Experiences with Fuji X-Press C-41 kit.

Tom Kershaw · Dec 4, 2007

I'm looking into C-41 chemicals for use in a Jobo ATL 2300, and the 4 bath Fuji kit (as sold by Firstcall Photographic in the UK) looks like a good option to "get started" with. Does anyone have experience of using this kit? While the Kodak chemistry seems well documented, it would appear little information is available about the Fuji kit.

Tom.

pentaxuser · Dec 4, 2007

Sorry Tom. No info for you. Instead I am piggybacking on your thread for info, if I may. As it is 4 bath, is this the kit that separates bleach and fix? If it does how does it get to 4 bath? Is the stop bath considered part of the kit but presumably not supplied or is is dev, bleach, fix and stabiliser that makes up the 4 baths?

What quantity does it come in? As it's a kit, are we back to the problem of ending up with bleach and fix left over and accumulating as an new kit has to be bought each time for developer?

I have followed PE's posts of the problems of using blix with C41. Not everyone agrees that blix is a problem but until I try a separate bleach and fix process to see with my own eyes, I'll never know.

Thanks for any info on the Fuji kit you can give.

pentaxuser

Tom Kershaw · Dec 4, 2007

On the 4 baths: I assume the four baths are developer, bleach, fix, and stabilizer or a final rinse. I want to try avoiding a film blix. The Fuji chemistry is advertised as a 5lt kit, to develop 60 rolls.

The issue of the final bath is interesting; the manual for the Jobo gives a standard C-41 program / process as (paraphrasing): chem 1: 03:15 (obviously developer), chem 2: 06:00 (assume bleach), wash: 01:00, chem 3: 06:00 (assume fix), wash: 04:00. No mention of a final (fourth) bath.

As it's a kit, are we back to the problem of ending up with bleach and fix left over and accumulating as an new kit has to be bought each time for developer? - I suspect so, one reason it would be good to have a PDF detailing the capacity & specification of the kit in more detail.

The packing sizes of the Kodak C-41 chemistry seem too large for my potential colour usage, considering that my photography is very predominantly monochrome.

srs5694 · Dec 4, 2007

I don't use an automated processor; however, whenever I use a wetting agent (for B&W) or final rinse/stabilizer (for C-41 or E-6), I do not agitate that last step. When I first began with my own processing, I did agitate during that step, but I found that the result was a lot of suds and a very hard time preventing streaks from forming on the negatives. Instead of agitating, I just pour in the wetting agent/final rinse/stabilizer, rap the tank a few times on the table to dislodge air bubbles, and let it sit for the recommended time. If I were using an automated processor, I imagine I'd do something similar.

Concerning kits and capacities, if your kit has greater capacity for bleach and fixer than for developer, you could always just buy developer separately between each kit purchase to maximize overall capacity. Since the developer is the item that's likely to go bad most quickly, this seems like a sensible approach to me.

pentaxuser · Dec 5, 2007

srs5694 said:
Concerning kits and capacities, if your kit has greater capacity for bleach and fixer than for developer, you could always just buy developer separately between each kit purchase to maximize overall capacity. Since the developer is the item that's likely to go bad most quickly, this seems like a sensible approach to me.

Good point about the stabiliser and avoidance of suds. Unfortunately on your other point if you can only buy kits and cannot buy developer separately which is the case as Tom has stated then unfortunately your solution isn't available to us in the U.K.

Kodak kits can be bought separately but only at one stockist I have found and only in massive quantities. We( U.K. and U.S.) are unfortunately separated by a big pond and quite different supplier experiences in the C41 process.

pentaxuser

rulnacco · Mar 21, 2008

I've just run over a dozen rolls of 120, both Kodak and Fuji, with the Fuji X-Press kit which I picked up from Process Supplies in London. I processed them with a JOBO CPE-2.

I was very pleased with the results. The four baths are developer, bleach, fix and stabiliser. There is no stop bath, but per Ron Mowrey's recommendations on photo.net, I added a brief wash between the developer and bleach to prolong its usefulness.

You might want to peruse the wealth of material he and Dan Schwartz have contributed to home colour processing on photo.net, particularly in regard to replenishing your chemicals to extend their working life.

But, yes, the Fuji X-Press kit is indeed a very reasonable and high-quality method of doing small runs of C-41 at home.

pentaxuser · Mar 21, 2008

Hi rulnacco. Is yours the same 5lt kit as the OP's or does Process Supplies supply it in smaller quantities such as 1lt. I can't speak for Tom but my C41 usage is likely to run into developer shelf life problems if it is 5lts. According to Tom a 5lt kit is 60 rolls which is a lot for me. I don't know what the claimed life of the dev but unless it is in years, I'd waste a lot of developer.

This might be OK if you could replace developer only. Can you? Or do you have to replace the whole kit?

Thanks

pentaxuser

wiggy · Apr 1, 2008

rulnacco said:
I've just run over a dozen rolls of 120, both Kodak and Fuji, with the Fuji X-Press kit which I picked up from Process Supplies in London. I processed them with a JOBO CPE-2.

I've got a number of rolls to process and I've just discovered that the instructions which came with my X-Press kit, having been put aside for safe keeping, have vanished into that strange other dimension where single socks reside (i.e I've lost them). Don't suppose you still have the instruction sheet (dilutions, temperature curve, timings, etc) which came with your kit and if you do, any chance of scanning them and emailing them to me - grovel, grovel, grovel.

Cheers

Ian

Photo Engineer · Apr 1, 2008

I have never used a stop with C41, and Jobo has some notations in their manual that the final rinse (stabilzer) is done by hand after the process cycle is over. That is what I always do. I remove the drum, load a tank with stabilzer and put the reels in 1 by one removing them from the reel as I go.

The stop is mentioned in recent Kodak publiations in response to some who have gotten streaks going directl into the bleach. I have never had this problem, so I don't use the stop. It is not part of the 'real' 4 step process.

PE

pentaxuser · Apr 1, 2008

Ian. I hope rulnacco replies to both yours and my questions. I checked Process Supplies website and couldn't find a Fuji X-Press kit for C41. I can still only find Kodak kits which are massive and clearly meant for mini-labs or very high volume amateurs who may do some processing for others as well.

It seems as if you have the same kit as rulnacco but now sadly minus the instructions. If so, can you answer my question directed to rulnacco about the quantities involved Is 5ltr the min and can the constituent parts be purchased separately?

Thanks

pentaxuser

tim_walls · Apr 1, 2008

Ian,

I hope the attachments come out OK here - I've attached the documentation for the Fuji-Hunt C41 kit.

Pentaxuser - I'm afraid I can't say whether or not they come in a 1l kit; I have the 5l kit like rulnacco.

What I can say is that I've part-mixed the solutions (i.e. only mixed up 1l instead of 5l of working solution) and then covered the remaining solution with Protectan, and I've not seen any deleterious effects so far! As you can see from the scrawling, given the relative volumes of chemicals you need to mix, I came to the conclusion that mixing less than 1l at a time wasn't really practical.

(Edit: Err, sorry about the page orientations... How odd; as attached they are as they're scanned, but I rotated and resaved the files in Preview on't Mac before I uploaded them. If I reopen them from my desktop they open right way up! I guess Preview must save the rotation as metadata in the file rather than actually rotating them, and APUG's file uploader has stripped that... Bloody digital wotnots...)

wiggy · Apr 2, 2008

Many thanks for the scans - saved my bacon as I've got to get the negs processed by the weekend.

Cheers

Ian

pentaxuser · Apr 2, 2008

Tim thanks for info re the kit size. Where did you get yours? I thought I'd try and read the attachments to get a better idea of the kit but my neck wouldn't take the strain. So I tried to save them in My Documents. I got them there OK but when I tried to open one hoping I could then rotate 90 degrees there was nothing there.

What if anything do I need to do? I am Ned Ludd as far as computers are concerned.Thanks

pentaxuser

tim_walls · Apr 2, 2008

Pentaxuser - can't remember where I ordered the chemistry, but I get pretty much all my stuff from one of either Calumet (www.calumetphoto.co.uk), Firstcall (www.firstcallphotographic.co.uk) or Silverprint (www.silverprint.co.uk). Calumet can be rather arsey about shipping chemicals though (normally charging some kind of hazardous substances shipping premium that nobody else does,) so Firstcall or Silverprint are usually my first choice.

I'm afraid I can't help much with the rotating documents problem - I think you need a Windows expert! If you can open them as-they-are though, maybe you could try printing them out to read?

rulnacco · Jul 12, 2008

Hey, want to apologise to those who had requested directions for the Fuji Hunt kit. I didn't check back on this thread 'til just now.

The 5-L kit is available at Process Supplies, even if it isn't listed on their site. (They have occasional items listed that are no longer in stock, and many items not listed that they actually carry. The best thing to do is ring them and they can tell you if they have something you want.)

You can reach them at:
http://www.process-supplies.co.uk/
13-25 Mount Pleasant, London, WC1X 0AR
or on
Telephone: 020 7837 2179

I'd call them; I've not had much luck in getting replies to e-mails. But they're nice folks to chat with.

Tom Kershaw · Nov 28, 2008

I finally used the Fuji C-41 kit on Friday evening to develop two rolls of Kodak 400NC; with good initial impressions from viewing the negatives.

Tom.

rossawilson1 · Nov 29, 2008

Hi Tom, can you tell me what agitation sequence you used in the developer stage?

The instructions seem to imply they only need a 30sec agitation followed by a 13sec, then another at the end.. didn't sound right to me.

Glad everything turned out alright!

Also in case anyone else comes across this in the future feel free to email me for a full res pdf of the Fuji Hunt X-Press Kit C41 processing instructions.

Tom Kershaw · Nov 29, 2008

Ross,

I used a Jobo ATL-2300 rotary processor rather than hand agitation.

Tom.

pentaxuser · Nov 29, 2008

Tom Nice to hear you've had success.Where did you get the kit from and have you worked out what if anything can be done when replacement is needed in terms of avoiding a build up of certain constituents. Ideally you should be able to buy the constituent parts separately but it doesn't sound as if you can.

pentaxuser

Photo Engineer · Nov 29, 2008

Correct processing for any color material includes a prewet to temper the tanks/drums properly with abrupt taps on the tank (the rotating drum does this) to dislodge bubbles.

After the developer is added, there should be 15" minimum of continuous agitation at the start and 10" of agitation every 30". With the rotating drum, follow the manufacturers instructions.

PE

Tom Kershaw · Nov 29, 2008

I've got 3 films in the dryer at the moment, bringing my total to 8 rolls; so not really enough experience with this Fuji kit to make a long term judgement about solution replacement. However, I am using the chemicals in the Jobo on a one-shot basis, and so an equal number of films developed can be achieved; not ending up with either a surplus or a lack of solution.

I bought the kit a few months ago from Firstcall Photographic:

http://www.firstcall-photographic.c...s/0/fuji/fuji-c-41-film-x-press-kit-5-litres/

I expect to be able to use the kit for between 25 to 50 rolls on a one shot basis, or £1 to £0.50 per roll approx.

On the process: I used the standard C-41 process as detailed in the Jobo memory, giving 3.25 minutes developer, 6 minutes bleach, 1 minute wash, 6 minutes fix, 4 minutes wash, 1.5 minutes stabalizer (out of Jobo).

The Fujihunt instructions give 3.5 minutes as the wash time between bleach and fix.

Tom.

Photo Engineer · Nov 29, 2008

Tom;

If the fix starts taking on a yellow or orange tint, then the wash between bleach and fix is not sufficient. That is the best judgement I can give.

PE

jrydberg · Oct 1, 2009

Tom Kershaw said:
I expect to be able to use the kit for between 25 to 50 rolls on a one shot basis, or £1 to £0.50 per roll approx.

On the process: I used the standard C-41 process as detailed in the Jobo memory, giving 3.25 minutes developer, 6 minutes bleach, 1 minute wash, 6 minutes fix, 4 minutes wash, 1.5 minutes stabalizer (out of Jobo).

What chemical volume do you use for single-use?

Is the fuji kit designed for reuse like the Tetenal kits?

I'm thinking about switching to Fuji because (1) of the separate fix and bleach baths and (2) price.

I've only used Tetenal up to this point.

Is the Fuji kit hard to mix? For how long will mixed chemicals stay fresh?

CuS · Oct 1, 2009

Fuji C-41 Kit

is there anywhere in teh US that you can get that kit?

polyglot · Jun 19, 2011

I've just bought the Fuji kit; haven't tried it yet but I can answer some of the above questions from the instructions:
- it's designed to be re-used, giving 80 rolls (120/135) of capacity from the 5L kit
- mixing ought to be just a matter of syringes of concentrate into bottles of waters, I've seen references to people making up 0.5-1L (8-16 rolls worth) at a time
- mixed developer keeping time in full stoppered bottles is stated as 8 weeks, less (6 weeks) in floating-lid tanks
- bleach & fix should last for a year or more

I bought mine from Ag Photographic in the UK and I'm in AU so the shipping cost (along with lots of paper) sucked. Ought to be no more difficult to get it to the US than it is to here.

Experiences with Fuji X-Press C-41 kit.

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