Is this what E-6 Colour shift looks like? Or is it something else?

[Mozg31337]

Hello

I have recently developed a roll of expired 120 Kodak Ektochrome 100 (expired in 2007) and noticed that my dark colours, especially the shadow colours are all look very strange. Attaching a few pictures to indicate.

There are several frames on that film that look okay (one attached), but most of them look very strange. One picture has so the bottom and the top looking perfectly normal, but the centre of the frame is all messed up. Others have only a little bit messed up.

I have previously developed several film rolls from the same box and they were all okay - colours look normal.

My question is: Does this look like a typical colour shift due to age, or is it a problem with developer wearing off? I have previously developed 9 rolls on this 1L mixture from a set of Tetenal E-6 3 bath processing kit. I am controlling my temperature with the Anova Sous Vide kit, which allows me to keep the temperature constant with 0.5 C degrees accuracy. All films were developed exactly the same. Also, The same day I've done a roll of Fuji Velvia 50 and it turned out okay (but a stop underexposed due to my mistake).

Many thanks for advise / help in trying to figure out what went wrong here.

 

[Truzi]

Caveat - I'm not very knowledgeable of this sort of thing:
That doesn't look like a color shift to me - it looks more like solarization, as if the film was exposed to light before or during development. I think cross-over would be more of an overall color cast, or the wrong colors.
This is just a guess on my part.

People who know more than I (most people here, lol) will comment soon.

 

[Svenedin]

Looks like a forest fire!

 

[Berri]

that is solarization. and quite a cool one!

 

[WilmarcoImaging]

Is it a digital (scanning) artifact? Can you post a cell phone picture of the film, hopefully showing the area of concern?

 

[Mozg31337]

This is exactly how the actual film slide looks like. This is not the scanning artifact.

 

[Berri]

This is exactly how the actual film slide looks like. This is not the scanning artifact.

This happens if during the process the film is briefly exposed to light causing a partial inversion of the image.

 

[Berri]

It could be also a failure in the reversal bath

 

[Mozg31337]

Berri, thanks for the feedback. I am not sure about the brief light exposure during the development process as I have relatively new development tanks which I check carefully to make sure it is fully closed and tide up properly. Probably something odd happened with the chemical process. Anyway, I will try to develop more film with this kit and let you know if the chemicals got spoiled somehow. It is still very strange as I would have thought that if this is the chemicals problem, it would effect the entire film and not just some frames in random places.

 

[Anon Ymous]

It could be also a failure in the reversal bath

This is a Tetenal 3 bath E6 kit, so the reversal bath is the colour developer. I'm wondering if the first developer got contaminated with some colour developer.

 

[mshchem]

One thing I have noticed about the Tetenal 3 bath. The best results come from the first few rolls processed. I used the Kodak 5 liter kits for years, now I spend the extra money for Fuji 5 liter (about $225 US) I would suspect the chemistry has failed somehow, age or contamination. I have used outdated Ektachrome never seen anything like this. Reversal film is great, but these days very expensive.
Best Mike

 

[Photo Engineer]

This is not Solarization. It is failure of the reversal bath or incomplete light reversal (whichever you used).

PE

 

[Truzi]

Damn, I thought I got one right, lol.

Mozg31337, I've found it best to defer to PE's expertise.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Well, I saw it in the Kodak color handbook. They discuss it and show example photos.

PE

 

[Down Under]

+1 for PE's answer. I had this happen one time before, some years ago. Same reason, same results.

Yours, I think, are interesting, even artistic. Overall a nice effect. Worth printing or playing with in PP. You may even get one of those (very) rare landscapes worthy of being framed and put on your wall.

FWTAW My comments are that E6 processing at home often produce "variable" (= all over the place) results even with fresh chemistry the greatest of care. In the days when I routinely processed 200+ rolls of 120 every year (which I no longer do thanks to the great technological advances in Nikon digital equipment), Even with using one liter kits and mixing my chems in 250 ml batches, my results were usually inconsistent even from fresh films in the same batch. Nothing disastrous, but requiring quite a lot of extra time at my desktop, correcting this and that in Lightroom. Ugh!

The "it depends" factor came into play too often for my liking. Eventually when other brand kits came into the market, and the price of the Tetenal one liter kits went up to astronomical levels before their supply was discontinued in Australia (oddly the five liter kits continued to be available, but at a price I didn't care to pay and also introducing new QC factors due to unmixed chemicals in big opened bottles), I changed over. As I've already said, I (and everyone else I know who did in 2012) now no longer process E6 at home and in fact almost never shoot slide films at all, and when I do I get it processed by a reliable small pro lab. My life is now that much simpler and, may I say, happier.

With E6 done at home, unless you have a fairly advanced set up with (at the very least) a reliable Jobo system, you will most likely get variations from roll to roll processed. Especially so if you use expired date slide film, in which case the circus doors open and anything and everything becomes possible. I have about 50 rolls of mostly 120 slide films in my freezer, but these days I wouldn't use it for anything valuable. My Nikon D700 gives me the color results I want.

Yet another hard nail in the coffin of color film in today's digieverything world...one of those less than pleasant realities we have to put up with and get used to.

Re mshchem's post, Fuji kits are not available in Australia. As I use a lot of Fuji film, I would happily try one of their kits if a small (one liter) is available. But at US$225, oi...!

 

[Mozg31337]

PE, thanks for the information. Could you please let me know how I have managed to do it, so that I do not make the same mistake again. I have developed about 9 films on this Tetnal E-6 3bath kit before and I've not had this issue.

P.S. this is my first E-6 kit experience. Apart from the 9 films I've developed so far, I've not had an previous experience with E-6 process.