Room temperature stand development -- for C-41?!

[Donald Qualls]

I just ran across this video showing stand development; not exactly new to me -- but the YouTuber then does the same process with a C-41 kit (a low-temperature version, apparently made for 25C if i caught that correctly) and a roll of Gold 200. Just to make sure this is clear -- at room temperature with zero agitation after the first 30 seconds, and a 45 minute stand time. He then bleaches with the same timing: agitate first 30 seconds, then stand for 45 minutes. Still at room temp. Fixing requires standard agitation, but it's still at room temp, along with wash and final rinse.

His scans look decent -- not professional quality, but I don't know how he exposed, whether his film was fresh, or how he scans the results for presentation within a video.

Anyone tried this? It's clearly not going to stretch my chemicals or make my film better, and I won't save any time dry to dry (since my tempering bath time is about the same as his stand time for two baths), but not having to preheat, and being able to do something else while the developer and bleach baths stand could be convenient on a busy day.

Yes, I know, "don't bother to experiment, everything is already known." Those of you who can only seem to make that comment might as well just bypass this thread. I'm interested in whether anyone has actually tried this and what the results look like with a decent scan, using fresh film.

 

[pentaxuser]

Donald, I'll hazard a guess that no-one here has attempted what you describe. If the video demonstrated it worked then the most you have to lose is one film.
Give it a go. If it works fine, just be prepared for the comments that hint or even state that "you appear to have been lucky this time but it won't last"

I'd certainly be interested in the result

pentaxuser

 

[grat]

If you've still got to do standard agitation for fix and rinse, I'm not sure how it really helps. For me, I get my chemicals together, put them in the water bath, and raise to appropriate temperature-- wait for half an hour for it to equalize inside the bottles (including a bottle of filtered water for rinses), and develop.

I have nothing against the concept, or the experimenting, but I'm not convinced there's a payoff. Can I get more life out of C41? Then that might be a reason. Do I get more consistent results? Well, so far, I'm getting pretty consistent results out of C41 as well.

 

[Athiril]

Yeah years ago. Low temperature C-41 is generally awful when simply adjusting time. Except for stand development. That worked reasonably well. I can’t remember exactly what dilution, it might have been 1+9 for an hour, though I would have done semi stand. I had a highly concentrated CD-2 based developer I used on C-41 film at room temp including stand dev as well iirc.

Though even in normal colour processing, bleach and fix and other steps had no ill effect ran at room temperature when dev was 38c and right time etc.

 

[pentaxuser]

Donald I just had a look at the video and could understand all of it until last shot where the caption says:

Regular B&W 15.5 mins Stand 5.5 mins
Regular Color 24 mins Stand 10 mins

I couldn't relate this caption to anything he had said about his process timings. Were you able to make sense of these times in the captions?

Thanks

pentaxuser

 

[pentaxuser]

I have nothing against the concept, or the experimenting, but I'm not convinced there's a payoff. .

3 things spring to mind:
1) having a nap
2) Opening a bottle of Prosecco
3) Watching an episode of Seinfeld.


pentaxuser

 

[grat]

I can do all that while waiting for the chemicals to warm up.

... and I don't consider watching Seinfeld a plus, but that's just me.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Donald I just had a look at the video and could understand all of it until last shot where the caption says:

Regular B&W 15.5 mins Stand 5.5 mins
Regular Color 24 mins Stand 10 mins

I couldn't relate this caption to anything he had said about his process timings. Were you able to make sense of these times in the captions?

What he's listing there is the amount of his direct contact time for regular process vs. stand development. He doesn't count the two half hour stand times for B&W or the 45 minutes each for developer and bleach for color as time he has to spend on the process; they're time he can be doing something else.

Personally, I don't consider periodically agitating a tank onerous, and as others have done above, I leave the sous vide running after adjusting the water going into the tempering bath to 95-97F while filling. Takes longer to get the bottle contents up to bath temp than to bring the bath up to 102F -- but I usually give 90-120 minutes by virtue of ignoring it while I do something else (like read Photrio, check on my play-by-post GURPS game, or watch a few YouTube videos).

 

[koraks]

Give it a try. When your RA4 operation is running, you can evaluate the results side by side with normally developed c41. That will give some additional information that's not in the video.

 

[russell_w_b]

I tried C41 stand developing at 20°C. It worked! I thought the colours very natural indeed, if a bit grainy compared to developing at 38°C or 30°C. This was using Tetenal chemicals.

 

[halfaman]

Compard gives processing times for 25 and 20° C for their Digibase kit. Developing is 13 and 21 minutes respectively agitating once every 30 seconds.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Well, who knew. As you suggest, @koraks , once I have RA4 printing running, I'll have to shoot some tests and compare the resulting prints. I just would not have thought a process as (commonly considered) sensitive as C-41 would work more than 10C out of its temperature with a long stand. Grainy isn't ideal, but I get some grain anyway from using old film (stuff I've had at room temp for fifteen years) and/or shooting near the bottom of the latitude.

 

[koraks]

I just would not have thought a process as (commonly considered) sensitive as C-41 would work more than 10C out of its temperature with a long stand.

It's a "YMMV situation", I think. See the exchange I had with David Lyga on highly dilute c41 developer. The outcomes of such experiments can be fine for one person and unacceptable for the next. So it makes sense to try it out and decide for yourself if you like it. Fact of the matter is that there's a lot more possible with c41 than just doing it by the book.

 

[russell_w_b]

'...Grainy isn't ideal, but I get some grain anyway from using old film (stuff I've had at room temp for fifteen years) and/or shooting near the bottom of the latitude.'

Here are a few of my stand-developed C-41 photos. Haven't tried it on medium format yet.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/russell_w_b/albums/72157705299723245/with/32778272208/

 

[Donald Qualls]

@russell_w_b For 35mm consumer film, those don't look at all bad. This is definitely going on my list of stuff to try.

 

[foc]

Here are a few of my stand-developed C-41 photos. Haven't tried it on medium format yet.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/russell_w_b/albums/72157705299723245/with/32778272208/

Wow, Russell, I think you got excellent results.
What times, temp, and dilution?

 

[pentaxuser]

russell_w_b, these look pretty good to me. I assume these are exact replica reversed scans of the negatives. If so, the key is will the negs produce the equivalent on enlarger exposed RA4 paper. I see no reason why not

pentaxuser

 

[koraks]

Contrast looks rather high for C41, but it might be the scans. That's the trouble - scans only tell so much. Are you happy with them? That's what counts!

 

[russell_w_b]

'russell_w_b, these look pretty good to me. I assume these are exact replica reversed scans of the negatives.'

Not quite, but I could try that by scanning as a 'colour negative' option and letting the scanner sort out colour balance, white level, etc... I used my ancient Acer Scanwit (SCSI) 35mm neg / slide scanner in RAW mode opened and inverted in Photoshop 7 and set the 'white' point at a sliver of the film edge. I have no dark room or wet printing setup at the mo.

I tend to use my Canon EOS5D with an Elicar slide-duplicator to digitise negs nowadays. I did manipulate the colour balance and gamma settings but only to the same point as I do to scans of conventionally-developed C-41 negs. I didn't have to make any outlandish adjustments.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Hmmm. I've got a roll of Superia Xtra 400 (probably expired about 2007) in my second Kiev 4 at the moment, about half done. I may do a film cut and run it with stand tonight (let's see, close to two hours of process, but no preheat -- should just about be doable in my free time). That would let me scan over the next few days. I run my scanner with auto color (because I'm far from a color master), but I can see the histograms, which will tell me something useful, and this group can spot a crossover on the horizon.

 

[russell_w_b]

What times, temp, and dilution?

Hi foc,
Here's what I did... Shot on Kodak Colorplus 200, stand-developed in Tetenal C-41 chemistry at 20ºC. Shot on Pentax MX.

3-minute pre-wash; 45 minutes in developer (1 min agitation); 3 minute running water wash changed every 30 secs; 60 minute blix (1 min agitation); 'Ilford' archival wash; 1 minute stabiliser.

All processes at 20 degrees Celsius.

When I next get around to doing C-41 again I might give C-41 stand developing another go but on medium format and see what the grain looks like there compared to 30C developing. I was interested to read halfaman's comments about the Compard C-41 kit being usable at 20C and 25C. The only reason I don't do more C-41 stuff is that the chems (in kit form, anyway) start to degrade faster than I can shoot colour film!

Koraks is right about the contrast, particularly the pussycat photo. I think it was a worthwhile experiment to try, though.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Seems like it would be easy enough to knock a few minutes off the stand time to rein in the contrast a little. Might take a few tests to get it just right, but this is an experimental sort of process anyway...

 

[Donald Qualls]

Okay, I did it. Cut the film out of my Kiev 4 (turns out it was a 24 roll, and there wasn't enough left in the cassette to reload the camera), loaded it up in the single-reel Paterson tank that UPS brought today, poured color developer, twirled for a minute, and then went and did something else for 44 min (ate dinner and watched part of last night's Lovecraft Country), came back, give a single water rinse, poured bleach, twirled that for a minute, and went and watched the the rest of the show (it's a fantastic series -- if you have HBO, you should see it, just to get some idea how far we've come in the past 65 years -- but you'll get caught up in the story, if you've ever had any interest in science fiction and fantasy). When the timer went off again, I gave another water rinse, poured fixer, agitated normally for five minutes, washed, final rinsed, and hung the film. So far, the negatives look normal to the eye -- I'll know a lot more when I can start scanning them (printing RA-4 is still several weeks out).

Total elapsed time, not much different from water bath time to warm the chemicals, plus process time, plus cleanup (there's less cleanup this way because no dealing with a deep dishpan full of water). And I was able to do something else while the timer ran (though in fairness, I'd usually do something else while the sous vide keeps the water bath tempered -- I'm only seriously hands on for the 20 minutes or so to develop, bleach, fix, wash, and hang).

There has to be a catch; this is too easy.

 

[Вormental_old]

I think the catch is... wasted time. I can't really do anything useful or interesting for 45 minutes. Perhaps it's a lifestyle thing, but everything I do takes longer than 45 minutes and I do not want to be interrupted, so the regular get-it-over-with-quickly C41 processing is actually a huge benefit to me as compared to this process. "What a nightmare" I kept thinking as I was watching the video

 

[MattKing]

I await with anticipation how RA-4 optical prints with people in them after being developed this way.