ECN-2 Chemistry

jsmithphoto1 · Jan 28, 2016

Just curious. I have seen issues all around about individuals trying to purchase ECN-2 chemicals to process their cinema films and find it close to impossible. If I were able to make kits (let's say 2 liters), would anyone be interested?

Oxleyroad · Jan 28, 2016

I'd be interested.

Gerald C Koch · Jan 29, 2016

Everything but CD-3 the color developing agent should be readily available. It might be better to just sell small amounts of it say 50 to 100 g. This way you would avoid a lot of weighing and packaging.

jsmithphoto1 · Jan 29, 2016

Oxleyroad said:
I'd be interested.

Awesome!

jsmithphoto1 · Jan 29, 2016

Gerald C Koch said:
Everything but CD-3 the color developing agent should be readily available. It might be better to just sell small amounts of it say 50 to 100 g. This way you would avoid a lot of weighing and packaging.

I've found CD-3 with no issues . It seems that Photo Formulary is really reducing a lot of their chemical supply, though. And, although unrelated, ferric ammonium EDTA is impossible to find, unless it's been renamed. But that is true. However, if I do decide to invest in this, I would be surprised to see a lot of people interested. I am thinking of making a 2 liter kit that was prebath, dev, bl, fix, and stab. This, however, would be close to the $41 range after a 30% markup. The only issue I see is sulfuric acid as a stop bath...

Roger Cole · Jan 29, 2016

The sticky point would seem to me the removal of the rem-jet backing.

Of course you could develop Cinestill in it and get "regular" color and have the backing already removed.

If sulfuric acid is needed for the stop bath couldn't one just use the hardner from a package of Rapid Fix? I leave it out of my print fix anyway so I have plenty of extra hardner and I think it's mostly or maybe entirely sulfuric acid, isn't it?

Xmas · Jan 29, 2016

There are threads about home processing ECN2 from scratch chemicals.
CD3 is available still.
The stop bath is just acid dilute wine vinegar will do...
Micro scales to 0.01 gm allow scratch mixing.

But unless you have a cheap long end of cine the afga photo film is easier?

Rudeofus · Jan 29, 2016

I am quite surprised, that people encounter such difficulties with getting CD-3 and dilute Sulfuric Acid. By far the hardest to get ingredient is this 'KODAK Antifoggant AF-2000', which appears to be Sodium 3-Nitrobenzenesulfonate.

Roger Cole · Jan 29, 2016

Xmas said:
There are threads about home processing ECN2 from scratch chemicals.
CD3 is available still.
The stop bath is just acid dilute wine vinegar will do...
Micro scales to 0.01 gm allow scratch mixing.

But unless you have a cheap long end of cine the afga photo film is easier?

Well you can get tungsten balanced ECN2 film. That could be really useful at times. There are threads here about the tungsten Cinestill but that gives somewhat unusual colors and apparently more grain when developed in C41. ECN2 would probably give you a moderately fast, tungsten balanced color negative film with good grain and color. I could see that being very useful.

But there's still the Remjet backing, unless you buy the Cinestill with the backing already removed and process it in ECN2 which should work.

OTOH, if I could get a tungsten balanced color film these days I'd want it in 120 and/or 4x5 a lot more than 35mm and neither are available AFAIK since cine is 35mm (or 16mm or 8mm.)

georgegrosu · Jan 29, 2016

I do not use developer kits.
If you are not fans of chemicals for preparing then looked at ECN 2 kits from Kodak.
http://motion.kodak.com/KodakGCG/up...cts_Price_Catalog_US_Prices_April_2015_V4.pdf
Developer seems to have a good price.
Prebath you can replace with soda washing (inexpensive).
Stop you can make with sulfuric acid conc. or solution for car batteries (cheaper).
Bleach, fixer and stabilizer your decide one.

George

frobozz · Jan 29, 2016

Rudeofus said:
I am quite surprised, that people encounter such difficulties with getting CD-3 and dilute Sulfuric Acid. By far the hardest to get ingredient is this 'KODAK Antifoggant AF-2000', which appears to be Sodium 3-Nitrobenzenesulfonate.

AF-2000 is easy to get, you just have to buy a lot of it! Call up Kodak and tell them you want one of part number 5160049 which is two 5L bottles of AF-2000. They will want your credit card and charge you $60.78 (in the US) plus shipping and handling, and it will show up at your door a few days later.

They'll also sell you CD-3 in a 25-kilo drum for $963 (part number 8808255)

Duncan

btaylor · Jan 29, 2016

I have several thousand feet of Kodak 35mm cine film. I would be interested in a reasonable sized kit for home use.

Photo Engineer · Jan 29, 2016

Kodak lists 4 different bleach baths, none of which contain Ammonium Ferric EDTA. The stop bath is Sulfuric Acid and not Acetic Acid.

The formulas are posted on the Kodak web site. If you need them here I can post them as a PDF.

PE

jsmithphoto1 · Jan 29, 2016

Photo Engineer said:
Kodak lists 4 different bleach baths, none of which contain Ammonium Ferric EDTA. The stop bath is Sulfuric Acid and not Acetic Acid.

The formulas are posted on the Kodak web site. If you need them here I can post them as a PDF.

PE

Could one use acetic acid as a stop or would that cause issues with blistering, bubbles, and such with the emulsion? Sulfuric acid is a little difficult to obtain, if not quite expensive.

About the ferric ammonium edta, ive noticed that, but when I was looking at the formulas for the ECN-2 bleaches, I was reminded of the blix formulas that I have seen with this in them (for the home made c-41 and ra-4 processing) on other sites. I was thinking the ferricyanide bleach in the ECN-2 would be more cost effective. However, according to the Kodak Pub, the only thing that seems difficult to obtain for the other bleaches are the ferric nitrate (not sold from Photo Form. or Artcraft) and Proxel GXL. I would be more interested in those as I have read ferricyanide bleaches (if I remember correctly) tend to lend to leukocyan dye formation.

Rudeofus · Jan 29, 2016

Photo Engineer said:
Kodak lists 4 different bleach baths, none of which contain Ammonium Ferric EDTA. The stop bath is Sulfuric Acid and not Acetic Acid.

The formulas are posted on the Kodak web site. If you need them here I can post them as a PDF

The document with the formulas is here. Three bleaches use a complex of Iron and Kodak Chelating Agent No. 1, the last bleach uses Ferricyanide. The Dead Link Removed states, that this compound is Propylene Diamine Tetraacetic Acid, aka PDTA, which is commonly used in modern C-41 bleaches.

There is a good chance that Flexicolor Bleach III would be within spec for ECN-2.

kb3lms · Jan 29, 2016

The Ferricyanide bleach as per the Kodak formula works just fine. Follow the ECN-2 directions in the document Rudeofus cites.

The stop bath HAS to be dilute sulfuric acid. This apparently has something to do with the dyes. There is a noticeable difference in the negatives if an acetic stop bath is used. Maybe something to do with pH. I'm sure PE or one of the others can explain it.

They'll also sell you CD-3 in a 25-kilo drum for $963 (part number 8808255)

Well, that's a thought.

toddsby · Jan 29, 2016

jsmithphoto1 said:
Just curious. I have seen issues all around about individuals trying to purchase ECN-2 chemicals to process their cinema films and find it close to impossible. If I were able to make kits (let's say 2 liters), would anyone be interested?

Umm I'd give you money right now if you had one available?! do you? I was seriously just about to post a thread about this very topic after doing research all week. Can you pm me more info?

The cost of shooting 35mm color negative is killing me right now, I need a bulk alternative. I've already stocked up on b&w, but cine film is the only option left for bulk color negative film

Rudeofus · Jan 29, 2016

kb3lms said:
The stop bath HAS to be dilute sulfuric acid. This apparently has something to do with the dyes. There is a noticeable difference in the negatives if an acetic stop bath is used. Maybe something to do with pH. I'm sure PE or one of the others can explain it.

Since Sulfuric Acid is easy to obtain in Central Europe, I always used it for my ECN-2 development. Your statement makes me curious, though. Can you describe the difference between ECN-2 processed with Acetic Acid vs. Sufuric Acid stop bath?

kb3lms · Jan 29, 2016

Can you describe the difference between ECN-2 processed with Acetic Acid vs. Sufuric Acid stop bath?

Sure, the colors were noticeably less saturated and "off". Off as in not right. If I recall correctly, everything had a slightly green cast.

I'd processed 6 35m rolls, so this was 3 separate runs. I didn't have any of the sulfuric stop on hand and just made up a regular stop with acetic. (I've been scratch mixing everything from the published EK formulas, except I have never had any AF-2000 and just skipped it.) Batches processed before and after with the correct stop did not show the problems. And the stop was literally the only difference.

Correctly processed Vision 3 has bold, bright, saturated colors when properly scanned. Kind of like a high speed Ektar. It's very nice if you like that sort of thing.

pbromaghin · Jan 29, 2016

georgegrosu said:
I do not use developer kits.
If you are not fans of chemicals for preparing then looked at ECN 2 kits from Kodak.
http://motion.kodak.com/KodakGCG/up...cts_Price_Catalog_US_Prices_April_2015_V4.pdf
Developer seems to have a good price.
Prebath you can replace with soda washing (inexpensive).
Stop you can make with sulfuric acid conc. or solution for car batteries (cheaper).
Bleach, fixer and stabilizer your decide one.

George

If I guestimate correctly, it comes out to $.5 per roll. But you have to buy enough to do 1,000 rolls.

Photo Engineer · Jan 29, 2016

Sulfuric acid at 37% is sold at Home Depot in the US as Battery Acid. It must be used and cannot be substituted for by Acetic Acid.

Leuco dye is formed in other solutions and not the bleach. The fix can cause leuco dye to form for example, if it is off in pH or used for too long of a time. The ferricyanide bleach is best IMHO and most cost effective. This product is tested with 3 bleaches IIRC before release and not one like C41 is.

PE

jsmithphoto1 · Jan 29, 2016

Thanks for your info! I was actually thinking battery acid earlier. I've never seen it sold at Home Depot, and I've never looked. Now I am haha. The only place I've purchased it from has been Advance Auto Parts and that was to clean my trays from processing RA-4. Hmmm... thanks! Time to raid the Home Depot! Now I feel like a dummy spelling it leuko ha. I was thinking medical for some reason, I guess. I will have to read my Kodak Minilab manual again. I could've sworn the leuco dyes were formed in the bleach, but I trust you! Wait... it may have been BLIX... Oh well. Thanks again!

Gerald C Koch · Jan 29, 2016

frobozz said:
AF-2000 is easy to get, you just have to buy a lot of it! Call up Kodak and tell them you want one of part number 5160049 which is two 5L bottles of AF-2000. They will want your credit card and charge you $60.78 (in the US) plus shipping and handling, and it will show up at your door a few days later.

They'll also sell you CD-3 in a 25-kilo drum for $963 (part number 8808255)

Duncan

I have used an unofficial developer which substitutes benzotrizole for the antifoggant in the official version. The formula calls for 10 ml 0f 0.2% benzotriazole per liter. I don't remember any problems with color balance, etc.

For those doing home processing omit the Pre-bath. The developer is alkaline and softens the remjet coating. I remove the remjet after the Stopbath. Makes things simpler as you can see what you are doing. Just be careful that none gets on the emulsion side of the negatives. The very small amount that gets into the developer or Stopbath is easily filtered out. However you do need something better than coffee filters to do this. Just get some lab grade filter paper.

Roger Cole · Jan 29, 2016

Seriously, what's in the Rapid Fix hardener besides sulfuric acid, what is the sulfuric acid concentration, and could that be used appropriately diluted for the stop bath?

I doubt I'll ever do any ECN2 myself though you never know, but so many people use Rapid Fix but omit the hardener that I'd bet a lot of folks have bottles of it sitting around.

MattKing · Jan 29, 2016

Roger Cole said:
Seriously, what's in the Rapid Fix hardener besides sulfuric acid, what is the sulfuric acid concentration, and could that be used appropriately diluted for the stop bath?

I doubt I'll ever do any ECN2 myself though you never know, but so many people use Rapid Fix but omit the hardener that I'd bet a lot of folks have bottles of it sitting around.

As I understand it the hardener contains a chemical hardener.

I expect that the sulfuric acid adjusts the pH in order to permit the hardener to do its job.

Those little bottles of hardener work great when you tone prints - which often leaves you with really soft emulsions. Just dilute them one part concentrate + thirteen parts water.

If anyone has any idea what the capacity of that working solution is, I would appreciate hearing from you.

ECN-2 Chemistry

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