Help. What's wrong with my negatives?

mshchem · Monday at 10:28 PM

One other thing is a beaker isn't a graduate. Most beakers are accurate to maybe 5% at best. And yes you are correct about the mixing. The olden times Kodak sold a 5 liter bottle for mixing up 5 L of replenisher.

Before I had all the junk I have today I used a food service plastic bowl/tub. The markings on the side were not accurate, I calibrated it using a Nalgene 1L graduated cylinder.

gbroadbridge · Monday at 10:49 PM

dcy said:
I did mix the different parts before adding water. I took a beaker, poured part A, then B, then C, then water. Do you think that's where I went wrong? I'll be sad to hear that I ruined the entire kit, but it's better to know where I went wrong than to not know.

Yes, I think that's the problem.

You should always add in the order specified so as to not have undesired reactions between the chemical components.
Also note that these are volumetric amounts so you should use graduated cylinders for fluid measurements not markings on beakers.

Given that they use quite precise amounts, you should attempt to do so too.

dcy · Monday at 11:01 PM

gbroadbridge said:
Also note that these are volumetric amounts so you should use graduated cylinders for fluid measurements not markings on beakers.

My 500 mL beaker has accurate markings. I've tested it against my graduated cylinders. The 1L beaker has inaccurate markings so I don't use them. I lied slightly when I said I filled to the 1L mark in the beaker; I figured that the detail would be a distraction.

dcy · Monday at 11:04 PM

mshchem said:
One other thing is a beaker isn't a graduate. Most beakers are accurate to maybe 5% at best. And yes you are correct about the mixing. The olden times Kodak sold a 5 liter bottle for mixing up 5 L of replenisher.

Before I had all the junk I have today I used a food service plastic bowl/tub. The markings on the side were not accurate, I calibrated it using a Nalgene 1L graduated cylinder.

The markings on my 1L beaker are definitely inaccurate. I lied slightly when I said I used them. But the markings on my 500 mL and 100 mL beakers seem accurate (tested against a 25 mL graduated cylinder) so I do use those.

I could buy a 1 L graduated cylinder.

mshchem · Monday at 11:15 PM

dcy said:
The markings on my 1L beaker are definitely inaccurate. I lied slightly when I said I used them. But the markings on my 500 mL and 100 mL beakers seem accurate (tested against a 25 mL graduated cylinder) so I do use those.

I could buy a 1 L graduated cylinder.

Check Ebay for used Nalgene PMP (polymethylpentene I think that's correct spelling) cylinders and conical (pharmaceutical) graduates. New these things are ridiculous expensive. The PMP graduates resist most chemicals and are pretty indestructible.

Nalgene™ Double-Scale PMP Pharmaceutical Graduates 125 mL | Buy Online

Nalgene™ Double-Scale PMP Pharmaceutical Graduates. Avoid breakage with these transparent and shatterproof pharmaceutical graduates. Lighter in weight than glass, they provide excellent chemical resistance. Available in 125 mL

www.thermofisher.com

mshchem · Monday at 11:16 PM

500mL is a excellent "larger size" graduate.

MattKing · Monday at 11:17 PM

dcy said:
The markings on my 1L beaker are definitely inaccurate. I lied slightly when I said I used them. But the markings on my 500 mL and 100 mL beakers seem accurate (tested against a 25 mL graduated cylinder) so I do use those.

I could buy a 1 L graduated cylinder.

Buy a 3 litre pail and put your own markings on it.
Although the Paterson 1 litre and 2 litre measuring graduates I have are great to use and will probably outlive me.
The area where you need precision is in the non-water parts.
You aren't going to cause a problem if, using the 2.5 litre developer example, you start out with ~2 litres of water, add 188ml of Part A, 43.8ml of Part B and 94.6 ml of Part C, and then top up the resulting mixture with water for a total volume of 2.5 litres

dcy · Monday at 11:27 PM

mshchem said:
No reason to let the marketing folks try to over simplify things. No real reason to use "Genuine" Kodak chemistry either. Not with ambiguous instructions. You need to start with 80-90% of the required water with some held back...

This makes a case for a quality blix kit like Adox. I have enough Flexicolor chemistry to float a boat. Still.

I have no particular loyalty to the Kodak branding. But the prices per volume of color developer is just crazy:

I could buy 1 L of developer only from Bellini for $30.
I could buy 2.5L as part of a whole other Kodak kit for $60.
I could buy 40L of Flexicolor developer for $140.

I hate that I am planning to buy a whole other kit. I wish I could buy *just* the 2.5L of developer that I want.

mshchem · Monday at 11:28 PM

All this stuff accumulated used over decades. Quite available used on Ebay.

dcy · Monday at 11:29 PM

MattKing said:
Buy a 3 litre pail and put your own markings on it.
Although the Paterson 1 litre and 2 litre measuring graduates I have are great to use and will probably outlive me.
The area where you need precision is in the non-water parts.
You aren't going to cause a problem if, using the 2.5 litre developer example, you start out with ~2 litres of water, add 188ml of Part A, 43.8ml of Part B and 94.6 ml of Part C, and then top up the resulting mixture with water for a total volume of 2.5 litres

Yeah. When I said I should probably buy a 3L beaker, what I should have said is that I should get a container capable of holding 3L (and really... it only needs to hold 2.5L) so I can start with 2L of water and then start adding the chemistry.

mshchem · Monday at 11:44 PM

dcy said:
Yeah. When I said I should probably buy a 3L beaker, what I should have said is that I should get a container capable of holding 3L (and really... it only needs to hold 2.5L) so I can start with 2L of water and then start adding the chemistry.

If you have access to a digital scale (like what's used for postage) it's easy as can be to mark volumes. Add water to 1000 grams etc. Mark with a Sharpie.

gbroadbridge · Monday at 11:49 PM

mshchem said:
View attachment 408376

All this stuff accumulated used over decades. Quite available used on Ebay.

Mate, that's jusst waaay too tidy. Reminds me of folks with tools aligned like that on pegboard in workshops.

I just toss all mine into a Brute container and push it in under the bench

mshchem · Monday at 11:55 PM

gbroadbridge said:
Mate, that's jusst waaay too tidy. Reminds me of folks with tools aligned like that on pegboard in workshops.

I just toss all mine into a Brute container and push it in under the bench

Big sink is full

gbroadbridge · 2025-09-30T00:08:44-0400

mshchem said:
If you have access to a digital scale (like what's used for postage) it's easy as can be to mark volumes. Add water to 1000 grams etc. Mark with a Sharpie.

You know that water density changes with temp, right?

So at 20 degrees C you need 998 grams of water for 1000ml

(Had to get back at that atrociously tidy darkroom)

dcy · 2025-09-30T00:14:50-0400

mshchem said:
View attachment 408376

All this stuff accumulated used over decades. Quite available used on Ebay.

That's way more organized than my setup. I don't have a dedicated space. My stuff is scattered across various random shelves and drawers.

mshchem said:
If you have access to a digital scale (like what's used for postage) it's easy as can be to mark volumes. Add water to 1000 grams etc. Mark with a Sharpie.

Yeah. I just ordered an affordable 3L beaker. I will measure it and I can add my own 2.5L line with a sharpie.

Now I'm going to order another Kodak kit, and grumble.

dcy · 2025-09-30T00:20:29-0400

gbroadbridge said:
You know that water density changes with temp, right?

So at 20 degrees C you need 998 grams of water for 1000ml

(Had to get back at that atrociously tidy darkroom)

Agreed. Volumes are more convenient to measure anyway. If you can measure 500 mL reliably, you can measure 2.5 L once and then mark it.

In any case, if my error was that I didn't have any water at all when I first mixed the chemicals, then the error has nothing to do with how accurately I measure volumes. It was an order-of-operations type of error.

MattKing · 2025-09-30T00:34:49-0400

dcy said:
That's way more organized than my setup. I don't have a dedicated space. My stuff is scattered across various random shelves and drawers.

Yeah. I just ordered an affordable 3L beaker. I will measure it and I can add my own 2.5L line with a sharpie.

Now I'm going to order another Kodak kit, and grumble.

Reach out to Photo Systems and give them feedback with your grumble. Perhaps they will make things good. Even if you end up getting replacement chemicals later, that may still be of benefit.
Here is their Contact page: https://kodak.photosys.com/pages/contact-psi
The response you receive will come via the distribution branch of Cinestill, who are contracted to provide distribution and customer support for them.
If nothing else, you may end up helping future users.

MattKing · 2025-09-30T00:38:09-0400

For things like mixing 5 litres of XTol, I use a plastic container that was probably originally intended to hold dry pet food. I purchased it from a thrift store for a couple of bucks. It even has a good lid!
I've marked it for handy volumes with a laundry marker (I think)

mshchem · 2025-09-30T01:35:44-0400

Amazon.com

I have a couple of these.

koraks · 2025-09-30T02:28:07-0400

Don_ih said:
Do they also perhaps look to have a bit more overall fog?

It's always a little tricky judging color film when it's still wet.

The negatives look underdeveloped, that much is clear. Given that the temperature wasn't way out of spec, developer activity must have been too low for a different reason.

dcy said:
I did mix the different parts before adding water. I took a beaker, poured part A, then B, then C, then water. Do you think that's where I went wrong?

So far, this is the only real mistake I see in your process.

dcy said:
As I poured part C into the A+B mix, the solution quickly turned milk white. It felt like pouring milk in coffee. As I stirred, the solution became clearer, but developed some weird blotches, similar to drops of oil floating on water. I used a magnetic stirrer to do the mixing, and after a little while the entire solution turned clear, with no blotches.

OK, so what likely happened here is that the developer, which comes as an acid, reacted with the carbonate from the part A concentrate. This is in principle normal behavior, but what also seems to have happened is that the color developer formed oily globules. I've seen this happen with CD3; in e.g. ECN2 developer it's a minor concern if powdered CD3 is added to the developer during mixing and for this reason I always dissolve the CD3 in some water before adding it to the mix. In the commercial C41 preparation you used, this pre-mixing was evidently already done, but apparently in the very concentrated 'developer' you made by erroneously mixing the concentrates together before adding water, conditions were created in which the developer formed aggregates. My best guess at this point is that those aggregates did not go back into solution. Effectively, this means you would have been running a C41 developer with a low amount of CD4 developing agent, which explains the underdevelopment quite well.

I'd suggest getting a new kit (or at least a C41 developer; your bleach and fix are still fine), mix as per the instructions and do another test run.

PS: your image are probably somewhat salvageable.

MattKing · 2025-09-30T14:35:10-0400

I repeat my suggestion that you help Photo Systems by reaching out to them.
When you are trying to sell a product, despite all your best efforts, it is really hard to tell when your potential customers are going to read your instructions in a way that you didn't expect or intend them to.
And while I wouldn't have done what you did, I can totally understand why you did.

pentaxuser · 2025-09-30T14:49:48-0400

MattKing said:
.
The area where you need precision is in the non-water parts.
You aren't going to cause a problem if, using the 2.5 litre developer example, you start out with ~2 litres of water, add 188ml of Part A, 43.8ml of Part B and 94.6 ml of Part C, and then top up the resulting mixture with water for a total volume of 2.5 litres

So with each of the parts you have to be able to measure to the nearest 0.1 ml? 44ml of B, 95ml of B and 94ml of C isn't good enough?

Thanks

pentaxuser

MattKing · 2025-09-30T16:19:17-0400

pentaxuser said:
So with each of the parts you have to be able to measure to the nearest 0.1 ml? 44ml of B, 95ml of B and 94ml of C isn't good enough?

Thanks

pentaxuser

I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if those amounts match the bottle sizes of each of those parts.
Probably a holdover from when they were labelled in ounces .
And as for the required precision for other volumes, I expect that if you need the sort of consistency and close to within exact spec results that high end commercial/professional labs strive for, yes you may need 0.1 ml precision.
Of course, if you are running that sort of line, you aren't likely to be buying the small kits. Instead, you will be likely buying the product in the packaging that makes up to tens of litres, and replenishing, and supporting your results with control strips and densitometry.
If instead you are a casual user, the nearest millilitre will be fine, because you will be dealing with other sources of relatively minor inconsistencies.

pentaxuser · 2025-09-30T18:10:27-0400

Thanks Matt. Good to hear that 1ml may be close enough

pentaxuser

BrianShaw · 2025-09-30T18:17:45-0400

MattKing said:
I repeat my suggestion that you help Photo Systems by reaching out to them.
When you are trying to sell a product, despite all your best efforts, it is really hard to tell when your potential customers are going to read your instructions in a way that you didn't expect or intend them to.
And while I wouldn't have done what you did, I can totally understand why you did.

You’re much too kind. Those instructions are definitely not “best effort”. They could/should have consulted an instructional designer or run a quick focus group to assess the quality of their instructions. They flubbed it…

Help. What's wrong with my negatives?

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