Help! Developed color film in Rodinal. How to fix?

Todd Adamson · May 17, 2012

I probably should have checked this out earlier, but I'm just playing around, and the film's nothing critical. I have seen some nice results with color film and Rodinal, so I decided to try. I have some cheap expired Fuji 800 which I exposed at 400, and it's sitting in developer now. I do 90-minute stands most often with my B/W, so I figured I'd try that for starters. So in about an hour, I'll need to fix it. All I have is Clayton RF-19 Rapid Fixer. I just put a test strip of the film in this fixer and it doesn't seem to do anything! The fixer is fresh, and I gave it about 4 minutes and still couldn't see it clearing.

What are my options here? Thanks!

Newt_on_Swings · May 17, 2012

You need to clean/strip off remjet backing I think.

Todd Adamson · May 17, 2012

Eh...maybe it's clear, now that I look more closely. Maybe it just looks different than the B/W cleared stuff I'm used to loking at. Anyone know if RF-19 would be expected to fix C-41 film?

Todd Adamson · May 17, 2012

Newt_on_Swings said:
You need to clean/strip off remjet backing I think.

Heh...off to Google that.

Todd Adamson · May 17, 2012

Does 35mm film for SLRs even have Rem-jet? Seems like a thing for movie films, from my initial Googling.

Ian Grant · May 17, 2012

Todd Adamson said:
Does 35mm film for SLRs even have Rem-jet? Seems like a thing for movie films, from my initial Googling.

No, I've no idea why Newt_on_Swings thinks it would have either

Ian

Rick A · May 17, 2012

I don't think c-41 films use remjet, but they do have an antihalation coating. You may be observing the orange mask in the film. Your fixer should have been sufficient.

Photo Engineer · May 17, 2012

No consumer film has rem jet backing. Kodachrome was the last.

It will be deep orange in color though, but there are ways to remove most of that posted on Kodak's web site.

PE

Todd Adamson · May 17, 2012

Thanks, guys. I'm going to assume the fixer fixes, and see what my scans look like.

pstake · May 17, 2012

Very interesting. I had no idea you could process c-41 in rodinal and get anything at all. Curious to know how your scans came out.

Todd Adamson · May 17, 2012

pstake said:
Very interesting. I had no idea you could process c-41 in rodinal and get anything at all. Curious to know how your scans came out.

I just posted them HERE. Long story short: crappy, but kinda cool anyway. Which was roughly what I expected. There's a gallery plus some details in the text.

Rhodes · May 17, 2012

I think you can process any type of film in bw chemacals, the results will not be good and some can be salvage or usuable.
Here two c-41 film in rodinal 1:100, stand development:

Off course that was Ilford XP2.

Here are two agfa color c-41 film:

Changed to bw in lightroom, after scanning!

hrst · May 17, 2012

You might also be still able to salvage color images by bleaching in ferricyanide + bromide bleach and redeveloping in normal C-41 process!

Rick A · May 17, 2012

I used to soup c-41 film in D-72(dektol) to boost the contrast. You can print them but times are super longish, plus it needs to be printed on G-4 or G-5 hard contrast to get decent images.

Newt_on_Swings · May 17, 2012

Sorry about that, not really a color shooter. :X

Athiril · May 18, 2012

(develop and fix stages already done)
Bleach,
Wash,
Expose to light,
Put in C-41 developer,
Bleach and fix as normal from there.

You will now have a colour neg.

Here is an example of just that, also using Rodinal as the first developer.

Little Cousin by athiril, on Flickr

Alan Johnson · May 18, 2012

Color negative in Rodinal gives a grainy result compared to B/W neg of the same speed.I developed Kodak 800 ISO color negative film exposed at EI=400 in Rodinal 1:50,see attached.This test was developed for 14m 68F but the negative was low contrast,something like 22m 68F agitate 10s/min might be better for Rodinal 1:50.There was no problem with 5 min fix time.

mattmoy_2000 · Jun 8, 2012

You could bleach this with a ferricyanide bleach (that's what's in sepia toner packs, right?), then expose to bright light and redevelop to completion in either C-41 or E-6 developer (second developer if using E-6).
Obviously your colour fidelity won't be 100%, but you'll be able to recover some colour information in this way.
I have done this using ancient (~half a century old) Gevaert film with colour images recovered. Obviously they were not top quality, having sat around as latent images for a couple of generations then been developed in the wrong chemicals, but still. I suspect that your results might be a bit better.
If you don't get enough dye formed, you can always re-bleach and re-develop to make more dye. Once you blix (or bleach then fix) your silver image goes and you're left with only dye, which doesn't react with developer any more.

mattmoy_2000 · Jun 8, 2012

Ah, didn't see that Athiril had already written about this before...

Help! Developed color film in Rodinal. How to fix?

Attachments

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency