My local Photo Store/ Lab is willing to share some Fuji CN 16L Chemicals with me at a very reasonable cost.
Although these chemicals are intended for use with Mini Lab Processors, these are the processing times with their unit:
Developer: 3:15 minutes, which is standard.
Bleach: 1:00 minute
Fix: 2:00 minutes
I have the Tech sheet for the chemicals, mixing directions for the above processing times.
The chemicals must be super concentrated to Bleach & Fix in a minute & 2 minutes for each step.
I am thinking of diluting the Bleach & Fix with 4X more water in order to be able to
Bleach & Fix for 6 minutes since I cannot change the processing times on the Phototherm.
Would this idea make sense to anyone?
I am not worried about the Bleach since you can't over Bleach a negative within a reasonable time.
The Fix is really the only issue, over fixing will affect the contrast & density of the negative.
No it practically won't. It can happen with B&W film (though many believe that this is often exaggerated; I doubt you couldn't see that at just 3x overfixing), but color is completely different with no such mechanism.
On the other hand, I'm not too sure which additional chemicals those quick "Rapid Access" processing chemicals have (it's not just higher concentration!), so I can't say for sure about how they react with film if bleached or fixed for too long.
The Bleach is 667 ml Bleach to 333 ml Water for the mixing formula to every Liter of working solution which seems as a normal ratio mix for Bleach.
There must be something added for the Bleach to speed up the process as mentioned.
The Fix however is different, for the the Mini Lab process the film travels through 2 Fix Tanks at a minute each.
The 1st Fix Tank's mixing formula is 385 ml Fix to 557 ml Water & 38 ml Bleach for 1 Liter of working solution.
The second Tank's mixing formula is 333 ml Fix to 667 ml Water for 1 Liter of working solution.
I could try a test, I would only have one Fixer Step 333 ml Fix 677 Water.
The Bleach step is 6 minutes, I do not see any point adding Bleach to the Fix, the Fixer step is also 6 minutes should fix the film.
I appreciate the positive opinion, hrst, Thanks
I found something else in the Fuji Tech sheets, the First Fix Tank contains Bleach for the Mini Lab process described as: with Aeration.
Perhaps this is just one part other actions, as the transport of the film, which helps the film Bleach & Fix with shorter times.
In a Rotary Processor the: with Aeration is omitted.