My First E6... I Failed

[Gatsby1923]

But what an adventure. I did get a waterbath a constant 100F.... But just as i poured the developer in the tank my hot water heater ran out of hot water. By the time i finished the first developer my waterbath was down around 90.... OOOPS Live and learn. I will try again tomorrow with a modified fish tank heater to keep the bath hot.

Dave M

 

[goldenimage]

i got a jobo cpe2 pretty cheap off ebay, they are great for e6, i use the kodak 6 step kit, works really well. good luck and the first developer is the most crucial the rest and fluctuate a bit.

 

[goldenimage]

i mean can fluctuate a bit

 

[kodachrome64]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry 8300: BlackBerry8300/4.5.0.55 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

Yeah, I was surprised that I was able to get very good results in my sink without a Jobo or anything. To me it is more hectic and not anywhere near as fun as B&W, especially since you can't tweak development or anything really. E6 is E6. You can't walk away from your E6 stuff unless you are using an automated machine like a Jobo.

Nick

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

how did the photos look? was the color very bad? If it was only off a bit you might be able to rescue the photos by either scanning them (and color correcting in photoshop), or by photographing the slides with a macro lens and using filters to adjust color.

 

[fschifano]

But what an adventure. I did get a waterbath a constant 100F.... But just as i poured the developer in the tank my hot water heater ran out of hot water. By the time i finished the first developer my waterbath was down around 90.... OOOPS Live and learn. I will try again tomorrow with a modified fish tank heater to keep the bath hot.

Dave M

Use a larger water bath. The more mass and less surface area you have in the heat sink, the longer it takes to cool down Mine holds about 5 - 6 gallons of water, and is stable enough for long enough to run the process.

 

[Nigel]

But what an adventure. I did get a waterbath a constant 100F.... But just as i poured the developer in the tank my hot water heater ran out of hot water. By the time i finished the first developer my waterbath was down around 90.... OOOPS Live and learn.

OK, I don't get it. Were you using a constant flow of water, do you have an exceedingly small water heater, or an exceedingly large water bath?

For my own process, I use a Rubbermaid tub that just manages to hold my 6 1L bottles. I mix chmistry with water at 100F to have a starting place close to the right temperature. Having the bottles standing in water at the right temperature, I only lose a couple of degrees during the first developer. I top up the tub with hot water to get back to the correct temperature during the reversal (so that colour developer is right) then let the temperature drop during the balance of the process.

I will try again tomorrow with a modified fish tank heater to keep the bath hot.

Keep at it. It sounds like the challenges are mechanical, not procedural or chemical and therefore simply resolved.

 

[PHOTOTONE]

You can do this with your normal size hot water heater. I did it for years before I got my studio and professional darkroom. Firstly, turn your water heater temperature control up, so your water is hotter. Do this at some time before you intend to process. Then, with hotter water, you will use less of it, mixed with the cold to maintain your water bath temperature. Remember, you don't need to run the water flow very high at all, so cut back on the volume of water running into your water bath after you get the temperature of your solutions adjusted. Now for the first rinse, after the first developer, you don't need a high volume of water. I know the first rinse time is 2 minutes, but you can extend this time with no "ill" effects, so just fill your tank up with tempered water, agitate and dump and refill several times, even if that takes more than 2 minutes at your water flow level. You only have to maintain absolutely precise temperature control for the first developer. The Color Developer can fluctuate a couple of degrees and still be fine, and anything after the Color developer can fluxuate much more widely and still create beautiful results. The final wash, you can turn up your water flow, and even let the water temperature drop down to 80 degrees with no problem. Modern E-6 films are "hardened" and will not reticulate due to the temperature drop.

 

[Gatsby1923]

OK, I don't get it. Were you using a constant flow of water, do you have an exceedingly small water heater, or an exceedingly large water bath?

I think I did not wait long enough after running my dishwasher... Also my waterbath is was small so fluctuations in temperature affected it much faster.

 

[Stephen Prunier]

I also have been doing my own E-6 in my bathroom sink. My question is how do you get the film to dry flat?

 

[amuderick]

Try getting a 150 or 200 watt aquarium heater. You can set it to 100.4 and you won't need a water flow at all.

 

[PHOTOTONE]

I also have been doing my own E-6 in my bathroom sink. My question is how do you get the film to dry flat?

You sleeve it in page sleeves for several days, possibly under a heavy book. If you want really sharp corner to corner prints or scans, you use a glass negative carrier. If you want maximum sharpness in projected slides, you use glass slide mounts. No 35mm film will dry absolutely flat, but will relax and become flatter over time if you sleeve it.

 

[michaelbsc]

I also have been doing my own E-6 in my bathroom sink. My question is how do you get the film to dry flat?

What I found astonishing how flat it made film was the use of a "real" film dryer. I scored an Omega plastic tower with a fan and heater at the top (can't remember the model number right now) some months back, and after one hour hanging in the dryer with two clothes pins as weights the film is flat as a pancake.

For several months prior I had toyed with the idea of making a round chamber using coat hanger wire and a plastic dry cleaner bag, then setting a small space hater under it. But all that went by the wayside when a Photo Express closed and I jumped on a bunch of equipment for almost nothing. I'm not going to spend any time making a homemade dryer now that I have a commercial one, but warm air drying really does the trick. Inside the chamber seems to be about 110F, i.e. warm but certainly not hot, while it's in operation. Next weekend I'll try to remember to measure the actual temperature while it's operating.

MB

 

[lomomagix]

Just an ignorant question from somebody who hasn't tried doing any film processing at all:

Do you have to keep the tanks continuously dipped in the water bath (I guess that would be the key to maintaining the proper temp)? If so, how do you do the agitation of the tank (especially those that use mechanical rollers)?

Sorry, I'm truly "in the darkroom" on this!

 

[fschifano]

Just an ignorant question from somebody who hasn't tried doing any film processing at all:

Do you have to keep the tanks continuously dipped in the water bath (I guess that would be the key to maintaining the proper temp)? If so, how do you do the agitation of the tank (especially those that use mechanical rollers)?

Sorry, I'm truly "in the darkroom" on this!

With hand agitated tanks, I keep them in the water bath between agitation cycles, and that seems to be good enough. Some of the Jobo tanks have built in thermostatic heater control. Never having used one, I don't know if it actually keeps the tank warm, but it does pre-heat the chemistry. There are other roller bases that have no heaters and I suspect that heat loss would be significant during the development cycle.

 

[lomomagix]

With hand agitated tanks, I keep them in the water bath between agitation cycles, and that seems to be good enough. Some of the Jobo tanks have built in thermostatic heater control. Never having used one, I don't know if it actually keeps the tank warm, but it does pre-heat the chemistry. There are other roller bases that have no heaters and I suspect that heat loss would be significant during the development cycle.

Oh! So it's not a continuous agitation thing! Well, like I told you, I'm totally ignorant on these. I wonder if there's a roller base that works while submerged in water (even second hand Jobo CPE-2 units seem to be out of my reach).

 

[nickandre]

I've been doing color for a while with hand tank in water bath. I prefer C41 because it takes me 1/4 of the time of E6, though I love the look of a fresh 120 velvia slide. I don't think you need a machine to process your film. It's not that hard. You just need a temperature control device (aka the sink) and keep the air out of the bottles. Replenishment can help extend the life of your chemistry if you top the bottles off with replenisher when you finish processing. I'm not sure but I believe excess agitation causes color shift because of increase in relative development of the outermost layer of emulsion, which would be the yellow one. It's a first 30 seconds and four lifts every 30 seconds to follow. I find that there is about 1.5 degrees farenheit of loss in between the bath and the tank, so I temper to 101.5ish. Especially with negative film it's not that critical a degree or so either way. I don't notice a difference, maybe I'm ignorant. I had crossover once when I used a thermometer that was 10 degrees off...that was ugly.

To get them to dry flat use a heavy clothespin when hanging. Don't try to take it down early. Wait till you're sure it's dry, a little extra time can't hurt.