ORWO 5166/Agfa CN17 details

Yes, sorry. I'm still thinking reversal.

It is hard to tell, due to any changes that may have been introduced by the scanner. And, sincd CD1 is more reactive than CD4, this could be the fog introduced by a long time in an underactive developer. I really cannot tell but the image looks low in contrast and foggy. If the original negative was low in density overall and foggy, then the color developer was too inactive, but if it is dense and foggy, then the developer or time were too much.

Can you scan as a negative with no changes whatsoever?

PE

When I set VueScan's "color balance" option to "none," the image is completely black. The best I can do to show you the nature of the image is this photo, which was taken with my digital camera, holding the negative against a window. This is blurry and you can see shadows of trees within the negative area, but you can also see where the frame boundary is, as well as a hint of the image -- you can just make out the tree line that's clearly visible in the scan.

Descriptively, the negatives are darker than normal C-41 negatives, but they aren't completely black. I don't know how dark the base for this film was supposed to be, but assuming no darker than most C-41 films, there's substantial fogging going on. That could be age-related, though -- remember that this film is 16 years past date. The image density above that fog or color mask is very low. I don't have a densitometer, but I'd guess that the darkest parts of the negatives aren't as dense as the darkest parts of a C-41 negative with a good range of brightness recorded.

This particular frame was developed in NCF-41. This produced better results than the Svema formula with CD-4 substituted for CD-1. (I doubled the amount of CD-4 vs. what the formula specified for CD-1. This resulted in a developer with an amount of CD-4 that's similar to the amount of CD-4 in the conventional C-41 developer formulas that are available on the Internet -- 4.6 g/l of CD-4, to be precise.)

I'm thinking of trying a bleach-bypass process. My reasoning is that this might give a relatively good B&W image with just a hint of color.

Looks like total fog to me.

With bleach bypass you will leave in the CLS yellow silver layer and the image will have an added overall yellow cast. It might work though. You might also try D-76 for about 10 minutes at 68 in a normal B&W process to see what the fog level is. If it looks better than the color image, something is wrong with the color developer or the time/temp combination.

PE

I’m quite puzzled by the title of this thread:

Orwo 5166 is a CN process which first showed up in 1973 when even Orwo had films with integrated mask

Agfa CN 17 is a CN film, much older and unmasked btw…

Yes, CN film is negative, unmasked and very soft. It used a very old process that ORWO used after the war and then was taken over by the Soviet film companies. It was processed at 68 - 75 deg F. I have quite a few rolls of it that I used in the 50s and 60s.

PE

I created and titled the thread when I was still learning what the process was. The film is Svema CND64, which uses a process very similar to ORWO 5166. Whether "CN17" applies to the film or the process is a subtlety that eluded me when I created the thread, and that frankly I don't really care about at this point. I've got film. I've got formulas. They aren't working too well.

FWIW, I got the idea of putting a snip of leftover leader through fixer without developing it first. I dunked it for seven minutes in the sodium thiosulfate fixer formula I've got. The film snip is still hanging to dry, but the density seems pretty similar to that of the fully processed film. The color's a bit grayer -- the fully processed film has a bit of a magenta cast to it. This suggests to me that the film is supposed to be that dark, at least to my limited understanding -- wouldn't even fogged film clear when dunked in fixer without processing? Some other very old and badly fogged film I've got certainly clears very nicely when fixed without developing. Or might there be some age-related change that could darken the base independently of emulsion darkening effects of age?

I think I'll try another test roll, doing half in a B&W developer and the other half in bleach bypass. It may be a few more days before I get around to that, though....

Just fixing the film will leave the CLS yellow filter layer. It will have a yellow cast.

PE

So the bleach should get rid of that CLS filter layer? The strip I fixed without processing is definitely more gray than yellow, but it's not dry yet. Would Kodak C-41 bleach get rid of this layer, or would a potassium fericyanide fixer be required to do that job? I ask because I used the Kodak bleach for the half of the roll I did with NCF-41, but a potassium fericyanide bleach (with an accidental omission of dipotassium phosphate, as noted earlier) with the other half. Both look similar in terms of base color.

I'll try running my snip through bleach and then fix it again to see if it clears further....

Any bleach will get rid of all silver and should leave clear film after fixation. If you use ferricyanide, there should be a clear and wash afterwards before fixing. In fact, if you use it in a color process, a clear and wash should be used both before and after a ferricyanide bleach.

PE

I've run my pre-fixed film snip through Kodak's C-41 bleach and it cleared from a foggy gray to a pale yellow color in under two minutes, so it's looking like the processed film is indeed very badly fogged. Oh, well. I knew it was a long shot that it'd be usable for anything when I bought it....

FWIW, I've run another test roll. Bleach-bypass was a complete bust; there was no visible image (the film was dark) and even my scanner couldn't pull anything off of it. Bleaching and re-fixing produced rather poor images.

I did have more success, though, by adding a boatload of benzotriazole to the Svema developer formula. ("A boatload" is a highly precise term meaning 5ml of a 1% solution.) The results were much better -- obviously no competition for current films, but more along the lines of what I was hoping to get. Here's a sample shot. Visually, the negatives are thin, with an overall yellowish-orange mask or cast. I'm thinking of extending the development time, cutting the benzotriazole in half, and/or increasing the amount of CD-4 I've used. (I used 4.6g of CD-4, vs. the 2.3g of CD-1 called for in the original formula, so I was thinking of going up to 6-8g of CD-4.) Any thoughts?

As you go up in developing agent, the pH may drop!

Color developers are usually sold as acid salts. So, make sure that pH stays constant or you might actually decrease activity.

PE

Thanks for the tip, PE.