How do you know if color chemicals are still working properly?

Lemur · Jan 30, 2019

How do you know if Kodak Flexicolor chemicals are still working properly? (before processing important negatives)

For instance:

- Developer (not mixed): I recently posted a thread about D-76 and based on the comments of fellow posters I developed a leader in ambient light to see if it got black at the indicated time. Can I do the same test with color developer? Of course, I could also, apart from this test, process a couple of images. But I like the test because it gives you a good indication before processing any images.

- Bleach (not mixed): …?? The color? Another indication?

- Fixer (mixed with water): Can the clearing time test be used with color fixer? How is the calculation? I just posted another thread about this.

- Final Rinse (not mixed): …?? Is it good for ever?

EdSawyer · Jan 30, 2019

how long have you had the concentrates? Should be good for at least a year. The Dev is the only critical one.

Photo Engineer · Jan 30, 2019

The tail end chemistry should all be OK, except for the fixer. If there is a precipitate, or it smells like rotten eggs, then it is bad. Otherwise it is good.

The developer concentrates should be quite colorless or colored like tea. If any one of them is coffee colored, then it is bad.

There is no simple process test for color.

PE

pentaxuser · Jan 30, 2019

Photo Engineer said:
The developer concentrates should be quite colorless or colored like tea. If any one of them is coffee colored, then it is bad.

PE

Just for clarification, I take it that "coloured like tea" means a very light straw colour? I ask this PE because in the case of tea I suspect we are 2 nations divided by different ideas of what tea should look like. In the U.K. tea tends to be a strong brown colour. If the EU had insisted that tea had to be a light insipid straw colour then the vote to leave the EU might have risen to nearly 100%

Thanks

pentaxuser

Photo Engineer · Jan 30, 2019

I've been to London several times for EK. I know the difference. English tea colored is just fine. Coffee - no.

No cream in either.

PE

pentaxuser · Jan 31, 2019

Photo Engineer said:
I've been to London several times for EK. I know the difference. English tea colored is just fine. Coffee - no.

No cream in either.

PE

Thanks PE. Your reply and experience of London tea would appear to give the OK to darker coloured developer than I had thought

pentaxuser

Photo Engineer · Jan 31, 2019

I also had a pint at the White Hart where Arthur C. Clarke used to hang out. Kodak used to put us up at a hotel on Drury Lane.

PE

peter k. · Jan 31, 2019

dang.. in the past and just last week tossed 400mm dev that was a darker US tea color, but not coffee dark, thanks PE and all for better clarity.

Photo Engineer · Jan 31, 2019

Thinking about it, I would suggest using a piece of B&W film to test the developer. This will not hurt and can help in dubious cases. It will remove all doubt.

PE

peter k. · Jan 31, 2019

Photo Engineer said:
Thinking about it, I would suggest using a piece of B&W film to test the developer.

Hmmm.. developed as in 35mm exposed all ready developed leader or undeveloped?

Photo Engineer · Jan 31, 2019

How would developed film of any sort help you test a developer??

I had in mind just seeing if it were good or not, and thus blackening with time would tell you something. You might even want to run one fresh and then later on run one as a test so you can compare the two. It won't be accurate but it will clue you in if your developer is dead.

PE

lantau · Jan 31, 2019

Unused developer, concentrate or tank solution would be more like green tea. Once used, mine goes quite dark like English tea. I would blame the dyes, which wash out of the film. And I'm actually doing a pretty thorough prewash to get rid of most dye and get up to temperature. Kodak films make more of a mess than Fuji. Seems to correspond to the manufacturers tea preferences

Fin · Jan 31, 2019

pentaxuser said:
Just for clarification, I take it that "coloured like tea" means a very light straw colour? I ask this PE because in the case of tea I suspect we are 2 nations divided by different ideas of what tea should look like. In the U.K. tea tends to be a strong brown colour.

A good cup of tea should be the colour of He Man's face.

Helge · Jan 31, 2019

Photo Engineer said:
I also had a pint at the White Hart where Arthur C. Clarke used to hang out. Kodak used to put us up at a hotel on Drury Lane.

PE

The real name of the pub was The White Horse. White Hart was what he called it in the book.
There are plenty of White Hart pubs in London.
Drury Lane is not that far from where The White Horse was though.
I was looking for it about ten years ago. Sadly it was long closed.
I wonder where all the Memorabilia and photos went?
https://goo.gl/maps/jDCrbq8fubv
http://www.fiawol.org.uk/fanstuff/then archive/Horse/HorseTales.htm

Photo Engineer · Jan 31, 2019

I knew it was closed, but the pub I went to capitalized on the Clarke connection in a low key fashion. They knew many did not know about the White Horse. I doubt if the pub I went to is still there. It was not very busy even back then.

Thanks.

PE

Lemur · Feb 1, 2019

Thank you for all the replies. Really great information.

I forgot to mention that I ask because I didn’t use the chemicals for a year, and they are all “expired” according to the indications of the bottles.

I bought them in 2017, like two years ago. The developer (the three bottles) expired by mid-2018. The fixer expired in November 2017. Bleach in mid-2017 (this was originally bought before the rest of chemicals; I just got a 1 liter bottle from someone).

I have the original 2,5 liters can of fixer, and also a 700ml solution I did two years ago mixing it 1:1 with water, as indicated. I used this solution to process 8 rolls, the last one more than a year ago. I think the recommended capacity of a liter of mixer solution 10 rolls. And also Kodak recommends not using a fixer solution for more than eight weeks, but I used the solution in December 2017, long after that limit, and it was okay.

Of course, I could mix a new solution of fixer with the original “expired” fixer. I still have a lot!

Bleach was never aerated. I mean, only when I opened the bottle to process. So in the last year it has been resting there in a closed bottle.

Eight color rolls, that is all I processed. But yesterday…

Lemur · Feb 1, 2019

Yesterday, after reading some of the replies, I processed three images. I used the same solution of fixer and the same non-aerated bleach. As usual, with the help of four syringes (one for water), I prepared 600 ml of developer solution for developing two rolls in my tank. In this case, I used only 300ml and I have the other 300 for other roll.

I don’t know. I compared the negative with the first one I developed two years ago, which was the same film (Kodak Colorplus 200). This last roll is a tiny more dense, but I guess this is normal. But also the numbers and words printed are a bit more blurry, not so sharp (is this common?). And the “base fog” is also a bit more dense (is this normal, even in the same model of film?). I don’t have another Colorplus 200 developed by me to compare.

Then I scanned the images and from the first preview I saw something strange. One possibility is that the auto-color of the Epson Scan gives a clear tint because there is a strong color of one object in the foreground, and so it compensates. I know this, and usually if this happens, I change the levels, but I am not sure it is only about this. The third images is not very strange, it is a wide shot… I realized that I needed more normal shots, like a park, a green grass and a blue sky (and I feel stupid because I spent like 4 hours to process these three images).

My question is : when the chemicals are old, can we expect changes in color, a general tint or some alteration that confuses the scanner software? If this is the case, is it about the developer or… maybe the bleach?

Here are the three images as the Epson Scan auto-adjusted, and then a personal adjustment made in the same software and/or Photoshop (I know that the best way to judge a negative would be to see it with one’s own eyes).

Lemur · Feb 1, 2019

Photo Engineer said:
Thinking about it, I would suggest using a piece of B&W film to test the developer. This will not hurt and can help in dubious cases. It will remove all doubt.

PE

@Photo Engineer Are you saying to develop a b&w piece of film with my Flexicolor developer? Why not color film?

Helge · Feb 1, 2019

Photo Engineer said:
I knew it was closed, but the pub I went to capitalized on the Clarke connection in a low key fashion. They knew many did not know about the White Horse. I doubt if the pub I went to is still there. It was not very busy even back then.

Thanks.

PE

A SF fandom themed bar is actually a very good idea, and shouldn’t be low key either.
It seems the SF congregation embarked on the slowest pub crawl in history ending at the Bishops Finger. Perhaps they are still there?

OP. I think b&w film is simply cheaper, easier and more consistent. You do know what a clip test is? If you really want to test use a test target and develop single frames at different rates.
The sharpness inconsistency could be simply due to the horrible holders in most flatbeds. For consistency (not necessary best quality) put the film on the glass with a drop(!) of lighter fluid underneath it and another piece of glass on top.

Photo Engineer · Feb 1, 2019

Lemur, it is more difficult to judge color film due to it being a multilayer with all kinds of dyes in it.

Helge, the famous SF author, Larry Niven, wrote a series of SF stories about a bar in the future that caters to alien life. They were intended to be humorous but there was quite a serious vein in them.

The Bishop's Finger? Did that come from the famous spoonerism? If so, I thought it was Saint Finger!

PE

Helge · Feb 1, 2019

Photo Engineer said:
Helge, the famous SF author, Larry Niven, wrote a series of SF stories about a bar in the future that caters to alien life. They were intended to be humorous but there was quite a serious vein in them.

The Bishop's Finger? Did that come from the famous spoonerism? If so, I thought it was Saint Finger!

PE

It’s named after a popular beer:
“Bishops Finger takes its name from the finger-shaped signposts which pointed pilgrims on their way to the tomb of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury”.

Maybe Niven was inspired by Steve Meretzkys (of Infocom fame) Space Bar adventure?
But the idea of course goes back to Baron von Münchhausen and the modern inspiration is Lord Dunsany with his Jorkens stories.

How do you know if color chemicals are still working properly?

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