Processing old colour movie film in B&W process - Removal of remjet

pentaxuser · Mar 11, 2016

I did a bit of research into this but couldn't find anything here on what was required to remove remjet when developing as B&W. I have been advised to remove the remjet with a cellulose sponge. There appears to be a way of removing remjet with baking soda but as this is alkaline like B&W fixer would the fixer soften the remjet sufficiently so that enough rinsing would remove it without a danger of the particles sticking to the emulsion side

Any help is appreciated

pentaxuser

Rudeofus · Mar 12, 2016

pentaxuser said:
I did a bit of research into this but couldn't find anything here on what was required to remove remjet when developing as B&W.

You did not specify what kind of film stock you want to use, but let's assume for a second that you meant Kodak ECN-2 movie stock. There are complete procedural instructions including remjet removal and chemical composition of all bathes published here.

pentaxuser said:
I have been advised to remove the remjet with a cellulose sponge. There appears to be a way of removing remjet with baking soda but as this is alkaline like B&W fixer would the fixer soften the remjet sufficiently so that enough rinsing would remove it without a danger of the particles sticking to the emulsion side

There are very few alkaline B&W fixer products out there, are you sure you fixer is one of them? And why would you want to use fixer in the first step? If you don't remove remjet as a first step, developer as first alkaline liquid to meet your film will remove it, and the remjet particles created will interfere with even development.

Ko.Fe. · Mar 12, 2016

In 2015 I did several rolls of very old Kodak 50D and not so old Fuji 250D in BW developer, stop bath and fixer. Even printed from it once.
I don't remember to do anything special. If I remember correct, HC-110 took care of. If some remjet still remains after fixing and washing it is removable under tap water by fingers or after film is dry, with cleaning tissue. Like glasses cleaning tissue, by running film through this cloth.
And just do not expect color cinema film to be as good as bw film. It is sharp, but murky.

pentaxuser · Mar 12, 2016

Thanks for the two replies. Rudeofus, I am looking to develop an old colour, likely to be movie film, whose colour process I may not be able to ascertain( I won't go into the reasons why - its complicated) in B&W developer, water stop or acid stop and fixer. I appreciate the point about very few alkaline fixers being available.

It would seem that short of removing the remjet first in total darkness I may run into problems although Ko.Fe. seems to have managed it and then removed the remjet under water after fixing with no special ingredients.

I had heard something about the use of baking soda. Presumably the way this might work if it has to be the first process and carried out in total darkness is to load the film into a tank, treat with baking soda, flush until clear then proceed with normal B&W process?

I am hoping to keep things as simple as possible.

The film is not mine but there may be negatives there that have a lot of emotional attachment for the wife of the deceased owner.

Anyone else tried B&W processing with old colour film?

pentaxuser

Rudeofus · Mar 12, 2016

I have no personal experience with this, but from what I read, that remjet needs some mechanical scrubbing to come off entirely. Baking soda is a very mild alkali, which will not hurt you if you touch it or immerse your hands in a water bath with baking soda in it. Also, when film is very wet, it is reasonably easy to get onto a dev tank spindle.

Therefore I'd recommend that you prepare a baking soda bath, and then in complete darkness immerse the film, scrub off the remjet, then put your film onto the spindle for development.

One thing that may work against you is a potential silver based filter layer inside your film (see e.g. (there was a url link here which no longer exists), C41&E6 have the same thing). While this would go away in a regular color process during bleach and fix steps, with B&W processing your final image is silver itself, so you can't bleach at will. Also note that some older incarnations of color film were extremely sensitive to gelatin swelling, so you may want to be careful with overly alkaline process bathes.

Try to find out what kind of film stock you really have here. There are some folks here on APUG which may know more about these old products and processes, and once we learn the correct process for this film, we may either infer things to consider when processing it as B&W film, or we may be able to scratch together the correct chemistry to create proper color images.

Prof_Pixel · Mar 12, 2016

You might want to check out this thread as well: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Rudeofus · Mar 12, 2016

Prof_Pixel said:
You might want to check out this thread as well: (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

The first article link in this thread is dead, but the article can be found on archive.org

The thread finally leads to (there was a url link here which no longer exists), which makes a very interesting suggestion: develop color film as B&W slides, thereby eliminating all problems with silver based filter and antihalation layers.

Prof_Pixel · Mar 12, 2016

Sorry. I had meant to make that comment in another thread that was discussing Carey Lea silver. I'm not sure how it ended up in this thread.

georgegrosu · Mar 14, 2016

When I proces cine color negative, before developing remove the graphite dorsal .
Introduce the spiral with film in a solution of sodium carbonate ~ 20 g / l for 2-3 min. at ~ 35 C.
Out film from spiral and delete it by hand to remove particles of graphite.
Deleting do under running water in the sink.
All graphite particles go to the channel.
Introduces the film in spiral and wash it a few minutes at ~ 35 C.
After that make the color processing.
Graphite particles that remain in developing dose have a tendency to stick on the emulsion.

Recipe for Prebath in ECN 2 proces is designed to soften the dorsal layer of graphite.
http://motion.kodak.com/KodakGCG/uploadedfiles/motion/h2407.pdf
Various mechanical systems for remove graphite backing layer under running water.
When manually remove graphite backing layer prebaia must be more active and have everything well when you start erasing graphite dipped.
Manual control can not process like a machine for processing film.

It would be good to take a small sample with black and white process and color negative process (C 41).
You can make a film sample on other cine negativ color, if you do not have the negative of the film in question.

George

fdonadio · Mar 14, 2016

georgegrosu said:
Out film from spiral and delete it by hand to remove particles of graphite.
Deleting do under running water in the sink.
All graphite particles go to the channel.
Introduces the film in spiral and wash it a few minutes at ~ 35 C.
After that make the color processing.

George,

What kind of spiral and film length are you talking about? Are you talking about cinema lengths (in excess of 50 feet) and Lomo spirals/tanks?

I am thinking about buying a Lomo tank to develop ECN-2 in Super-8 format. If it's possible to roll wet film in those spirals easily, I'll go for it on a heartbeat!

Cheers,
Flavio

georgegrosu · Mar 15, 2016

Flavio, sorry about the confusion.
I refered to negative color photo (~ 1.5 m).
I use a Krokus dose of 2 l a solution for processing film.
1.5 m is the maximum length of film that you can manipulate to some safe dose for processing.
The danger to scratch the film is high.
In connection with the tank for super 8 mm, I developed some old Soviet film.
The spiral is upload for my buddy which brought film.
The film came with some areas (small) glued.
I knew about these problems with the films 16 and 2 x 8 mm amateur who from many years agou.
That's why I put on him to load spiral.
I do not like to work and out something not quality.

George

fdonadio · Mar 15, 2016

georgegrosu said:
I refered to negative color photo (~ 1.5 m).

Thanks a lot, George, for the clarification. I already work with 35mm cine film in still lengths (1.5m) and it's not hard to respool wet film in stainless steel reels.

Flavio

Oxleyroad · Mar 15, 2016

I regularly process ECN2 film in 10' to 100' lengths, either black and white negative or positive. I use a couple of teaspoons of borax in 2 liters of water, agitate film in this solution for about 4mins, I then process with the washes being very vigorous. The last wash is where I take the film off the spiral and sponge down before hanging up to dry.

When projected on the screen there is no obvious damage or residue from my crude methods of processing. I can't comment on the archival qualities as my oldest film is only 5 years old.

fdonadio · Mar 15, 2016

Oxleyroad said:
I regularly process ECN2 film in 10' to 100' lengths, either black and white negative or positive. I use a couple of teaspoons of borax in 2 liters of water, agitate film in this solution for about 4mins, I then process with the washes being very vigorous. The last wash is where I take the film off the spiral and sponge down before hanging up to dry.

Oxleyroad,

Do you use a Lomo tank or other kind of developing tank?

TIA,

Flavio

Oxleyroad · Mar 15, 2016

I use a lomo tank that will take up to 100' as two 50' lengths of 16mm film. The shorter lengths up to 20' are done on several Jobo spiral reels.

For 35mm cine film I use the lomo tank for anything above 10'.

fdonadio · Mar 16, 2016

Oxleyroad said:
I use a lomo tank that will take up to 100' as two 50' lengths of 16mm film.

Thanks again. It's crystal clear now.

Kodak's formula for the ECN-2 prebath uses borax, sodium sulfate and sodium hydroxide. That's what I'll be using, although they suggest sodium bicarbonate as an alternative that looks easier to me. The 10-second prebath seems too short and you don't seem to have any problems with a 4-minute time, so I'll stick with your procedure.

From what I gather, I could process up to 200 feet of Super-8 film without replenishment (or so little that it won't matter), but I'm double-checking that. Kodak suggests filtering developer with a bleached cotton element and i believe that will keep a lot of rem-jet away from the film.

Now, I just need a Lomo tank!

Flavio

Oxleyroad · Mar 16, 2016

When I return my chemistry to their respective bottles I filter through Cotten wool pushed into the stem of a funnel.

georgegrosu · Mar 16, 2016

I think not reuse and prebath.
It is so cheap is not worth the risk.
Use a fresh prebath.

George

fdonadio · Mar 16, 2016

georgegrosu said:
I think not reuse and prebath.
It is so cheap is not worth the risk.
Use a fresh prebath.

For sure! But the developer is not so cheap and can be reused. I am taking a look at the bleach and fix to see if those can be reused too.

Flavio

(Edit: accidentally clicked on "post" too early!)

georgegrosu · Mar 16, 2016

Flavio, the contamination is highest in prebath.
In developer can reach something graphite.
A filter helps clean the developer of impurities.
As after each phase follows a washing, bleaching contamination is small and fixer.
Reuse of solution is demanding on each of us.

George

fdonadio · Mar 16, 2016

georgegrosu said:
Flavio, the contamination is highest in prebath.
In developer can reach something graphite.
A filter helps clean the developer of impurities.
As after each phase follows a washing, bleaching contamination is small and fixer.

For sure, George! Contamination risks are smaller after every wash.

Kodak advises to use filtration with all chemistry (including prebath, which I will be using one-shot), so there are no drawbacks, except for the extra work before storing the chemistry.

The extra work will benefit my wallet and the environment, I hope.

Flavio

Processing old colour movie film in B&W process - Removal of remjet

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency