How does "color timing" E-6 with the first dev work?

Donald Qualls · May 19, 2020

I got an email this morning from Cinestill -- they're now offering their "simplified" three-bath E-6 kit with a choice of three first developers. One standard (develops daylight film with daylight color balance), one "warm tone" (develops daylight film with a tungsten-like color balance -- saves a two-stop filter factor is you have daylight film and tungsten light), and one "dynamic" that's kind of in between for color balance, but expands the dynamic range (they claim 9+ stops instead of the usual max of 6).

I presume this color balance shift has to do with tailoring developer chemistry and conditions to develop the bottom layer in the film more or less relative to the top two layers (or something similar -- in other words, introducing a controlled color cast) -- but how that can happen and not wind up with crossovers and such is something of a mystery, never mind expanding the dynamic range without changing the exposure index.

As a new product, this may be too soon, but has anyone tried this product, or done this with customized first developers in general?

Jeremy Mudd · May 19, 2020

I'll let you know my thoughts on the kit - I ordered two D9 kits from them early this morning after the email.

There's a good review video that just hit youtube:

Jeremy

Lachlan Young · May 19, 2020

The MSDS tells you most of the story.

The regular E-6 uses an HQMS salt.

The 'tungsten' E-6 uses a different developer to alter relative layer development rates (HQMS is intended to make all layers develop at the same rate in E-6 as designed). It uses Lithium Hydroxide and Hydroquinone. 'Tungsten balanced' film used to be made by adjusting relative layer speeds to adjust colour balance compared to daylight balanced film.

The lower contrast developer also uses regular HQ, which will also alter the rate and linearity of development relative to the use of HQMS-K in normal E-6.

It will be interesting to see how linearly these developers work in terms of colour crossovers etc.

MattKing · May 19, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
I presume this color balance shift has to do with tailoring developer chemistry and conditions to develop the bottom layer in the film more or less relative to the top two layers (or something similar -- in other words, introducing a controlled color cast) -- but how that can happen and not wind up with crossovers and such is something of a mystery, never mind expanding the dynamic range without changing the exposure index.

I'm not sure that Cinestill prioritize avoidance of crossover as much as some others might.

grainyvision · May 19, 2020

I've done a lot of research on this by doing C-41 reversal experiments for E-6 film. Of course using C-41 for the color developer can introduce it's own problems, but I've had some very nice slides come out of it regardless. The real test for this cinestill stuff is if it works for more than just E100. The biggest challenge I had in first developer choice with my experiments was that each film responded wildly different to each one. Provia seemed to be the easiest to please, E100 tended to want to go either very green or somewhat blue, and Velvia often went magenta and with weird "garish" colors that were high in saturation and seemed kind of but not completely correct. First developer definitely has the most influence over the final color balance etc of a film, assuming the color developer isn't too insane. I wasn't diving too deep into the process though, I was only using off the shelf developers, specifically D-76, HC-110, and Dektol for first developers with no chemical modifications beyond dilution. Dektol seemed to give the best results with E100 while HC-110 the best with Provia. I never figured out anything good for Velvia

For the "dynamic chrome" specifically, I'm really curious how they were able to get that kind of contrast reduction while also maintaining a normal film speed. I've had plenty of lower contrast results come from my experiments, but typically with at least a 1 stop loss in speed. Funny enough, the lower contrast process I used was much more resilient to giving mostly correct color balance

Lachlan Young · May 19, 2020

earlz said:
For the "dynamic chrome" specifically, I'm really curious how they were able to get that kind of contrast reduction while also maintaining a normal film speed. I've had plenty of lower contrast results come from my experiments, but typically with at least a 1 stop loss in speed. Funny enough, the lower contrast process I used was much more resilient to giving mostly correct color balance

I wonder if your speed loss may have been from the first developer not being able to access and develop all the silver - either via a silver solvent or development accelerator. There's the usual solvent suspects (thiocyanate, thiosulfate, DTOD) but also various molecular weights of polyethylene glycol that seem to have been used in both Agfa Scala's first developer & the Kodak Tmax reversal kit. I have recently acquired some PEG-1500 for when I get round to trying out what seems to be the disclosed Agfa Scala process.

halfaman · May 20, 2020

In an era where almost all slides are scanned why do you want to alter color balance irreversevely in the development with the risk of crossover when you can do it safely during digital edition?

My experience with low contrast slide film (Fuji Astia) is that you get softer tones and gradation but similar exposure latitude, nothing close to the claimed 3 stops increase.

Yeah, I am skeptic...

grainyvision · May 20, 2020

Lachlan Young said:
I wonder if your speed loss may have been from the first developer not being able to access and develop all the silver - either via a silver solvent or development accelerator. There's the usual solvent suspects (thiocyanate, thiosulfate, DTOD) but also various molecular weights of polyethylene glycol that seem to have been used in both Agfa Scala's first developer & the Kodak Tmax reversal kit. I have recently acquired some PEG-1500 for when I get round to trying out what seems to be the disclosed Agfa Scala process.

so this is only somewhat related to first developer formulation, but can you give any kind of documents or info for how that works? I assume PEG influences how developer penetrates an emulsion? I've been doing some other stuff (lith developer formulation) that I've been really struggling to include controls for how a multilayer paper emulsion is developed. I've been using triethanolamine and "standard" food grade PEG (no listed molecular weight) and keep running into problems that are very difficult to understand. My basic hypothesis is that the PEG I have decreases penetration, glycerol would increase penetration, iso-alcohol massively decreases penetration, and triethanolamine slightly increases penetration... However, hard to be very sure especially when working with non-scientific grade stuff

grainyvision · May 20, 2020

halfaman said:
In an era where almost all slides are scanned why do you want to alter color balance irreversevely in the development with the risk of crossover when you can do it safely during digital edition?

My experience with low contrast slide film (Fuji Astia) is that you get softer tones and gradation but similar exposure latitude, nothing close to the claimed 3 stops increase.

Yeah, I am skeptic...

The big benefit I understand for using the tungsten developer is that it doesn't involve a massive speed decrease due to filtration being required. Slide is also so high contrast that it can be difficult to correct out this kind of color balance problem since details can easily clip to dmin or dmax (within each color layer), especially if not using a scanning method capable of pulling out details from thick shadows

Anon Ymous · May 20, 2020

MattKing said:
I'm not sure that Cinestill prioritize avoidance of crossover as much as some others might.

Exactly. Just think about it, Kodak, Fuji and Agfa did massive R&D, but never made such claims... I'm skeptical at best.

grainyvision · May 20, 2020

Anon Ymous said:
Exactly. Just think about it, Kodak, Fuji and Agfa did massive R&D, but never made such claims... I'm skeptical at best.

Honestly from their examples with the standard daylight chrome, it looks like poor processing with a blue cast and poor overall color rendition. I'm also extremely skeptical that their kits give usable results with anything other than E100.

halfaman · May 20, 2020

No more negative comments from my side, all new products are welcome even they could be not my cup of tea. I wait for some more results of real situations.

Donald Qualls · May 20, 2020

Well, it just so happens I have several rolls (and a few Quickloads) of long-expired Fuji chromes. I think I need to order a few fresh rolls (Fuji and Kodak) and one of these "Sampler" kits, or a standard and a "Dynamic" developer packet, and give it a try.

m00dawg · May 20, 2020

halfaman said:
No more negative comments from my side, all new products are welcome even they could be not my cup of tea. I wait for some more results of real situations.

Indeed. It's easy to poopoo on a lot of these things but I think it's almost a disservice to the community to do so. I'll go on record as saying I'm not a fan of the CInestill film. I would rather get normal Vision 3 and use an ECN2 process as I like having the flatter negatives and proper color balance. However, even though it's not my bag, I've seen amazing results with it. And it allowed CS to then invest in other things, like DF96 monobath (which I also don't use but appreciate it exists - kind of a marvel of chemistry for me in a way), providing easy access to D96 for souping BW cinema films, and now CS6 among other things.

I think CS should be celebrated personally, along with many others in the space doing awesome things for the film community, even if it's not everyone's cup o' tea. In this case, the expensive 6 bath large quantity E-6 kits are still around, and still labs that dev E-6. I for one can say I don't currently have the space or pocketbook to do a 6 bath kit here at home. And likewise for me having to wait a month (2+ given the current state of things) for my slides to get back sucks. The barrier to entry is high because it's SLOW to learn slide given 1-2 month turn-arounds on seeing the results, and still pretty expensive. This kit opens up so much to a lot of folks. And granted it isn't the only sub-6-bath kit, but I'm gonna wait to judge the quality of the developers until more reviews come out and I try it myself.

I'd be surprised honestly if Kodak didn't lend a hand in some of this given they really want folks to buy Ektachrome and available of E-6 dev has been a bit of a roadblock there. Just wild speculation on my part and I guess we'll have to see if/when someone is willing to shoot some E-6 sheets and dev them in various solutions to see how they stack up and share those results.

koraks · May 20, 2020

earlz said:
Honestly from their examples with the standard daylight chrome, it looks like poor processing with a blue cast and poor overall color rendition

Actually I find the examples on their website surprisingly good given how far they go outside process specs. Obviously it has nothing to do with faithful color reproduction anymore, but not everyone requires that.

I find this all very fascinating. Who knows, one day...

grainyvision · May 20, 2020

definitely easy to get carried away with negative thoughts and skepticism. Honestly I’m planning on buying some of the tungsten chrome and dynamic chrome because I want to see the results for myself on actual film rather than through a monitor. My biggest fear is that I’ll use something other than E100 and get crazy color cast or crossings that ruin some pictures. There’s a reason I stopped doing stuff with C-41 reversal. Consistency was very difficult.

I think we call all agree that new products coming to the film world is always a good thing... maybe excluding pre-exposed “creative” film haha

MattKing · May 20, 2020

For clarity, I'm prepared to accept that Cinestill products add choices that are useful to many.
I just think it important to understand what the associated compromises may be.
I see crossover, and I wince - it is the old colour printer in me I'm afraid.

Donald Qualls · May 20, 2020

MattKing said:
I see crossover, and I wince - it is the old colour printer in me I'm afraid.

I, on the other hand, don't even know what crossover is supposed to look like. Casts, yes, as long as they're not too subtle, but crossover isn't something I can identify by sight.

MattKing · May 20, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
I, on the other hand, don't even know what crossover is supposed to look like. Casts, yes, as long as they're not too subtle, but crossover isn't something I can identify by sight.

Yellow highlights transitioning to blue shadows are bad, but magenta highlights transitioning to green shadows are simply wretched!
Especially when the photo is of a wedding group, and the group is multi-ethnic!

Donald Qualls · May 20, 2020

MattKing said:
Yellow highlights transitioning to blue shadows are bad, but magenta highlights transitioning to green shadows are simply wretched!
Especially when the photo is of a wedding group, and the group is multi-ethnic!

Can't say I recall ever seeing this. This would be in the print/scan, the positive, right? Even when my Dignan 2-bath was getting a little old, I got a slight magenta cast, but never this.

m00dawg · May 20, 2020

I read up on this a bit and the big problem is you can't correct for crossover in post (not easily anyway) since, as I understand it you end up with a different balance of sorts in the highlights vs the shadows. Some of the sample shots of Tungsten looks like it may be having some of that, but I haven't seen it from the Daylight or Dynamic sample shots as much. Dynamic to me looks _better_ from a balance perspective, but of course it's marketing images so *shrug*

MattKing · May 20, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
Can't say I recall ever seeing this. This would be in the print/scan, the positive, right? Even when my Dignan 2-bath was getting a little old, I got a slight magenta cast, but never this.

Many years ago I worked as a colour printer in a small business that did printing for professional photographers. I did most of the colour proof printing and machine enlargement printing, and the owner did most of the custom enlargement for publication and commercial use work.
I printed a lot of wedding photos!
Our customers had their film - almost all 120 and the current version of Vericolour at the time - developed for them by one of the high volume pro labs, with one important exception. One of our customers tried to save money by running his own C-41 line. IIRC he had a Wing-Lynch processor, but I don't think that he used control strips or if he did, he didn't use them well.
All of his film had problems with crossover! Some more than others, but all of them suffered.
If I adjusted the colour balance for the white wedding dress, the dark suits would go magenta, or green, or red, or cyan, or who knows what. If I adjusted for a Chinese complexion, a pale Caucasian complexion would look - well, it wouldn't look good!
No matter what you did, if you colour balanced for a highlight, the shadows would gain a colour cast. If you colour balanced for a shadow area, the highlights would gain a colour cast. And if you colour balanced for a mid-tone, the shadows would gain one colour cast, while the highlights would gain another.
The colour casts may have sometimes been subtle (and sometimes not!) but you could not correct for them without creating other colour casts.
The problem occurs when the three sets of colour sensitive components in the emulsion are developed to different contrasts and/or different speeds. The result is different colour depending on density. And it looks lousy!
We ended up giving the customer an ultimatum - send out his film to someone who would develop them properly, or we would stop printing for him. He complied, and his work improved immeasurably.

m00dawg · May 20, 2020

It's a valid point for sure. I think one major issue is many of use don't have local labs to have professional development work done. I have one, but it's across town and I heard they may go mail order. They also don't do sheets or E-6. Just C-41 roll film. For new folks getting into photography, BW isn't a big barrier to do at home, which is good. C-41 and E-6 on the other hand is more problematic and certainly new folks do not have the equipment, room, or are willing to try a very expensive pro-level dev kit to try it. That's a problem, not just for those folks, but all of us because if there's less access, there's less people shooting film and less of a demand for film. Even if mail order was as cheap as these kits, there's then the problem of film getting lost (something I recently experienced directly and that sucked).

At-home kits of these types, which carry concessions (not the least of which is blix but also, to your point, actually doing control strips and adjusting chemistry), are maybe not the ideal answer. But they're a practical answer even if they involve trade-offs. Is it better to have crossover on a film rather than no film at all? For a wedding I think the answer is neither But for walking around town (when we can do that again heh) and shooting photos? I think it's worth the trade-off potentially.

There is still a gap, especially on the E-6 side, given the price of kits and the need for careful control, but I'm not sure there is a great solution in between labs and buying a JOBO (which is an expensive proposition for many of us) so I admittedly don't have a great answer here. I myself opted to spring for Flexicolor chems for C-41 to see if I get better results than a Unicolor. I almost bought test strips but I realized there isn't much use in them if I don't have the means to control the process like I would in a full blown minilab.

Anyways point is, whatever makes people happy shooting film and keeping it accessible I'm all for! I DO think CS could stand to document any potential gotchas or trade-offs in the process if there are indeed any (like color crossover) since that's important for folks to know. But having these kits available I think is otherwise a very good thing.

MattKing · May 20, 2020

I think with care and diligence, someone who processes at home with something like a Sous Vide and a good thermometer can get really high quality results, and if you have the necessary densitometer, the control strips can help with that.
I will happily acknowledge that I am more sensitive to things like crossover than most are.
My Dad, who didn't do darkroom work, was somewhat similarly afflicted. He was the Customer Service manager at a Kodak processing lab that ran Kodachrome and Ektachrome lines, and he also had dealings with microfilm and motion picture film customers. He viewed an awful lot of movie film as part of his job. If the family went to the theatre to see a movie, he would notice every scratch, every bit of lint in the projector's film gate and every time a reel change happened and the print stock wasn't a perfect match between the reels. It was sometimes hard for him to enjoy the movie itself. Occupational hazard I guess.

m00dawg · May 20, 2020

Oh I bet that was a beauty and a curse. I for one really REALLY miss movies being projected on film. It makes the few movies that are such a treat (like Once Upon a Time In Hollywood) but it's not a treat that comes up very often.

How does "color timing" E-6 with the first dev work?

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How does "color timing" E-6 with the first dev work?

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