E6 went wrong...

[alter ego 6x9]

It's not that I am novice at E6, but it's probably my second screw up in about 10 years... Here is the story. I partially used Tetenal E6 concentrate about 3 months ago (all went fine - good results) and stored the rest in the room terperature conditions (used Protecan). Now I had another batch of slide films to process - to my surprise the film came out not developed (completely thick, not transparent at all). What's your diagnosis - first developer turned bad, blix or something else?

 

[Rudeofus]

There are two common issues which can cause completely black slides: FD gone completely inactive, or BLIX is dead. Neither should happen with 3 month old concentrate, opened or not. Do you see a faint image if you look at your slides at an angle?

 

[alter ego 6x9]

There are two common issues which can cause completely black slides: FD gone completely inactive, or BLIX is dead. Neither should happen with 3 month old concentrate, opened or not. Do you see a faint image if you look at your slides at an angle?

As far as I remember it was completely non transparant (now it's longe gone to trash bin, so I cannot check it again). I agree that 3 months is too short, but I had this unopened concentrate for quite some time (maybe a few years), so maybe this fact played some role...

 

[Athiril]

Most likely first developer, what's the FD concentrate's colours?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Destroying the sample prevents further diagnosis.

If the FD is still around, check to see if it will develop some exposed film of any type. If not then the FD was bad. If it does, then try bleaching and fixing some film and if that does not work, then the bleach was bad.

Thus it can be proven.

PE

 

[alter ego 6x9]

Destroying the sample prevents further diagnosis.

If the FD is still around, check to see if it will develop some exposed film of any type. If not then the FD was bad. If it does, then try bleaching and fixing some film and if that does not work, then the bleach was bad.

Thus it can be proven.

PE

Guilty as charged - should not have destroyed the sample... But now both the developer and film is gone. I did that in the heat of the moment when realised that that two rolls of Velvia 50 from my holiday trip are lost...

 

[Rudeofus]

I have seen E6 FD go weak over time, but the way you describe it tells me that it went from 100 to 0 within three months - which is faster than I would have expected. One component which could go bad within this time frame is Tetenal BX2, and its failure would be plenty obvious: a thick yellow precipitate in the bottle. Did you notice this when you mixed your BLIX?

 

[alter ego 6x9]

I have seen E6 FD go weak over time, but the way you describe it tells me that it went from 100 to 0 within three months - which is faster than I would have expected. One component which could go bad within this time frame is Tetenal BX2, and its failure would be plenty obvious: a thick yellow precipitate in the bottle. Did you notice this when you mixed your BLIX?

This I don't remember now very well, but could be... So related question - would I kept the film and mix another BLIX from a new package - would have that worked?

 

[Rudeofus]

If BLIX failure was indeed your problem, then yes, re-BLIXing could have saved your slides.