Kodak Vision 3 ECN-2 Development confusion; some clarifications required.

Hello all.

I recently bought & shot some Kodak Vision 3, and I am wanting to develop it. I’ve been trying to figure out the optimal way to do it for my requirements, but researching this forum and other sources on the web, I ‘ve run into some conflicting & confusing information, which if possible, would like to ask some clarification on here from the more experienced Vision 3 developers.

To start with, from my research I have gathered that even though C41 is often heralded as a perfectly suitable way to develop Vision 3, in reality it can often result in colour shifts and unwanted casts, which require heavy post process correction. I am thus resolved to develop in the proper ECN2 process, but have questions regarding temperature control and timings. Specifically for temperature control, most kit instructions call for the developer to be at 41C, the rest of the chemicals at 27-38C, and the prebath at 27C max. Given I only have access to one water tank and 1 Cinestill Temperature Controller, how am I supposed to achieve these 3 different temperatures? Am I supposed to juggle them, by putting everything at a 41C bath and taking things out to cool down as required? Given only the dev needs to be at 41C this seems suboptimal, and I would think it would take a long time for the chems to cool down to <38C or <27C respectively. I saw a video of someone keeping everything at 38C including the developer, and compensating by developing for 4mins instead of the nominal 3, although that also strikes me as a poor solution. Cinestill for their ECN kit also seem to imply it is fine for the rest of the chemicals to be used at 41C. So my question regarding this part is, what is the best way to handle temperature management of the different chemicals, and what temperatures are acceptable for each to be at? On the subject of temperature, there also exists a lot of conflicting information regarding prebath and wash temperatures. Some say to do both at 27C, some say only prebath at 27C and then cold water, some say 27C for prebath and then 38C for the wash, again which is correct? I am particularly concerned about this, as people oftentimes make their recommendation on this issue with the suggestion that a deviation will result in damage to the emulsion or the prebath will not work. And as for the wash after the stop, bleach & fixer respectively, again the range is oftentimes given loosely as 27-38C. If the wash water is kept at 41C with the developer will it hinder the process in someway, or likewise if its cold from the tap? Also on the subject of temperature, I am planning to develop in a normal handheld developing tank which I might not be able to get to stay in the water tank. Would a temperature compensation be required if that was the case ?

Regarding timings, the Kit I am looking at gives the Kodak nominal of 3mins for the dev at 41C. However, I’ve read that this results in thin negatives with flat scenes (per design), and that an increase in development time of 30% can result in a boost of contrast and also density, with not too detrimental a shift in colour balance. This seems to me to also be the reason Cinestill recommend 3:30 mins of dev time for their ECN kit. So would a dev time of 3:30-3:45 mins be therefore sensible, or have I missed something? And would adding 3% extra time per developed roll to the development time (for a developer volume of 1L) to compensate for expenditure as per Cinestill’s recommendations (on top of the initial ~30% increase) still be advised?

Thank you in advance for information or advice you might be able to offer to my many queries.

You can do all process steps at 41C if you want. There's no problem with this at all.

I prefer to develop for 3m45 to 4m00 for more contrast. If you scan and never intend to enlarge your negatives optically, it doesn't matter much and 3m00 or 3m30 will be fine, too.

I can't comment in stretching your chemistry; I mix my ecn2 developer myself and use it one shot or maybe twice if I have two rolls/batches I can develop in rapid succession.

the word of the film creator is at
https://www.kodak.com/en/motion/page/processing-manuals

module 7 is the big one, although both 2 and 8 will be of interest.

20 or 30 years ago that information could only be obtained by consulting directly with a Kodak sales engineer.

I will agree with koracks that the most important temperature is the developer. once you have the image, the rest of the process is mostly just getting rid of the silver.

500T looks very natural with normal c41 development

koraks said:

You can do all process steps at 41C if you want. There's no problem with this at all.

I prefer to develop for 3m45 to 4m00 for more contrast. If you scan and never intend to enlarge your negatives optically, it doesn't matter much and 3m00 or 3m30 will be fine, too.

I can't comment in stretching your chemistry; I mix my ecn2 developer myself and use it one shot or maybe twice if I have two rolls/batches I can develop in rapid succession.

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Thank you for the response. Does this include washing after the prebath remjet remover? As I alluded in my OP, I have heard running a wash to remove the remjet after at high temperature can result in damage to the emulsion, as can running the prebath at above 27C. Can the prebath & wash thereafter work at room temperature or do they need to be heated at least to 27C? If so I think my plan of action will be to run prebath and post wash at room temp, prewarm the film after at 41C, and run the rest of the dev steps at 41C, until I bring the temp down with the post fixer wash and final stabilizer step. Is this a sensible plan ?

As for the timings, I do not intend of optically printing for the time being, but that being said I am avert to post processing if I can help it, so I'd rather to start of with some contrast, so I think I'll go with 3:30-3:45, again thanks for the confirmation.

cmacd123 said:

the word of the film creator is at
https://www.kodak.com/en/motion/page/processing-manuals

module 7 is the big one, although both 2 and 8 will be of interest.

20 or 30 years ago that information could only be obtained by consulting directly with a Kodak sales engineer.

I will agree with koracks that the most important temperature is the developer. once you have the image, the rest of the process is mostly just getting rid of the silver.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the link. Very interesting reads, but as these manuals refer to nominal procedures for machines that can maintain chemicals at different temperatures, this doesn't really solve the problem of having to achieve this at home with only a single temperature controller. Hopefully as per koraks;s suggestion, the entire process can be run at 41C, perhaps save for the prebath & wash.

Ares_der_Ruderer said:

Thank you for the response. Does this include washing after the prebath remjet remover? As I alluded in my OP, I have heard running a wash to remove the remjet after at high temperature can result in damage to the emulsion, as can running the prebath at above 27C. Can the prebath & wash thereafter work at room temperature or do they need to be heated at least to 27C? If so I think my plan of action will be to run prebath and post wash at room temp, prewarm the film after at 41C, and run the rest of the dev steps at 41C, until I bring the temp down with the post fixer wash and final stabilizer step. Is this a sensible plan ?

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Sure, that will work. Don't worry too much about damaging the emulsion on modern Vision3 film. It's very resilient. My process is as follows:
* Optional water pre-bath at development temperature for a few minutes.
* Development in ECN2 developer at 41C for 3:45-4:00. Although I sometimes develop a little longer at lower temperature.
* Acetic acid stop bath, 41C, ca. 20 seconds.
* C41 bleach and C41 fixer at 41C for 3-4 minutes. I use Fuji rapid access C41 chemistry for these steps.
* Remjet removal in a warm (30-40C) bath with a little soap added to it. I use a soft brush to remove the remjet and rub with my fingers on the spots where some remjet has attached itself to the emulsion, which tends to happen despite attempts to prevent it. Instead of soap, some calcium carbonate also works well (even better) to soften the remjet.
* Wash under running tap water by see-sawing the film underneath the running tap, washing both sides.
* Hang up and wipe the non-emulsion (shiny) side with a clean, folded paper towel to prevent water spots.

After the wash and before hanging up to dry, it's possible to include a stabilizer step; a suitable stabilizer/final bath is a standard photoflo solution with a few drops of formalin added to it. Soak film for a minute, then hang up to dry.

It's perfectly fine to do all steps at 41C including all wash steps. The film also withstands a sudden transition from a warm (30-40C) bath to cool tap water just fine. The stories about reticulating film don't apply to these modern, thoroughly hardened and very robust films. They really withstand a lot of abuse without showing any damage at all. It's good to be careful, but rest assured that Vision3 is mechanically very robust.

For E-6 and C-41, and I'd gather also for ECN-2, the only time/temp critical step is the first developer.

I do prewashes at the same temp as first developer, usually 37-39C, and never had it damage fresh or expired film.

I don't have sophisticated temp control because I found this technique to work well enough for me: fill up a sink with very hot water and place all chemical bottles in on their side fully submerged, wait 5-10 minutes, then gradually replace the water in the sink with water the temperature of your desired development. After a few more minutes stick a thermometer into your developer while stirring, it is usually within a few degrees. You soon get a very good feel for how long it should take. After it's at the right temperature you can either keep the bottles in the water or drain it, the secondary steps aren't temperature critical and won't get cold that fast.

For stop bath I use 3 agitated washes of the temperature of the developer. For washing after blix I start with water the temperature of the developer, then do at least 7 washes, lowering the temperature by about 5 degrees each time, no need to measure that accurately, doing it by feel works. It may or may not make a difference to lower the temperature gradually, but it doesn't really take extra effort to do so, so why not be on the safe side.

koraks said:

Sure, that will work. Don't worry too much about damaging the emulsion on modern Vision3 film. It's very resilient. My process is as follows:
* Optional water pre-bath at development temperature for a few minutes.
* Development in ECN2 developer at 41C for 3:45-4:00. Although I sometimes develop a little longer at lower temperature.
* Acetic acid stop bath, 41C, ca. 20 seconds.
* C41 bleach and C41 fixer at 41C for 3-4 minutes. I use Fuji rapid access C41 chemistry for these steps.
* Remjet removal in a warm (30-40C) bath with a little soap added to it. I use a soft brush to remove the remjet and rub with my fingers on the spots where some remjet has attached itself to the emulsion, which tends to happen despite attempts to prevent it. Instead of soap, some calcium carbonate also works well (even better) to soften the remjet.
* Wash under running tap water by see-sawing the film underneath the running tap, washing both sides.
* Hang up and wipe the non-emulsion (shiny) side with a clean, folded paper towel to prevent water spots.

After the wash and before hanging up to dry, it's possible to include a stabilizer step; a suitable stabilizer/final bath is a standard photoflo solution with a few drops of formalin added to it. Soak film for a minute, then hang up to dry.

It's perfectly fine to do all steps at 41C including all wash steps. The film also withstands a sudden transition from a warm (30-40C) bath to cool tap water just fine. The stories about reticulating film don't apply to these modern, thoroughly hardened and very robust films. They really withstand a lot of abuse without showing any damage at all. It's good to be careful, but rest assured that Vision3 is mechanically very robust.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the clarifications and the breakdown of your process. So you do not use the dedicated remjet removing prebath it looks like? That is the one I am afraid of using & washing off at too high a temperature. I suppose if you are using developer as one shot you can take care of the remjet after.

loccdor said:

For E-6 and C-41, and I'd gather also for ECN-2, the only time/temp critical step is the first developer.

I do prewashes at the same temp as first developer, usually 37-39C, and never had it damage fresh or expired film.

I don't have sophisticated temp control because I found this technique to work well enough for me: fill up a sink with very hot water and place all chemical bottles in on their side fully submerged, wait 5-10 minutes, then gradually replace the water in the sink with water the temperature of your desired development. After a few more minutes stick a thermometer into your developer while stirring, it is usually within a few degrees. You soon get a very good feel for how long it should take. After it's at the right temperature you can either keep the bottles in the water or drain it, the secondary steps aren't temperature critical and won't get cold that fast.

For stop bath I use 3 agitated washes of the temperature of the developer. For washing after blix I start with water the temperature of the developer, then do at least 7 washes, lowering the temperature by about 5 degrees each time, no need to measure that accurately, doing it by feel works. It may or may not make a difference to lower the temperature gradually, but it doesn't really take extra effort to do so, so why not be on the safe side.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip about the gradual bring down of the temperature, I will give it a try. For the 7 washes you do, I assume you use the illford method or something similar ?

Yep pretty much the Ilford method, except I use the agitation rod instead of inversions. The only time I do inversions of the development tank is with the (first) developer, agitation rod works fine in the other cases.

A while back I got a weird color problem that even digital scanning couldn't fix. I had somehow damaged the dyes on two films in a row. There were whole spills of dyes. I ran a series of tests trying to figure out what went wrong, but I still don't have the answer. With the exclusion method, there are two possible scenarios. The first scenario is a temperature shock - due to the lack of hot water in the room, I had several washes with cold water, preceded by warm chemistry. The second scenario has to do with the pre-bath - maybe I used too long at too high a temperature.
It's good to keep in mind that something can go seriously wrong before/after the developer.

Ares_der_Ruderer said:

So you do not use the dedicated remjet removing prebath it looks like? That is the one I am afraid of using & washing off at too high a temperature. I suppose if you are using developer as one shot you can take care of the remjet after.

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Indeed, I don't use a dedicated remjet bath, at least not before development. Some of the remjet stuff does dissolve into the developer; this may seem pretty ugly, but even if it's reused, this generally doesn't present a problem. Rarely, I reuse the same developer once (never more than that). Some remjet in the developer doesn't seem to hurt even in that scenario. I suppose you could filter the developer to get rid of most of it if it bothers you and you want to reuse or attempt to replenish it.

I've also used a remjet bath prior to development; this is also not critical in terms of temperature. You can safely do this at 41C if you want. The remjet removal bath is actually less aggressive than the developer.

lamerko said:

The first scenario is a temperature shock - due to the lack of hot water in the room, I had several washes with cold water, preceded by warm chemistry. The second scenario has to do with the pre-bath - maybe I used too long at too high a temperature.

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I've encountered both scenarios many times with fresh Vision3 film and never observed problems along these lines. I suspect the cause might be a further, yet unidentified cause.

When I started the tests, I had already thrown out the old pre-bath chemistry, which had started to settle very badly, and also the sulfuric acid stop. As well as the sulfite solution I used to clean it. But I had kept the ferry bleach (with a color change) and also the fix, which was almost gone. From the tests I found that the bleach was still workable with no signs of color drift. Fixation also gave no deviation from fresh. The probability that it is from the stop bath, in my opinion, is negligible. I don't know if sulfite can change anything, even with some admixture. I have washed the films in question very well after the stop bath, after the sulphite and after the bleach. A really good rinse.
I really have doubts about the pre-bath, which had literally gone bad. As well as the fact that there was a transition from cold to warm and vice versa...

I would still suggest remjet removal prebath.

I reuse ECN-2 developer and even with pre-removal and filtering the developer the bottle I use for developer has gradually turned to grey from remjet deposits on the PET bottle walls. I have no good reason to believe why emulsion would be immune to that.

Maybe remjet deposits embedded into emulsion are too low for us average users to notice, but why risk it if preremoval is not hard.

brbo said:

I would still suggest remjet removal prebath.

I reuse ECN-2 developer and even with pre-removal and filtering the developer the bottle I use for developer has gradually turned to grey from remjet deposits on the PET bottle walls. I have no good reason to believe why emulsion would be immune to that.

Maybe remjet deposits embedded into emulsion are too low for us average users to notice, but why risk it if preremoval is not hard.

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I One shot use…