Reports of (Colour) Kodachrome Home Processing Emerge from Sydney

[DREW WILEY]

Current Fuji chrome films pull very poorly. Seems they've used up all their latitude for the sake of fine grain and saturation, though I'm certainly the wrong person to explain why. The older Provia II pulled nicely, though crossover was inevitabe if it was taken too far.

 

[Rudeofus]

Drew, Stone didn't pull that film, this is done by changing FD times and generally gives you darker and less contrasty slides. Stone did incomplete CD, which gave him brighter and less contrasty slides. His reports of brownish shades indicate, that shortening CD does not underdevelop all three layers in sync. He may have more luck if he added some Acetic Acid to his CD and kept CD times the same. It looks like there is a lot of testing involved before one gets this right.

 

[Roger Cole]

It also isn't going to work for C41 which has a single development step, and color neg is where I really want some control over this. It's true that the available E6 films lean more toward high saturation and in C41 we do at least have Portra, but where I'd really want pastel saturation occasionally would be for printing and since that can really only be done from E6 by hybrid methods now (sure, you can make internegs and that might work with this but it's a much more involved process with a lot more to work out) and hybrid allows you to do whatever you want with saturation.

 

[Lachlan Young]

It also isn't going to work for C41 which has a single development step, and color neg is where I really want some control over this. It's true that the available E6 films lean more toward high saturation and in C41 we do at least have Portra, but where I'd really want pastel saturation occasionally would be for printing and since that can really only be done from E6 by hybrid methods now (sure, you can make internegs and that might work with this but it's a much more involved process with a lot more to work out) and hybrid allows you to do whatever you want with saturation.

Bleach bypass (or diluted bleach) in a jobo system will certainly give you desaturated colour - how it'll print on RA4 is anyone's guess...

I must admit I've never found myself wanting less saturation on analogue optical RA4 prints - sometimes the opposite!

E6 is like a caffeine & sugar hit, C41 on RA4 is much more subtle & holds the shadows!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Roger - you need to invest in a registration punch and frame. Contrast masking up or down is the way to go with color neg films. It's easy enough
after sufficient practice. No need to scan and manipulate digitally. But there's virtually nothing on it in print, like there was at one time for chrome
films. Other than the equipment needed, the specifics are quite different and a lot more subtle, and one needs to learn the real interrelation between contrast and saturation. The Fauxtoshop crowd tends to confuse saturation with sheer noise - turning up the volume till people can't
even discern the notes.

 

[Roger Cole]

Bleach bypass (or diluted bleach) in a jobo system will certainly give you desaturated colour - how it'll print on RA4 is anyone's guess...

I must admit I've never found myself wanting less saturation on analogue optical RA4 prints - sometimes the opposite!

E6 is like a caffeine & sugar hit, C41 on RA4 is much more subtle & holds the shadows!

Sometimes I want more too - I shot a good deal of Agfa Ultra 50 back in the day. What a film - if you wanted saturated, it was teh_bomb. Like a C41 version of Velvia in that regard, maybe more so.

But I tend to be a bit contrarian and I've grown tired of all the over saturated Velvia I've seen, so the appeal of a pastel looking rendering, think of it as something like color pictorialism, maybe including the soft focus, seems like it would be fun to play with. Not for everything or even most things, but fun to play with.

And thanks Drew, I might - right now it's hypothetical as I'm not getting back into optical color printing until I get plumbing in the darkroom - well get the darkroom built and moved out of the basement bedroom. That won't be sooner than spring. I hope there are still C41 and RA4 film, paper and chemicals.

 

[Lachlan Young]

Roger - you need to invest in a registration punch and frame. Contrast masking up or down is the way to go with color neg films. It's easy enough
after sufficient practice. No need to scan and manipulate digitally. But there's virtually nothing on it in print, like there was at one time for chrome
films. Other than the equipment needed, the specifics are quite different and a lot more subtle, and one needs to learn the real interrelation between contrast and saturation. The Fauxtoshop crowd tends to confuse saturation with sheer noise - turning up the volume till people can't
even discern the notes.

Any particular recommendations for register systems? I'm aware of the Kodak system & the Inglis system - any others?

 

[StoneNYC]

Drew, Stone didn't pull that film, this is done by changing FD times and generally gives you darker and less contrasty slides. Stone did incomplete CD, which gave him brighter and less contrasty slides. His reports of brownish shades indicate, that shortening CD does not underdevelop all three layers in sync. He may have more luck if he added some Acetic Acid to his CD and kept CD times the same. It looks like there is a lot of testing involved before one gets this right.

Thank you for clarifying. Appreciate that. However although this look is not "correct" nor is it "accurate" I personally like the look of the low brow- blacks and I would not really want to do a lot of work to add acetic acid etc. because I like the way this came out. However it's very good to know that using that may help to bring back the contrast a little bit while giving me a lower saturation point if I ever needed to create an image like that, so thank you for sharing the knowledge.

 

[DREW WILEY]

The leading mfg for registration gear for camera film was Condit, but it's getting difficult to find complete matched sets anymore, though once in awhile they do come up if you're patient. Durst had their own system, but it's even harder to find in good condition. If a person has some basic machine shop skills and access to a precision drill press or milling machine (not the kind of thing you buy at Sears), you could make your own gear or refurbish older equip. In terms of new stuff, Inglis and Radeka (sp?) have a limited amount up to 4x5, but I'm not personally familiar with it. It's easy to get punch and register gear for larger sizes of film, either used, or still in mfg from outfits like Olec-Stoesser and Ternes-Burton, but this is really matched to big sheet goods, like used in the printing industry or for large contact prints. Registering film by
eye over a lightbox can be done for the basic learning curve; but too much of that and you'll go insane.

 

[Lachlan Young]

The leading mfg for registration gear for camera film was Condit, but it's getting difficult to find complete matched sets anymore, though once in awhile they do come up if you're patient. Durst had their own system, but it's even harder to find in good condition. If a person has some basic machine shop skills and access to a precision drill press or milling machine (not the kind of thing you buy at Sears), you could make your own gear or refurbish older equip. In terms of new stuff, Inglis and Radeka (sp?) have a limited amount up to 4x5, but I'm not personally familiar with it. It's easy to get punch and register gear for larger sizes of film, either used, or still in mfg from outfits like Olec-Stoesser and Ternes-Burton, but this is really matched to big sheet goods, like used in the printing industry or for large contact prints. Registering film by
eye over a lightbox can be done for the basic learning curve; but too much of that and you'll go insane.

Cheers for that, I'd forgotten about Condit - my original plan was to get a printing engineer I know to make the parts, though I might see what I can track down first & take it from there. This is all part of a longer term plan to have a shot at multi-colour carbon etc, though 4 colour gravure might come first.

 

[dmr]

Autochrome is more interesting to me, frankly.

I am totally fascinated with Autochrome, as I am with Kodachrome. What I find interesting is that although the process is well documented (as with Kodachrome as well) the skill necessary to reproduce it using current methods and materials, has never really been done. (Sound familiar?)