe though. Since pushes with e6 don't require really long increases (like many b+w films) you may get away with standard amounts. After all, the time it takes to dump/refill the drum is how many seconds?_

Roger Cole · Oct 14, 2013

My CPE2 lacks the digital setting of the CPP. I put my thermometer in the chemical bottle filled with water closest to the control (which will be the developer for B&W/C41 and first developer for E6, which are most critical in each case) and tweaked the setting until I found the real point to set it for 75F (black and white) and 100F (color) and carefully marked the dial with a fine marker so it's repeatable. The dial calibration is far enough off that it's really only useful as a starting point but once you dial this in, you're good.

Bob Carnie · Oct 14, 2013

I have always been a bit of a freek with the amount of chems.. I always use 1000ml no matter what process.
It takes me about 20 seconds to dump and refill. Thats all I have been doing for the last 7 days so it does take that long for me.

wildbill said:
I get good results even with as little as 250ml per 10 sheets of 4x5 in my 3010 drum. I usually use 500ml to be safe though. Since pushes with e6 don't require really long increases (like many b+w films) you may get away with standard amounts. After all, the time it takes to dump/refill the drum is how many seconds?_

polyglot · Oct 14, 2013

1L of E6 chemistry will develop about 10 rolls (40 sheets) of film without its rate dropping off significantly (Fuji instructions say to extend FD by 30s (8%!) for the second half of the rated capacity to maintain appropriate contrast), whereas you can fit maybe 6 rolls (3 spirals in Multitank 5) or 10 sheets (3010) in at once. There's no way you're going to run out of developer activity with a push and a full litre of developer.

Also, most of us set the Jobo bath to 38.0C. That puts the tank contents at about 37.8C in a 24C room, according to Jobo. And E6 is happy with being a degree or two out (must be between 36 and 40 IIRC) as long as you're consistent and adjust your FD time accordingly.

PS the bleach & fix have more capacity than the devs and since they're to completion, I just run them a couple minutes longer to be sure. Also the reversal bath and pre-bleach, so you can be more-sparing with replenishing/replacing those, though they're pretty cheap compared to bleach. One of my local labs (the struggling one) was saying that they were having issues with pre-bleach going off; the effect isn't visible in the slides immediately after processing but the slides degrade rapidly thereafter apparently, so keep your pre-bleach fresh. And do not rinse between pre-bleach and bleach, there is an expected/desired chemical reaction between those two baths occurring in the film.

Roger Cole · Oct 14, 2013

Pre-bleach? I ran a fair amount of E6 back in the 80s and 90s (both 6 bath and, when they came out, three bath) and I don't recall a pre-bleach.

wildbill · Oct 14, 2013

Roger Cole said:
Pre-bleach? I ran a fair amount of E6 back in the 80s and 90s (both 6 bath and, when they came out, three bath) and I don't recall a pre-bleach.

The chems must have gotten to you!
I've never processed e6 w/o it.

Roger Cole · Oct 14, 2013

It's been a while, granted. Heck I might even have an old instruction sheet in the room I used as a darkroom in my patents house back then. I'll look next time I visit.

Roger Cole · Oct 14, 2013

All I can find online is instructions for the three bath. They certainly don't have a "pre-blix" or the like, though there is a rinse.

I know it's heresy but when the three bath kits came out I compared a small (1 quart, I think, in those days) 3 bath with the 6 bath Unicolor I had been using and actually preferred, by a small margin, the results from the three bath. No one said anything about longevity, and I do still have some of the slides and they are fine. I switched to three bath when I used up the last of that 6 bath since it was quicker and easier and I actually preferred the results (slightly.) I don't remember enough of the details to tell you why.

polyglot · Oct 14, 2013

I think pre-bleach now contains some of the preservative that was previously present in the final rinse, plus something to increase bleach activity. Not sure.

A blix should be OK if the blix is mixed- and used-fresh. If the blix sits on the shelf for a while though, not so good.

Edit: the E6 Process Manual which explains why pre-bleach is there (dye stabilisers, for lack of formaldehyde) amongst other things. Bob, this is worth reading.

Roger Cole · Oct 14, 2013

Ah so I'm not suffering chemical fumes - it was added later due to changes in the final rinse. (maybe.)

I mixed small amounts from liquids, dividing it down so fine I would mix half a pint at a time and then not until I had the three rolls (I think it was) that amount would do, which is probably why I had no problems with blix.

Bob Carnie · Oct 15, 2013

Thanks dude

polyglot said:
I think pre-bleach now contains some of the preservative that was previously present in the final rinse, plus something to increase bleach activity. Not sure.

A blix should be OK if the blix is mixed- and used-fresh. If the blix sits on the shelf for a while though, not so good.

Edit: the E6 Process Manual which explains why pre-bleach is there (dye stabilisers, for lack of formaldehyde) amongst other things. Bob, this is worth reading.

E6 on Rotary

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