Ilfochrome Color Saturation

Snapshot · Dec 16, 2007

zenfoto said:
I Ilford was reformulating and coming out with these new 2L and 20L kits. If you haven't seen them the 2L kits now come in 3 heavy duty plastic canisters with developer and bleach pre-mixed so you only have to add water. The 20L kits contains all parts in seperately purchasable bottles so you can mix and match to your needs avoiding waste. I've yet to get the 20L kit but was able to pick up a couple of the 2L kits just a couple weeks ago.

Douglas, how much are the new kits selling for? I'm interested in Ilfochrome but balked at the lack of availability and pricing in Canada. I know it's expensive but I didn't want to buy chemistry that I wouldn't be able to use up in a timely manner.

davetravis · Dec 16, 2007

Hi Douglas,
Glad to hear you're having success!
I've worked around all the "bugs" in the chems one way or another over the years. It will be great to have things settle down and be more predictable. I've still got about 5 mixes of the P3.5 left so I won't need the new P3 for a while, but when I do I'll post my experience. Thanks for the heads up! How much was the new stuff?
DT

zenfoto · Dec 28, 2007

Sorry for the belated response. Just picked up some more 2L kits today - price of $70 USD each which is more expensive. But was told the 20L kits will be around $350-$400 which is quite a bit cheaper than purchasing 20L worth of the previous P3.5 kits. There's quite a $$ variance per liter between the 2L and 20L but imagine production, mixing and shipping of 2L versus 20L justifies the premium.

Wayne · Dec 28, 2007

I wish we could get them to sell the bleach separately. I hope to get back into Ilfochrome next year and hate to pay that kind of money when I dont need 2/3 of the kit.

Wayne

Renato Tonelli · Dec 28, 2007

DT - How and by how much did you adjust exposure? Thanks for posting your results.

Photo Engineer · Dec 28, 2007

I'm surprised at the price of these kits.

The developer is ordinary B&W developer like Dektol and the fix is an ordinary fix.

The dye bleach solution is a mixture of sulfamic acid and a catalyst. Thats about it. Look up the price of sulfamic acid. And the catalyst is a phenazine type compound used at milligrams / liter. This is custom made, but I cannot see how 100 - 500 mg/l of a chemical can run the cost up that way.

PE

Lopaka · Dec 28, 2007

Wayne said:
I wish we could get them to sell the bleach separately. I hope to get back into Ilfochrome next year and hate to pay that kind of money when I dont need 2/3 of the kit.

Wayne

The 20 L version has always been available by separate components - the key now is finding a dealer willing to order it for you.

Bob

Bob Carnie · Dec 28, 2007

Hi Ron

My mixes when I run cibas, cost me about 50-70 $ Canadian for Dev and the same for Fix X2 as we use a double fix, and about 350-400$ Canadian for the Bleach. A roll of 30inch x 100ft is around $800 Canadian a roll. One mix of chem about 1-1/2 roll of paper.
The cibachrome product is very pricey and we try to squeeze every last ounce out of all our mixes.

Photo Engineer said:
I'm surprised at the price of these kits.

The developer is ordinary B&W developer like Dektol and the fix is an ordinary fix.

The dye bleach solution is a mixture of sulfamic acid and a catalyst. Thats about it. Look up the price of sulfamic acid. And the catalyst is a phenazine type compound used at milligrams / liter. This is custom made, but I cannot see how 100 - 500 mg/l of a chemical can run the cost up that way.

PE

tim_walls · Dec 28, 2007

Photo Engineer said:
I'm surprised at the price of these kits.

The developer is ordinary B&W developer like Dektol and the fix is an ordinary fix.

The dye bleach solution is a mixture of sulfamic acid and a catalyst. Thats about it. Look up the price of sulfamic acid. And the catalyst is a phenazine type compound used at milligrams / liter. This is custom made, but I cannot see how 100 - 500 mg/l of a chemical can run the cost up that way.

From my limited experiments with Ilfochrome so far I absolutely love the stuff, but both the paper and chemistry have got to rank as some of the most costly materials on Earth . I think Ilford resent making the damn stuff, and once they've finished price gouging they'll cite lack of demand as the reason for discontinuing it.

I just wish someone else would start manufacturing an equivalent product (any patents must surely have expired long ago...?)

Photo Engineer · Dec 28, 2007

I can understand the reason for the cost of the paper. The dyes must be selected to be very pure in color and high in stability. In addition, from prior experience with sulfonic acid dyes (the type that Ciba used to use and still do AFAIK), coating is difficult and must be done one layer at a time.

All that I cannot understand is the chemistry cost.

PE

tim_walls · Dec 28, 2007

Photo Engineer said:
I can understand the reason for the cost of the paper. The dyes must be selected to be very pure in color and high in stability. In addition, from prior experience with sulfonic acid dyes (the type that Ciba used to use and still do AFAIK), coating is difficult and must be done one layer at a time.

All that I cannot understand is the chemistry cost.

Given UK prices of 'only' £45.50 including tax (US$ 90) for 25 sheets of 8x10, plus the same again for the chemistry, I personally hope the dyes are made from original grains of moon dust returned by the Apollo missions.

Bob Carnie · Dec 28, 2007

Tim ,
Man never landed on moon, it was all staged.

tim_walls said:
Given UK prices of 'only' £45.50 including tax (US$ 90) for 25 sheets of 8x10, plus the same again for the chemistry, I personally hope the dyes are made from original grains of moon dust returned by the Apollo missions.

tim_walls · Dec 28, 2007

Bob Carnie said:
Tim ,
Man never landed on moon, it was all staged.

Craig · Dec 28, 2007

Bob Carnie said:
Tim ,
Man never landed on moon, it was all staged.

But was it Ektachrome 64 that the staged photos were shot on?

Wayne · Dec 28, 2007

Photo Engineer said:
All that I cannot understand is the chemistry cost.

PE

Maybe thats where their profit is.

Wayne

Photo Engineer · Dec 28, 2007

Craig said:
But was it Ektachrome 64 that the staged photos were shot on?

Actually, a lot was shot on HS Ektachrome which was cross processed. In fact, the cover picture on Life magazine of Alan Sheppard was just that.

Having been there when the first Saturn launch took place, I can say that it would have been easier to do it for real than fake it.

PE

Craig · Dec 28, 2007

Photo Engineer said:
Actually, a lot was shot on HS Ektachrome which was cross processed.
PE

Why was it cross processed instead of normal E4 (?)- I'm not sure when E6 came in, and what happened to E5?

Wayne · Dec 28, 2007

Lopaka said:
The 20 L version has always been available by separate components - the key now is finding a dealer willing to order it for you.

Bob

Does the 20 L come in easily divisible units, or is it 5 gallons of soup in one big jug?

Wayne

Photo Engineer · Dec 28, 2007

It was cross processed in C-22 at the time of the first manned launches. HSE was 160 but in C-22 could give excellent negatives at ISO 400.

PE

davetravis · Dec 29, 2007

Renato,
Generally, when I used the P3.5 to replace the original P30 the exposure times were double. One larger aperture or twice the time. Then I increased the temps from 86F to
96F and was able to reduce times about 75%. But never did get back to the original times. But I'm ok with long times, it gives me extra leniency with burning/dodging.
DT

Wayne · Dec 29, 2007

Wayne said:
Does the 20 L come in easily divisible units, or is it 5 gallons of soup in one big jug?

Wayne

Ok, I've figured out that it does come in 3 parts of 2 liter concentrates. Now the question is, how long does concentrate last once its opened?

Wayne

Renato Tonelli · Dec 30, 2007

Thanks Dave.

Lopaka · Dec 30, 2007

Wayne said:
Ok, I've figured out that it does come in 3 parts of 2 liter concentrates. Now the question is, how long does concentrate last once its opened?

Wayne

I don't really know - but I would expect the bleach to be the longest lasting of the components. Oxygen breaks down developing agents but color bleaches usually require oxygen to function properly. I have had bleach parts opened for more than a year without adverse effects.

Bob

saarikoski · Feb 26, 2008

P3.5 and CLM 1K

davetravis said:
PE is THE MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Back to the original problem: Same new chemistry formula behaving differently on
different paper types, that used to all behave the same with the original formula.
I did a controlled experiment, using a perfect print made with new formula as the
standard. Used the same sized print, same filtration, same processor time/temp.
Diluted the Dev by 30%, the Blx by 40%.
Left the fixer the same.
Adjusted the paper exposure accordingly.
Eureka! Normal contrast and ultra rich color!
I can now use up the over $1k of other paper in inventory.
YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(ok, I'm easily excitable)

I have had similar problems with the new P3.5 chemistry. I used to
process a lot with the old (discontinued?) P30-P kit and results were
most of the time just great with rich colors. But now, with the P3.5 chemistry,
prints look dull, color saturation and contrast are low (even with Velvia slides!),
and exposure times are very long. I use CLM 1K medium contrast paper and
drum processing at 24C and I have to keep the aperture of the enlarger lens full
open almost all the time for 30 x 30 cm prints. :confused:

It is a bit surprising that you solved the problem by diluting the Dev and Blx.
Usually underdeveloping results in a loss of contrast. But I'll try it and
see what happens! How much did you correct the exposure?

saarikoski · Mar 1, 2008

Wow!

So I tried to process CLM-1K paper with diluted chemicals from the P3.5 kit and it worked like magic. Contrast and saturation were enhanced, highlight areas look more natural, what is most important for me, the Chromes regained their "three-dimensional" look. The process is also much less sensitive to colour filtration and exposure errors. The exposures were about the same than with chemicals of standard working strength. Thanks to davetravis, photo engineer, and others, without this thread I would have quit making Ilfochromes and started to print everything with an inkjet.

Ilfochrome Color Saturation

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