final quality between kodak c 41 vs rapid kit

[danzyc]

hello people, i don t have find a post that compare the kodak c 41 traditional chemistry (bleach, fix separate) with a rapid monobath (blix) in terms of sharpness,grain, and color...

p.s. the finality is for me THE FINAL PHOTO and not a microscope investigation

could you help me??

 

[Ian Grant]

There will be no difference in sharpness, grain or colour, as long as the chemicals are use properly. There can't be as the bleach/fix or blix process is to completion.

However if the Blix is overused or improperly used it may not remove all the silver, in which case you can expect grain & poor colours.

Ian

 

[Jerry Thirsty]

Well, this is only a subjective comparison. But when I first tried C-41 I tried one of the blix kits. I ended up with negatives that had a very coppery color to the film base (due to insufficient bleaching of the silver perhaps?). I tried scanning a few and I could never find a good curves adjustment to produce natural looking images. Recently I started color printing in my darkroom and went back and revisited the negs. I ran into the same problem; I could make the colors look similar to my best photoshop results but I couldn't get any better.

Just in the past week I've been taking a second shot at C-41 using separate bleach and fix; I haven't made any RA-4 or digital prints yet, but the negs don't have the copper sheen to them. They look just like negs that I would get from a lab.

My two cents.

 

[Ian Grant]

Jerry, I began using the Phototechnology Photocolor II kit's back in about 1975 or 6, I never had a problem with the blix except once when I deliberately tried to exceed the recommended capacity. The Photocolor Blix was superb as was all their colour chemisrtry, the chemist who designed it Pip Pippard was extremely highly thought of in the trade.

I have used Tetenal's Blix and that's good too but there were always bad reports for some of the chemistry kits imported into th UK from the US, and it was always the Blix that was the problem.

Ian

 

[Photo Engineer]

I worked on the initial Bleach/Fix and Blix formulations for C-41 when at Kodak. We found that due to the presence of DIR couplers and the thickness of the coatings, no bleach (except for the one we patented) could remove all of the silver safely in every possible condition and with every film in production.

The residual silver would cause desaturation of the color, loss in sharpness and some increases in grain. In many cases, a film will work, especially the slower, lower iodiide films or the lower saturation films. This is only in the sense that the problems, if they take place, are more difficult to spot visually in those films.

We analyzed our coatings for retained silver and plotted the results in image quality against silver left in the coatings. There was a rather simple direct relationship.

You see, the problem is that a blix is diluted by the "other" ingredient, so that in a bleach the oxidant can be as much as 2x higher in concentration than in a blix, and in a fix the hypo can be as high as 2x the concentration as in a blix. The ingredients dilute each other in a blix.

Bleach III from Kodak is much stronger and might do the job, but they don't sell it as a concentrate. It is prediluted.

PE

 

[mtjade2007]

I have never used any C-41 Blix products. I used only Kodak Bleach yet I have had many negs that were not properly bleached and have silvers remained on them. They are very contrasty, poor color saturation and grainy, just like PE described. I realized how important it is to bleach the negs properly. The problems I had was caused by trying to reuse the bleach over its limit. The bleach was expensive. That's why I tried to reuse it over and over. Never again after I learned the lesson. I reuse the bleach still but I keep an eye on its limitations.

I used Blix on printing prints before RA-4. I really hated Blix. It went bad quickly. Bleach and Fix alone will last a very long time. I will stay away from any C-41 chemicals that give you a Blix rather than a Bleach and a Fix. Although it takes 2 steps (bleaching and fixing) the time and temperture are not critical it is not more difficult than one blix step. There is really no reason for me to use Blix instead of a bleach and a fix.

 

[nickandre]

Well, this is only a subjective comparison. But when I first tried C-41 I tried one of the blix kits. I ended up with negatives that had a very coppery color to the film base (due to insufficient bleaching of the silver perhaps?). I tried scanning a few and I could never find a good curves adjustment to produce natural looking images. Recently I started color printing in my darkroom and went back and revisited the negs. I ran into the same problem; I could make the colors look similar to my best photoshop results but I couldn't get any better.

Just in the past week I've been taking a second shot at C-41 using separate bleach and fix; I haven't made any RA-4 or digital prints yet, but the negs don't have the copper sheen to them. They look just like negs that I would get from a lab.

My two cents.

Try re-bleaching those negatives and see what you get. It's worth a shot.

 

[RPC]

PE, I recall a post once where I believe you said that RA-4 blix, mixed at twice concentration, would work as a blix for C-41. What would be the blixing time, and would it do an acceptable job? Thanks.

RPC

 

[Photo Engineer]

It MIGHT work as a blix, but again I have not tested it. I would use about 10 minutes to 14 minutes at 100F and as noted above, I would be very careful about keeping and exhaustion. I do not endorse this except as a stop gap measure when all else is lacking.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

It's worth remembering that Photocolor II and it's Bleach fix were in production for around 30 years, during that period it was the major and leading UK kit for C41 processing and sold in a variety of sizes up to 5 litres, it was also exported all over the world. At no stage were there ever adverse reports of the processing kit or it's Blix.

Unfortunately when Champion moved Photochemistry production from the UK to Spain they ceased manufacturing for Paterson who by then had taken over Photo Technology and it was a considerable time before Paterson found a new company to manufacture their chemistry, and the range was cut drastically to just a small B&W range.

Ian

 

[Photo Engineer]

Look at post #6 above and consider how many people complain about the low color saturation of their color negatives and the high grain not to mention the lack of sharpness.

I would say that a fair percentage are due to use of a blix or use of exhausted bleach. This is the most common source, but without a retained silver analysis or a rebleach/wash/fix/stab sequence, we may never know for sure.

I have actually seen bad blix bleach out dyes in film. Now that problem is no joke.

PE

 

[stefan4u]

Dear danzyc

Well, These Tetenal Kits are not as bad as sometimes stated, as long they are not “overstressed” by trying to get all the films developed, the booklet states to be able to develop (divide by 2 at least). They should be mixed and used one shot, or if reuse is planned, reuse it soon and only one time!

In my point of view these kits are more for “beginners” (Sorry bad term, keep it simple “KISS” it's well-meant), because they are somewhat more practical in mixing and using. I can speak for Tetenal only, the stuff I grew up with (well, excluding Rodinal of course). It’s quite simple to measure up, usually all parts are taken in the same or similar amounts, or to completion.
Colortec-41 Developer part A/B/C is each 100ml for a litre, Blix part A/B is each 200ml for a litre. This makes mixing easy and reliable, suppresses mixing errors by maybe not so accurate measuring cylinders or practice. But you pay a high price for that, these kits are quite uneconomic.

Cleary excluded are monoparts for me, they’ve may gone bad in shop’s shelf already…

The Problem you stated in your former thread “homemade c41 processing problems” will repeat with EACH Developer of ANY brand if stored partway used a month in THAT kind of bottle. This is more a question of proper usage, not of using “the one and only right” chemistry.

Back to your question, if you feel not sure about color chemistry or wet darkroom technique, or do it only occasionally, a kit may be better. The results (if limits / lifetime are respected) are quite well. The mask will differ a bit, but this will be compensated by filtration during printing. For my opinion the resolution, color saturation and granularity (if you wanna say it this way) is usually good. But there is something you will see maybe later; in my eyes the image contrast is a bit too harsh.
Quite often you are going to dodge and burn parts of the print (that happened at least to me).

From the moment I’ve got my hands on Kodaks Flexicolor I fell in love, this stuff is less poppy but more distinguished in reproducing color tones /densitys the right way. This is true even for cheaper "consumer" films too. Don't nail me here, this are just personal experiences.
Because of that even behavior you get better prints without extra effort, it’s a joy to use.

Without intention to stress this again, if possible buy separate bleach and fixing bathes and use a stabilization bath at the end of the process.

Beside the fact that image quality rises, it’s cheaper in the end, the reusable and replenish-able bleach is a mayor cost factor, which will be wasted without need in a Blix bath. But all this is written down here somewhere, just browse a bit

Regards,
Stefan

 

[Ian Grant]

Look at post #6 above and consider how many people complain about the low color saturation of their color negatives and the high grain not to mention the lack of sharpness.

I would say that a fair percentage are due to use of a blix or use of exhausted bleach. This is the most common source, but without a retained silver analysis or a rebleach/wash/fix/stab sequence, we may never know for sure.

I have actually seen bad blix bleach out dyes in film. Now that problem is no joke.

PE

That's never been a complaint from users of Photocolor II, there were a huge number of users in the UK and elsewhere, however I heard of countless complaints of other kits & the Blix. Photocolor must have had well over 80% of the UK market for small users of colour chemistry amateur & professional.

I process many hundreds of films in the Photocolor kit and knew a lot of other users ho used it far more than I did, none of us ever had problems, but we were all extremely wary of using 3rd party kits. They weren't up to the same standard, and didn't get good test reports in UK photo-magazines.

Eventually I had to use a different kit, and bought a Jessops C41 kit, it was fine, now it turns out it was Private label Photocolor.

Don't tar all kits with the same brush, the company who devised Photocolor were once a major player in Photochemistry, and their products sold around the world in large quantities, they had well over 40 years head start on Kodak and only disappeared due to poor management in the 60's/70's, Photo Technology was set up by their leading research scientists.

Ian

 

[Jerry Thirsty]

Try re-bleaching those negatives and see what you get. It's worth a shot.

Yeah I might just do that. It's not like the negs are doing me any good as-is.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Ian;

I don't wish to tar anyone with any brush, but merely state exact laboratory experience with blixes vs bleach then fix with color films. If Kodak wanted to have done it, don't you think they would have? (now I refer to the heyday of this R&D in the 70s not today)

Yes, we had blixes galore and were working on them and new bleaches and fixes until the untimely death of one of the major players in the field. I have several formulas in mind right now that could be commerciallized and used as a blix for films. Simply lowering pH to about 4.5 increases activity to almost film capability, but at the expense of being a virtual one-shot blix due to stability issues. The oxidation potential of FeEDTA goes way up as pH goes down.

I don't endorse this as a fix though. I've done it and the blix is quite unstable.

PE

 

[nickandre]

I'm reading this and realizing that I've been using my liter of bleach for a while (since october.) How would I know whether or not I was getting retained silver? What is the capacity of bleach III?

does anyone still have bleach III regenerator?

 

[srs5694]

That's never been a complaint from users of Photocolor II

Wrong. I've used Photocolor II blix, and it doesn't (didn't) do quite as good a job as separate bleach and fixer, in my subjective opinion. That's not to say the results were awful, or even bad; they just weren't quite as good as what I got when I used separate bleach and fixer. That said, I've not done any side-by-side scientific comparison. PE's scientific description of blixes generally does match my own subjective experience with Photocolor's blix, though.

 

[danzyc]

there s a ra4 room temperature kit with bleach and fix separate?

thanks

 

[rossawilson1]

I use the tetenal rapid kit and I find as long as I follow the instructions and use all the formula within 6 weeks I don't get any problems with grain or saturation.. the kit is about £12 and I get at least 6 films through it before the 6 week period is up, that's £3 a film, which is cheaper than sending it off and obviously satisfies my needs quicker. Of course I can put even more films through.

 

[srs5694]

there s a ra4 room temperature kit with bleach and fix separate?

Most RA-4 processes use a blix rather than separate bleach and fixer; the problems with blix not removing all the silver are much less of an issue with paper than with film. I'm sure you could use separate bleach and fixer with RA-4, but offhand I don't know of any supplier that markets their products this way. Perhaps you could use Kodak's (or others') blix, which ships in two bottles, as separate bleach and fixer, but I don't know if you'd need to modify them in any way to get this to work.

One other point: Kodak's RA-4 can be used at room temperature, but you've got to extend the development time (to the vicinity of 3 minutes, IIRC -- but verify this, since I'm not positive of the exact time).