- Joined
- Sep 22, 2010
- Messages
- 17
- Format
- 35mm
I have been lurking for a while, but this is my first post on APUG. A brief intro, I have been a semipro digital shooter for the last 4 years or so. About 6 months ago I developed and obsession with all things film. Since then I have been shooting personal family shots all on film, and my paid work has been mixed film and digital.
I process most of my film (all B&W and ~50% C-41) in hand tanks with CVS getting the other 50% of my c-41 film. I do this mostly because my confidence and technique is not fully up to speed, but I am working on it. I have been using Tetanol kits for my C-41 up to now
So... On to my question. I did some extensive research that involved redbull and the internets. Kodak Flexicolor seemed to be the product I wanted, but it was nearly impossible to find one retailer (who would ship to Western KY) with any possible combination of starters/replenishers (LORR?), straight ready to use, or mix and fix (SM?). You would think that someone with a credit card and basic understanding of what they want would be able to accomplish the task of buying something. Nope. The one exception being the Photographer's Formulary kit, but it is rated for 10 rolls of film. I am trying to buy for more like 100+ rolls.
So as luck (good or bad, hard to tell at this point) would have it. I found a small supply of the Flexicolor SM Chemistry in processor kits for what seemed to be reasonable pricing.
Unit F1 Mfr# 8740110
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/218299-REG/Kodak_8740110_Flexicolor_SM_C_41SM_Processing.html
and
Unit F2 Mfr# 1173319
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/218300-REG/Kodak_1173319_Flexicolor_SM_C_41SM_Processing.html
This thread was the closest I came to finding a path forward.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
I did some due diligence from the MSDS and boxes and have confirmed the following. Unit F1 has 4 parts, 3 part developer and one final rinse. Unit F2 has one parts fixer and one part bleach. The F1 processor is rated for 900 rolls. The F2 is 260 rolls. So armed with what I thought was enough info, I bought 1 F1 and 3 F2 kits. My expectation was to reverse calculate the needed volumes and mix up one shot batches of developer with generous replacement and reuse of the other chemicals. Obviously I did not expect 900 rolls of total capacity, but it should last me much longer than 10 roll batch mixing.
However, when the boxes arrived the units were much smaller than I expected. This makes them much more concentrated that I expected. For example the largest compartment of Developer component is roughly 400ml. The whole F1 kit is about the size of 2 shoeboxes.
So now I am left with a few critical questions.
1. Where do I go now to figure out a mixing recipe.
2. Are the chemicals in the F1 and F2 identical to the standard Sm chemistry but in a more concentrated form.
3. If they aren't identical do I need a starter.
4. Should I just punt, write it off as a dumb idea, and keep letting CVS do my processing.
TLDR; version
Does anyone know how to use the F1 and F2 SM Minilab Flexicolor kits for hand tank/ Jobo processing.
Thanks very much in advance for any help you can offer.
I process most of my film (all B&W and ~50% C-41) in hand tanks with CVS getting the other 50% of my c-41 film. I do this mostly because my confidence and technique is not fully up to speed, but I am working on it. I have been using Tetanol kits for my C-41 up to now
So... On to my question. I did some extensive research that involved redbull and the internets. Kodak Flexicolor seemed to be the product I wanted, but it was nearly impossible to find one retailer (who would ship to Western KY) with any possible combination of starters/replenishers (LORR?), straight ready to use, or mix and fix (SM?). You would think that someone with a credit card and basic understanding of what they want would be able to accomplish the task of buying something. Nope. The one exception being the Photographer's Formulary kit, but it is rated for 10 rolls of film. I am trying to buy for more like 100+ rolls.
So as luck (good or bad, hard to tell at this point) would have it. I found a small supply of the Flexicolor SM Chemistry in processor kits for what seemed to be reasonable pricing.
Unit F1 Mfr# 8740110
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/218299-REG/Kodak_8740110_Flexicolor_SM_C_41SM_Processing.html
and
Unit F2 Mfr# 1173319
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/218300-REG/Kodak_1173319_Flexicolor_SM_C_41SM_Processing.html
This thread was the closest I came to finding a path forward.
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
I did some due diligence from the MSDS and boxes and have confirmed the following. Unit F1 has 4 parts, 3 part developer and one final rinse. Unit F2 has one parts fixer and one part bleach. The F1 processor is rated for 900 rolls. The F2 is 260 rolls. So armed with what I thought was enough info, I bought 1 F1 and 3 F2 kits. My expectation was to reverse calculate the needed volumes and mix up one shot batches of developer with generous replacement and reuse of the other chemicals. Obviously I did not expect 900 rolls of total capacity, but it should last me much longer than 10 roll batch mixing.
However, when the boxes arrived the units were much smaller than I expected. This makes them much more concentrated that I expected. For example the largest compartment of Developer component is roughly 400ml. The whole F1 kit is about the size of 2 shoeboxes.
So now I am left with a few critical questions.
1. Where do I go now to figure out a mixing recipe.
2. Are the chemicals in the F1 and F2 identical to the standard Sm chemistry but in a more concentrated form.
3. If they aren't identical do I need a starter.
4. Should I just punt, write it off as a dumb idea, and keep letting CVS do my processing.
TLDR; version
Does anyone know how to use the F1 and F2 SM Minilab Flexicolor kits for hand tank/ Jobo processing.
Thanks very much in advance for any help you can offer.