Souping my own Velvia&Astia

[jgoeden]

Hey all, my first thread here. Used to be a big betterphoto.com fan but they're getting stupid. They're all digi happy film haters and they are way to amateur for me to excel. Anyways. I live in a town where NO ONE does E-6. The cheaped mail out would be around $13-$15 a rol with shipping and everything. I glanced through a couple posts on here and found ya'll talking about JD PHOTOCHEM. $28 for two E-6 kits doesn't sound too bad. Anyways I hear this is a hard process. Is it? What about color temp having to be within 1 degree F (a rumor i heard), shouldn't a big bowl of the same temp water do the trick? I soup my own B&Ws so will this be an easy learning curve? Sry for the long post. Thx for the help ahead of time.

 

[wildbill]

Andi.com E-6 mailers are 6.79 each plus stamps.

 

[jgoeden]

alrighty i'll keep that in mind. just to be a pain...so i don't have to wait on mail order when i shoot some portraits in my house, is it a relatively easy process for the kitchen?

 

[markbb]

I'ts no different than B&W, other than strict temperature control. You've got to be able to keep the tank and chemicals at 38 C throughout (or at least for the first couple of steps). Try it out first without any film or chems, just water. Use a themometer to check the temp every now and then.

 

[Ronald Moravec]

Stainless tanks will help with the tight temp control for the first developer. Make the water bath a deep as you can. Agitation is 1 per 15 sec.

Cost is high unless you process a lot of film. x rolls per kit is based on reusing the chemicals 2 or more times. However the once used chemicals have a short life so saving up two or three rolls is is way to go.

I found the Kodak 6 step gave the best colors. You can replace individual components for the Kodak kit. The first developer has the shortest life. Measure the volume of the individual components when you first open them and then you can mix smaller quantities if you are careful provided you decant the remaining into smaller botter to retard spoiling.

Contamiinination of chemicals will drive you nuts so be very careful with measuring beakers and storage containers. I used to use 6 two roll stainless tanks, one tank for each step, and a lift rod in total darkness. Never used the caps/lids. Agitation is lift and twist and down. Next cycle twist in the opposite direction.

The bleach is aerated using an aquarium pump.

Personally I would send it out. I only did it to overexpose/underdevelope to reduce contrast for reversal printing. Color neg printing is far better today and is my choice, but you need a lab that uses the lower contrast profesional paper. Recommend AIPROLAB.com. You can even send photoshopped negs over the internet and you get a print back. Neil is not cheap, but the work is first class. If the pic is no good, it will be your fault. You will need a pass word to send to his server and folder the file. Then follow up with an E-mail telling him it is there.

I see no need for tranny film today. Shoot color neg, scan it into the computer, and use one of the LCD projectors. No dust or flatness to contend with. Back up your files.

Best of luck.

 

[Jordan]

Hi -- Rather than repeating it all here, I'll link to an article I wrote a while back on home E6 processing. It's very doable (I used Tetenal 3-bath kits) but you need to have a pretty high throughput (unless you buy the 50L Kodak 6-bath kits and dilute as needed).

http://www.photosensitive.ca/slides.shtml

 

[nworth]

It's a very easy process. Somewhat tedious, but easy. The only fussy thing is the temperature in the first developer. The other solutions work to completion, and, although they need to be at about the same temperature as the developer, they are more tolerant of temperature and timing. I use a Jobo to process E-6, which takes care of the temperature and agitation issues for me. But I have processed E-6 in plastic and stainless steel tanks without any problems or fuss. You handle the film just like black and white, and agitate just like black and white. A simple water bath in a dishpan will hold the temperature accurately enough.

A thought on temperature control: you might try a fish tank with a thermostaticly controlled heater as a water bath. Put a little stand in it (maybe a full can of soup?) to support the developing tank. You can set the solution bottles in there too. I've used fish tank heaters for color processing, and they work great.

 

[sanderx1]

Cost is high unless you process a lot of film. x rolls per kit is based on reusing the chemicals 2 or more times. However the once used chemicals have a short life so saving up two or three rolls is is way to go.

The tetenal 1 litre E6 kit claims to be sufficent for 12 films (process 2 at a time) and yields a cost of approx. 3 eur per roll and the 5 litre kit yields 1.5 eur / roll . And this is despite the kit having vat @ 21%. However, so far I have not taken the plunge to using it as I can simply have e6 processed without too much hassle and at about 4.5 EUR/roll. I guess I might be looking at it at some point, esp if I end up with a lot of uprocessed E6 in my hands.

There is no such thing as a E6 processing mailer here.