Processing E6

Top-Cat · May 15, 2009

This is probably one of the most repeated threads, but as the search motor doesn't give any results while I search for E6, and the Articles section isn't too easy with finding any tutorial, I thought I'd just ask for one anyway.

So here I am, a rookie, only experienced with developing black and white film and who desperately needs to learn how to develop color film since lab prices skyrocketed because of the digital revolution.
The only kit available in Norway being the Kodak E6 kit 5L, with no information whatoever on the stores website, and kodaks website being rather messy as well. I thought I'd ask some of the basic questions here.

1. First of all, I need to know what they mean by "single use, all chemicals are expended together". From what I'm used to, working with rodinal, we mix chemicals according to how many films we want to develop, the kit says that it can develop up to 60 films. I'm hoping that single use doesn't mean that all sixty films have to be developed in one single use, I'm guessing that single use signifies that you can't use the same chemicals more than once. How true is this? I've read some place that color developer can be used several times, only that you need to add about 15 seconds each time you use it. And by single use, is that limited to the developer, or does that add to the blix, stop and fix as well? In B&W, we pour the developer onto a larger tank (which is probably thrown away to some recycling plant of sorts), and use the stop and fix over and over again.

2. The second question is: how do you regulate color temperature?
Color film seems to need a rather exact body temperature of 37.8 for the development bath, what's the most effective way of doing this?

3. Third is: what types of film can I use for this development method?
I shoot mainly with 35mm film, but I'm also interested in using 120 if I can get my hands on some kind of medium format camera.

4. And last: How do I do it? Is there any tutorial for how to develop using the E6 method, and maybe some information on how to enlarge/print images onto photo-sensitive paper?

tim_walls · May 15, 2009

1. No, you can part mix, although I find mixing much less than 500ml is a bit of a chore because you end up measuring stupidly small quantities of the concentrates (and I actually prefer to mix up 1l at a time.)

2. Water bath with heater is the easiest way - see the tutorial I knocked up at http://www.yarki.net/E6/ (it refers to one of the Tetenal 3-bath kits, but the principles are all the same)

3. Any sort, as long as you have an appropriate tank! The handy thing about 120 is it has roughly the same film area as 35mm, so the number-of-films calculations are the same for 120 or 35. You can typically do two 35mm films or two 120 films (back to back on one reel) for the same solution volume/same tank.

4. See my guide at http://www.yarki.net/E6/ - but look around on the net for far better!

tim_walls · May 15, 2009

Top-Cat said:
1. First of all, I need to know what they mean by "single use, all chemicals are expended together". From what I'm used to, working with rodinal, we mix chemicals according to how many films we want to develop, the kit says that it can develop up to 60 films. I'm hoping that single use doesn't mean that all sixty films have to be developed in one single use, I'm guessing that single use signifies that you can't use the same chemicals more than once. How true is this? I've read some place that color developer can be used several times, only that you need to add about 15 seconds each time you use it. And by single use, is that limited to the developer, or does that add to the blix, stop and fix as well? In B&W, we pour the developer onto a larger tank (which is probably thrown away to some recycling plant of sorts), and use the stop and fix over and over again.

I just noticed I didn't really reply to this fully.

I seem to recall the '60 films' is based on extending the development time after the first (x) films have been through the process.

The solution has a capacity in terms of square-feet-of-film-per-litre; you should theoretically be able to reuse the chemistry up to that capacity, and then you can eke more out of it by extending the development time, if I understand right.

If you're using a standard tank and inversion, you'll definitely want to reuse the chemistry at least once to get best value. In the back of my mind I've got about 120ml per roll of film as about the right solution volume; if you're using an inversion tank you'll probably need 480ml to cover both reels, so you should be able to develop 4 rolls (i.e. two lots of two, reusing the chemistry) before you need to start extending the development time.

I think the Kodak instruction sheets including suggestions on extending the time.

These days I rotary process, so it only needs about 250ml for a tank of two rolls anyway, so I use the chemistry truly one shot.

Those numbers are probably all completely wrong - I'm at work at the moment - but you get the idea I hope...

Top-Cat · May 15, 2009

Thanks a lot, I think that covered pretty much the essentials. The chemistry itself doesn't seem too impossible to get a hold of here, but the paper and paper chemistry seems somewhat more difficult, we have the enlarger at the darkroom I use, but they say color development is too expensive for some reason, sometimes I wish I had an education in chemistry rather than art history, it might make things a lot easier.

Top-Cat · May 15, 2009

I just noticed that E6 is a slide film process. Seems that C-41 is even harder to get a hold of, what are the results from cross processing negative film with the E6 method?
Are there any other good available negative color film processing chemicals?

tim_walls · May 15, 2009

Top-Cat said:
I just noticed that E6 is a slide film process. Seems that C-41 is even harder to get a hold of, what are the results from cross processing negative film with the E6 method?
Are there any other good available negative color film processing chemicals?

Cross processing C41 film in E6 produces 'interesting' results - you get slides basically, but with the added interest of odd colours and the orange mask. There are a couple of examples on my gallery here:

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

It's quite a nice effect when you want to do it, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it as a way to process colour film 'all the time' as it were.

I hardly ever shoot C41 so I'm not terribly experienced, but I've used the Fuji-Hunt Xpress C41 kits with no problems - they're much like the Kodak E6 kits with everything you need in one box and designed for 'single use'. The only caveat with the Fuji-Hunt kit is if I remember right one of the concentrates is a ridiculously small volume which means if you try to mix anything less than about a litre at a time you're going to need a syringe to measure the solutions out.

Top-Cat · May 15, 2009

It sounds like something I'd do since I'm mainly a digital enthusiast working with analog for alternative expressions. Though I think the other way around, processing slides with C-41 chemicals, seems far more interesting.
Any experience with cross processing color film with black and white chemistry?

srs5694 · May 15, 2009

Since you now say you're interested in C-41 rather than E-6, you may want to post another thread asking where to find C-41 chemicals in Norway. In the US, C-41 and E-6 seem about equally available from mail-order retailers, but I'm not very familiar with the market in Europe. I do know that people in Europe do their own C-41, so the chemicals are available. If nothing else, you could get friendly with some minilab operators in the hopes that they'll sell you some small quantities of their chemicals, or perhaps let you add an order for a small kit to their bigger order from their supplier.

Ian Grant · May 15, 2009

Tetenal chemistry should be available in Norway, they make excellent C41 chemistry. In the UK some photo dealers split up the C41 & RA-4 mini lab kits which are far more economic than the Amateur kits.

Ian

Iwagoshi · May 15, 2009

Top-Cat, you and I are almost on the same level wrt E-6 except I'm about a month ahead. I found a box of Kodak chemistry, 1-gallon kit, shipping label was dated 1999--what-the-heck let's see what this stuff will do. Spent about a month setting up (also converting to color from B/W, needed seven more storage bottles--it's a 7-chemical kit), and trying to figure out how to get a 6-step process into a 4-slot (slots for only 4 graduated cylinders) JOBO. Also I gleaned a ton of information from (there was a url link here which no longer exists) specifically on how to deal with all the required temp critical washing steps.

I just spent the week tweeking the process, did 7-rolls, with success on the 7th. Btw I also found and used a small cache of expired EPP (dated 1995) and Velvia (exp 2000), so the results are as, or better than, expected.

Top-Cat the E-6 information is out there, a good place to start is Kodak, I've linked the E-6 Tech pub.

Tim, I also found a bunch of Vericolor III (exp 1994), your x-process images (C-41 film to E-6) has inspired me.

PHOTOTONE · May 16, 2009

Just a quick observation, you made a comment on the difficulty and expense of printing color. I assume you mean the RA-4 process, which is quick and easy, can be done in trays at room temperature, or a tabletop processor, and is as easy to do as b/w prints if you have an enlarger with a color head. You will need to have color negatives to make RA-4 color prints. RA-4 prints are what most of the mini-labs produce. The chemistry should be widely available, however you may find it difficult to source in small quantity.

Top-Cat · May 18, 2009

PHOTOTONE said:
Just a quick observation, you made a comment on the difficulty and expense of printing color. I assume you mean the RA-4 process, which is quick and easy, can be done in trays at room temperature, or a tabletop processor, and is as easy to do as b/w prints if you have an enlarger with a color head. You will need to have color negatives to make RA-4 color prints. RA-4 prints are what most of the mini-labs produce. The chemistry should be widely available, however you may find it difficult to source in small quantity.

That's got to be the first good news I've had with working with color film in a long time. Thanks, maybe I should consider working with printing by myself while I let the professional lab do the processing.

srs5694 · May 18, 2009

If you're comfortable printing RA-4, processing C-41 will be easy. Of course, there's no reason you can't let a lab process film to negatives and then print them yourself, but printing RA-4 is the more difficult task. That's not to say that printing RA-4 is excruciatingly difficult; it's just that C-41 processing, compared to B&W negative processing, isn't much harder. RA-4 compared to B&W printing isn't any harder in terms of the chemical processes, but learning to get the color balance right can be a bit challenging, particularly if you start from negatives that are inconsistent (processed by different labs, shot under different lighting conditions, etc.). The easiest start to RA-4 would be to lock down as many variables as possible -- shoot the same film, process that film in the same way, use the same paper, use the same RA-4 chemicals, etc. That'll minimize the changes you need to get good color balance.

Tim Gray · May 18, 2009

I just found this tech bulletin on Kodak's website, which might be of interest to those doing C-41 and E-6 by hand (like I will be attempting soon)... Nothing ground breaking, but it's reassuring to see how instructions for how to do it by hand in print.

CIS-211

keithwms · May 18, 2009

Top-Cat said:
2. The second question is: how do you regulate color temperature? Color film seems to need a rather exact body temperature of 37.8 for the development bath, what's the most effective way of doing this?

I am recently new to c41 but I can tell you something I discovered that may benefit you in E6. There are *really* cheap food warming 'bains marie' on the bay. I got two APW Wyott Countertop Food Warmers, they are something like 12x20". Got them from this store and am very happy with them. You can put metal containers in there and get very stable temps. The ones I got don't have thermostats, just numbers, but a bit of experimentation and I am able to get down to a degree of stability per 15-20 minutes or so, mostly thanks to the large volume. Overall I think the bains that I bought were a bargain at $120 each... very inexpensive compared to the tempered baths that can cost a fortune.

Iwagoshi · May 18, 2009

*OT Alert*
Tim, I just tried the Vericolor in the E-6, 6:30 @ 38.2C, turned out veerry dark. What were your times?

Thanks.

Iwagoshi · May 19, 2009

Wrt Vericolor in E-6...nevermind, I totally screwed up:
"KODAK VERICOLOR Print Film is intended for producing positive transparencies from color negatives and internegatives for displays or photo mechanical reproduction."

2F/2F · May 19, 2009

When I have tried C-41 to E-6 cross processing, I have found that you need to increase exposure several stops, and/or push the film, and possibly use filtration.

tim_walls · May 19, 2009

I'm afraid I'm a couple of hundred miles from home so I can't go and dig up the negs or look at my notes, but as I recall I didn't adjust in camera exposure but did extend the time of the first developer; that said I seem to recall the 'slides' were rather thin so I may have overdone it.

When I've done it with no adjustments at all though I've wound up with very 'muddy' slides, so some adjustment is definitely necessary...

I've not put much science into it though. When I do cross processing it tends to mean I've got some E6 chemistry that's been on the shelf for a couple of weeks and I don't want to put any 'proper' photos through it!

Jayd · May 31, 2009

What about a E6 FAQ like were talking about for C41 ?
JayD

Jayd · May 31, 2009

Where to Buy E6 Chemicals In OH USA?

Where can one buy E6 chemicals in central Ohio USA ?
Jay

Processing E6

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