Problem with First Developer, E-6, request for information

Dear friends,
after I while I did not develop I begun today working my fridge stack of E-6 film.
I use the Ornano 6-bath kit.
I have a problem: the First Developer is gone, gone, gone, gone . Probably the lid did not close well, or I did some other stupid thing.
All the rest seems of the kit seems to be fine, but now I doubt about the colour developer.

The first roll came entirely black.
The second roll is already in the tank and cannot be returned to the fridge.
All the other rolls are already back in the fridge.

I understand that I need an E-6 first developer and maybe an E-6 colour developer and that more or less they should all be interchangeable among kits (keeping in mind that I use a "stabilizer" and my slides will have their fair share of formalin in any case).

I understand that at the moment in Europe the only E-6 6-bath chemistry one can easily find in small quantities is Fuji Hunt. Sadly, I can only see "kits" to be on sale.

I have some questions:

1) Do you know any shop in the European Union which will sell the single components of the Fuji Hunt E-6 6-bath kit?

1 bis) As an equally acceptable alternative, do you know any shop in the European Union which will sell the single components of E-6 Kodak chemistry, CPAC, Trebla, Ornano, whatever?

The second question is the most interesting though. I cross some threads where it is hinted to DIY E-6 chemicals. I've never seen the "recipes" though. I thought "Photographic formulary" was actually a site with formulae but it appears it is a shop.

The second question is divided into 2 questions:

2) Can anybody point me to a site or a thread with a "recipe" for the First Developer of E-6, and maybe the Colour Developer? (Did not find on APUG).

2 bis) If such a recipe exists and if it is possible to prepare the baths at home, are they exactly equivalent, for quality, to the commercial ones? If I have to compromise with quality, I'd rather buy another kit.

I'm getting a bit sad as it seems that at the moment only the Tetenal 3-bath kit is widely available at every shop. I would prefer to stick to a 6-bath process. If I had to buy a 6-bath kit now, I would have to buy it in the UK which would make shipping costly and possibly problematic.

Additional question:

3) do you know anybody selling an E-6 6-bath kit in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland or Austria?

Thanks for any information
Fabrizio

You can try a Company in England called MORCO. (www.Morco.co.uk) They are listing separate Kodak chemicals for E6. 1st developer Colour developer Bleach and fixer etc etc.

You can buy 1 litre kits of E6 chemicals (3 bath) which will process up to 12 films. (35mm) However I should point out that at the present time I am in dispute with the company over a poorly printed set of instructions. I am sure the kits work but the method.times and temperatures are suspect. Morco also sell them.

If the roll is black, it means your colour developer is good, but your first developer is not working.

Kodak first dev+starter is pretty cheap and can get a 10L concentrate that is simple to mix up.

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Thanks, very helpful.

@athirill

Thanks for the link to the recipes. I hoped it was easier. I am a bit worried about buying so many different components and weighting them to half gram, then having to adjust pH. I hoped it was a bit like preparing a cocktail. I think I'll go for a ready-made solution.

@BMbikerider

Thanks for the information. The site is actually www.morco.uk.com (morco.uk.co sells kitchenware).
They have a "special offer".
http://www.morco.uk.com/kodak_e6.htm

I am going to ask them if they can send to Italy.

In the meanwhile, please tell me what to do with the starter-replenisher dilemma. I use the chemistry "one-shot" with my Jobo (actually "two-shots" as I immediately reuse once). I remember I only need one of those, which IIRC should be the "replenisher", but I am not sure.

Should I just buy the replenisher, or should I buy both and mix the two?

@anyone else
Please keep the information coming The problem might not be solved yet.

Thanks for the help
Fabrizio

PS the roll came out completely black. That should point out that the colour developer is fine. Is there a way to test it to be sure? I don't have a first developer at the moment therefore I cannot develop a test roll.

My colour developer has two components to be mixed. The first bottle contains "p-phenylendiamine derivative" the second bottle contains potassium hydroxide. Is this two-component composition safe as far as oxidation is concerned?
They both look "pretty", limpid and clear.

The first developer looked opaque when undiluted so can I just trust my colour developer from mere visual inspection?

If you want to verify whether your CD does more than create black dyes, you could make a test where you substitute b&w developer for the E6 FD. Add 2 ml/l rapid fixer (thiocyanate would be better if you have it) to the b&w developer. After this dev and a stop bath you can look at the slides in normal room light and should see a b&w negative image, use this to find working dev times. If you then continue and finish the E6 process, you should see some color image, albeit with off colors and possibly some color crossover (we're not using the correct FD after all). If you get this result, you at least know that your CD and your BLIX work.

Diapositivo said:

Thanks, very helpful.

@athirill

Thanks for the link to the recipes. I hoped it was easier. I am a bit worried about buying so many different components and weighting them to half gram, then having to adjust pH. I hoped it was a bit like preparing a cocktail. I think I'll go for a ready-made solution.

@BMbikerider

Thanks for the information. The site is actually www.morco.uk.com (morco.uk.co sells kitchenware).
They have a "special offer".
http://www.morco.uk.com/kodak_e6.htm

I am going to ask them if they can send to Italy.

In the meanwhile, please tell me what to do with the starter-replenisher dilemma. I use the chemistry "one-shot" with my Jobo (actually "two-shots" as I immediately reuse once). I remember I only need one of those, which IIRC should be the "replenisher", but I am not sure.

Should I just buy the replenisher, or should I buy both and mix the two?

@anyone else
Please keep the information coming The problem might not be solved yet.

Thanks for the help
Fabrizio

PS the roll came out completely black. That should point out that the colour developer is fine. Is there a way to test it to be sure? I don't have a first developer at the moment therefore I cannot develop a test roll.

My colour developer has two components to be mixed. The first bottle contains "p-phenylendiamine derivative" the second bottle contains potassium hydroxide. Is this two-component composition safe as far as oxidation is concerned?
They both look "pretty", limpid and clear.

The first developer looked opaque when undiluted so can I just trust my colour developer from mere visual inspection?

Click to expand...

I've made a "supermarket" E-6 First Dev before with great results.

I used Sodium Carbonate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Hydroxide, Ascorbic Acid, Paracetamol, and Sodium Metabisulphite (which I used to make Sulphite, though its simpler to start with Sulphite, which is also easy to obtain, for the purpose, I wanted everything from the supermarket as much as possible), and sodium thiosulphate can be used from pool shops for the solvent instead of thiocyanate, but I had thiocyanate on hand and used that, though one could possibly use a little fixer too.

Though it requires testing and adjustment of course, I don't have starting points on me, since I just use Kodak First Dev usually, and just add additives to it, if I need to increase contrast and restrain for old base fogged E-6 film, and still pH range is still necessary for the nicest results.

ATC pH meters are not expensive these days. and 200g 0.01g scales are also inexpensive, and accurate enough for our purposes.

Trying the colour developer by using a B&W developer is interesting to know. If I had some friend developing B&W or if I did B&W myself I would certainly do that. Unfortunately I don't do any B&W at the moment and have no B&W chemistry. Need to sell my house (plug: anybody interested in a house in Rome? Nice price, wonderful quarter) and take a house in countryside and install a proper darkroom. Then I will do B&W.

After careful consideration I decided that I'll certainly take the road of DIY with chemicals when the availability of ready made developer is over (hopefully never). At the moment I only need replacing the first developer and although I see that after all a good scale and a good pH meter would be affordable, I'll live the hassle to another occasion.

Before looking for places where to place an order the question remain to be answered: for "one-shot" rotative processing do I need only the "replenisher"? Or is it better if I buy both starter and replenisher and mix them each time?

For various reasons I have not year ordered a new E-6 kit, the only route, I gathered, which is available to me without too much hassle.
That's because mixing from ingredients would be a bit too much of a stress at the moment (I have "serious" rolls to process and would like to have a reliable chemical set without making experiments), and because it seems that first developer on his own is basically very difficult to get and I should also mix starter and replenisher every time

So a new kit will be the solution.

Today I was just browsing around APUG looking for information about cross-processing negative film to obtain transparencies.
I already knew that there is some strict relation between E-6 first developer and B&W developer (Rudeofus confirmed it to me in his post in this thread) but I found out today that the two are actually quite similar.

So before I order another kit I might as well ask this question: What about ordering some B&W developer in its stead?
What ingredients should I add to make a "proper" E-6 first developer out of it?
Would the result being equal to a "proper" E-6 first developer or is it a makeshift in any case?

If I managed to use B&W developer that would be fantastic as this is also available in powder or in concentrate which lasts for a long time (such as the Rodinal family) and that would free me from "oxydation anxiety"

I repeat I don't aim at any sort of cross-processing or weird effect. I would like to know if it is possible to have a "proper" E-6 first developer starting from B&W developer and adding maybe a couple ingredients, and if the results are "equal" to the real thing.

Diapositivo said:

I already knew that there is some strict relation between E-6 first developer and B&W developer (Rudeofus confirmed it to me in his post in this thread) but I found out today that the two are actually quite similar.

Click to expand...

STOOOOPPPP!!!!!

I mentioned that you can do some preliminary tests with B&W developer, but you should definitely not expect useful slides if you use it instead of E6 FD. And if you start adding all the ingredients to regular B&W developer to make it work for E6, you might as well start from scratch, you will have much higher chances of success that way.

If you look at B&W, most developers consists of the four typical compounds developer agent, alkali, restrainer and solvent. Sometimes one compound plays more than one role, and sometimes restrainer and/or solvent are left out. There is no need for balancing multiple emulsion layers, and a bit of over- or underdevelopment rarely hurts.

E6 on the other side is carefully composed to develop three color layers at matching speeds, it makes sure that you end up with the best possible Dmin and Dmax (and matched for three colors! ), and it does this well for all E6 films you throw at it.

If you really really feel like home brewing, I'd recommend start with Stefan's thread about his (there was a url link here which no longer exists). He gives us a glimpse into his work and should serve as warning to us that E6 home brew is no easy task if we want good results.

Ah, message taken, loud and clear.

I'll order a new E-6 kit on Wednesday, I presume.

I'll let the forum know about price, shipping, etc.

Thanks a lot
Fabrizio

If you use a normal B&W developer at normal times and temps you will get black slides due to developing a good neg, but what's left is not just the pos in silver halide, but pos+whole lot more silver halide. It took Xtol at 1+1, for 40 degrees celsius at 40 minutes to produce good dMin (essentially develop out all the silver halide in the highlights so that there is nothing much left that could create density in the highlights at the colour dev stage) with E-6

E-6 FD has high solvent activity from the thiocyanate, one can also use thiosulphate in a developer (though more of it than thiocyanate) to clear the highlights at more normal processing times etc.