Kodak Alaris may release an E6 kit for home users

[fdonadio]

Kodak posted this on their @kodakprofessional profile on Instagram:

Maybe they will just get it ready from Tetenal (if the employee’s plan works out) or they will make it themselves.

Let’s see what the future holds,.

 

[Cholentpot]

Good news.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Hopefully this is a 6 bath kit. Good news.

Tom

 

[AgX]

With Tetenal falling off and the future of New Tetenal still insecure their competitors will jump in one way or the other. And Kodak Alaris will employ one of them (or New Tetenal) anyway for this product.

What I mean is that there will most likely be no new production facility, just Kodak Alaris offering a substitute product.
And of course any film manufacturer is interested to yield processing means apt to the market, otherwise their film sales would suffer.

 

[Born2Late]

YES!

 

[mshchem]

I'm pretty sure whoever ends up owning the Alaris PPF division, will be planning on growing the business. Hopefully they will bring new products to market. A 5 liter E6 kit like Eastman Kodak sold before the breakup would be great. As long as we are dreaming cut sheets of color paper.

 

[Born2Late]

A c41 kit with separate bleach and fix would make me very happy too.

 

[GRHazelton]

I'm pretty sure whoever ends up owning the Alaris PPF division, will be planning on growing the business. Hopefully they will bring new products to market. A 5 liter E6 kit like Eastman Kodak sold before the breakup would be great. As long as we are dreaming cut sheets of color paper.

Five liter? Not for me unless it can be mixed a liter at a time!

 

[mshchem]

Five liter? Not for me unless it can be mixed a liter at a time!

I always split up these kits. I usually split into 1 liter or split 8 ways into 625mL There is one part of the color developer that Kodak always put in a glass bottle, this stuff attacks some plastics . I had a series of small bottles that I used for bleach and fixer etc.
Hobby Packs like the old days of E4 that were expensive but had two separate 16 fl oz batches of the developers.
Ilford has the new packages that are quite expensive, but perfect for beginners that have nothing but a thermometer and a tank.

The private equity firm that bought Ilford is doing a great job of promoting and expanding resources online etc.

I bet you will be able to get what you want

 

[EdSawyer]

They already sell this, it's easy to come by. Not a kit per se, but just buy the individual components.

c41 kit with separate bleach and fix

 

[Wallendo]

Since they are "sourcing" the chemicals, it sounds like they will just repackage somebody else's chemicals. It also isn't clear whether this is lab chemistry or home chemistry.

I wonder why they didn't start working on this last year while Ektachrome was being re-engineered.

 

[lantau]

Since they are "sourcing" the chemicals, it sounds like they will just repackage somebody else's chemicals. It also isn't clear whether this is lab chemistry or home chemistry.

I wonder why they didn't start working on this last year while Ektachrome was being re-engineered.

Perhaps because they needed to see the market reaction to Ektachrome before committing even more resources?

 

[Born2Late]

They already sell this, it's easy to come by. Not a kit per se, but just buy the individual components.

I was speaking of a real kit, with matched quatities for the total the kit size and without having to deal with starters, etc.

 

[mshchem]

I was speaking of a real kit, with matched quatities for the total the kit size and without having to deal with starters, etc.

I understand exactly what you are getting at. I will say this. With Kodak Flexicolor C-41 chemistry biggest cost is Bleach and bleach starter. And yes the capacity of the bleach replenished is enormous . Having said this the fixer is super cheap (it's regular rapid fix only cheaper ) the developer is cheap and developer starter is cheap. Minilabs use 3 stabilizer baths, at home you wash, skip the stabilizer and use a final rinse, acts as a biocide and wetting agent. Mix with pure water lasts a long time .
I bought everything from Unique photo in New Jersey for just a little over a hundred bucks plus shipping. All I buy now is fresh developer , developer goes bad the bleach is eternal .

E6 is a interesting twist ,the Fuji "kit" just doesn't include starters. It's the same stuff. Freestyle gets 200 bucks for 5 liters of Fuji. You can buy individual components of Fuji but only in sizable quantities.

 

[Born2Late]

I understand exactly what you are getting at. I will say this. With Kodak Flexicolor C-41 chemistry biggest cost is Bleach and bleach starter. And yes the capacity of the bleach replenished is enormous . Having said this the fixer is super cheap (it's regular rapid fix only cheaper ) the developer is cheap and developer starter is cheap. Minilabs use 3 stabilizer baths, at home you wash, skip the stabilizer and use a final rinse, acts as a biocide and wetting agent. Mix with pure water lasts a long time .
I bought everything from Unique photo in New Jersey for just a little over a hundred bucks plus shipping. All I buy now is fresh developer , developer goes bad the bleach is eternal .

E6 is a interesting twist ,the Fuji "kit" just doesn't include starters. It's the same stuff. Freestyle gets 200 bucks for 5 liters of Fuji. You can buy individual components of Fuji but only in sizable quantities.

I've thought about it numerous times and may yet go that route. How bad is the shipping cost?

 

[mshchem]

I've thought about it numerous times and may yet go that route. How bad is the shipping cost?

It wasn't bad, ups ground. Probably around 17 bucks. The bleach is heavy. Unique doesn't make you buy cases of stuff. The developer is something like 11-12 bucks for 5 liters. I mix a liter or more at a time. The concentrates keep surprisingly well. I get my Kodak rapid fix from Unique as well. With the sale of Alaris and the insolvency of Tetenal if you need any Kodak chemistry might be good to get a couple extra packages, especially the black and white stuff made by Tetenal. I'm sure that if everything goes as planned shouldn't be any issues. I remember when Ilford was reorganized as Harmon the powdered chemicals weren't available for a while.
The starters for C41 are cheap, you need developer and bleach starter. Both will last quite a while and keep forever.

 

[mshchem]

My problem is I don't shoot a lot of color, but I like using the "real thing" Kodak and Fuji chemistry. I've used the Tetenal 3 bath E6, it worked fine, but the capacity claims are way overstated. With the Kodak C41 you can use with tanks and replenish. Or use it one shot with a Jobo (I reuse the bleach a couple times) also most important thing I didn't mention is buy the C41 RA chemistry. This is designed for a rapid c41 process. The bleach and fixer times are short. Total process with washing is about 9-10 minutes . Where as if you try to stretch the 3 bath Blix kits Blix times can reach 18 minutes.

 

[EdSawyer]

You can go without bleach starter, btw. I do use dev starter though, but also use all the dev as one-shot only. The 20L dev at Unique is about $24 I think. Shipping is not bad, as mentioned. I recycle bleach almost indefinitely, but I also use the Bleach III regenerator to top it up after ever 5L batch. I don't use the RA version though, just the regular C41 versions. Still pretty quick, 1/2 hour or less.

 

[guangong]

At one time Kodak was a major manufacturer of industrial chemicals. What happened to that branch of the business?

 

[Kino]

At one time Kodak was a major manufacturer of industrial chemicals. What happened to that branch of the business?

"Eastman Chemical was spun off from parent Eastman Kodak in 1994[4] and had 2014 sales revenue of approximately $9.6 billion." via Wikipedia
https://www.eastman.com/Company/About_Eastman/History/Pages/Introduction.aspx

 

[peoplemerge]

Any update on E6 Kodak chemistry?