Superia 800 in XTOL 1+0, dense!

clayne · Oct 17, 2010

I recently processed a roll of fuji 800 for my roommate that had been sitting in a plastic disposable for around 10+ years (on top of the microwave at that). Well knowing that c-41 film is really silver based I knew that I could just develop with a b+w dev and be relatively alright. Well negs came out with images and exposure looks fine.

But there's one problem though... I can barely see through them.

Held up to the light I can see the images fine and flipped to emulsion side I can see the images. But they're beyond bulletproof. I'm just trying to make some simple contacts and get on with life but as of now I'm up to around 64 secs, wide open at f4, 8x10 coverage, with magenta maxed out, and finally getting something with mgiv rc.

My question is what is this? Some kind of orange mask on steroids? Or is it a result of my voluntarily haphazard development time of 15 minutes? The emulsion side looks developed totally fine. It's the base side that is through the roof in darkness.

I knew the negs would take work - I just didn't think they'd be this insane.

Athiril · Oct 17, 2010

Sounds fogged and/or overdeveloped.

If you got some colour bleach you can dilute it, partially bleach the silver image, and then fix it to get to a more reasonable result.

You can also bleach, and re-develop in C-41 or E-6 CD to get a colour neg.

What kind of fix did you use?

clayne · Oct 17, 2010

Athiril said:
Sounds fogged and/or overdeveloped.

If you got some colour bleach you can dilute it, partially bleach the silver image, and then fix it to get to a more reasonable result.

You can also bleach, and re-develop in C-41 or E-6 CD to get a colour neg.

What kind of fix did you use?

That's the thing the silver side looks alright from a visual examination. Looks like a fairly normal neg. Maybe a bit hot/over developed. But not blocks of black or anything.

I'm totally cool with them being b+w and have no desire to activate the dyes. We were simply trying to see if anything was present on the film. The film itself appears to have held up quite well - at least the silver portion. Can't speak for the dyes.

Fix was just a standard Clayton rapid fix. Just freshly mixed right before that as well.

Like I said, the emulsion side looks normal. It's the base side that is acting like a massive light sink.

I finally got contacts out of them by going to 128 secs and magenta at 100. The frames that came out look pretty normal with normal to low contrast - it just took a while to get there.

2F/2F · Oct 17, 2010

I used a good deal of old (approx 10 years out of date and stored at room temperature) Superia 800 and 1600, and even in normal C-41 developer, it had some very hearty fog. (The 1600 was much worse than one stop more fogged than the 800. I got lots of use out of the 800, but the 1600 was pretty-much useless to me.) I would imagine that a b/w development would only increase this fog, and perhaps being on top of the microwave made a difference as well. I probably would have just developed the film in C-41 myself, but at least you got something.

Athiril · Oct 17, 2010

The dyes need a colour developer. In any case, Im not sure what a 'clayton fixer' is, but perhaps they are also not fixed properly.

hrst · Oct 17, 2010

Probably a filter and/or antihalation layer made of silver? It is removed in normal color process but can't be removed in BW process without removing image. And, on the top of this, heavy fog due to age. And orange mask.

Athiril · Oct 17, 2010

I have never noticed any of that when I b&w process my C-41 film, but I use E-6 fixer.

clayne · Oct 17, 2010

Athiril said:
The dyes need a colour developer. In any case, Im not sure what a 'clayton fixer' is, but perhaps they are also not fixed properly.

Athiril, I am not trying to get color out of the film. C-41 is silver-based at the core. Knowing that - I used XTOL to develop it (also knowing the orange mask would be a later issue).

I wasn't trying to get any color from this film, I was simply only interested in the exposed silver. That's what I meant when I said I wasn't interested in the dyes - they are not of use to me here.

Clayton fixer is a typical ammonium thio based rapid fixer like all the rest.

hrst said:
Probably a filter and/or antihalation layer made of silver? It is removed in normal color process but can't be removed in BW process without removing image. And, on the top of this, heavy fog due to age. And orange mask.

Thanks, this makes sense now. Although it would seem strange to use silver as an AH layer. I considered that fog would be an issue, but we're talking 128 seconds wide-open here with RC paper. After the contacts are dry I'll scan them in so people can see that the frames look normal.

John Shriver · Oct 20, 2010

You normally get very low contrast out of C-41 or C-22 film processed in a B&W developer. The base density is very high, both because of the orange mask, but because you still have the yellow filter layer between the blue-sensitive emulsion and the other two emulsions. It's "Cary Lea" silver, very finely divided silver that forms a yellow filter. It's normally removed when all of the other silver is removed during the bleach step of C-41 processing.

Combine that with the cosmic-ray and heat fogging of an older 800 speed film, and you have serious Dmax and low contrast.

clayne · Oct 21, 2010

Thanks for the info John. The film's not that bad off actually. At least not as bad off as I expected it to be. In fact the only real issue was in getting over the base density. I ended up exposing for around 128 secs, wide-open on the enlarger lens, magenta around 80-100 as I found I was actually dialing in too much contrast in reality.

Even the contacts I finally settled on were still a bit hot. However, if that base density were not there I don't feel getting around any contrast issues would have been that difficult - it's mainly the duration of exposure that makes printing ridiculous. I also didn't feel like putting too much time into a 12-year roll of plastic camera nonsense that I didn't even shoot in the first place.

Scans from the contact sheet:

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Athiril · Oct 21, 2010

John Shriver said:
You normally get very low contrast out of C-41 or C-22 film processed in a B&W developer. The base density is very high, both because of the orange mask, but because you still have the yellow filter layer between the blue-sensitive emulsion and the other two emulsions. It's "Cary Lea" silver, very finely divided silver that forms a yellow filter. It's normally removed when all of the other silver is removed during the bleach step of C-41 processing.

Combine that with the cosmic-ray and heat fogging of an older 800 speed film, and you have serious Dmax and low contrast.

I have not found that to be the case, though I mostly use Rodinal.

I find I get great contrast with Rodinal, even 1+100 stand. (The example is 1+25 + table salt, and it was old expired film, anything over box EI was a bit dodgy, but 800 and 1600 cmae out well).

Here is some I did here, it's re-developed to colour after wards (and by that i mean processed to a colour neg, not a positive/xpro), but the contrast/etc is in the same condition as the original b&w image formed by Rodinal

Little Cousin by athiril, on Flickr

clayne · Oct 21, 2010

Yes, we all know Rodinal works with C-41. However, I believe John's point was with regards to a fully b&w processed neg that hasn't gone through subsequent C-41 processing. Have any of those to scan and put up?

Athiril · Oct 21, 2010

I re-dev mine to colour negs after fixing and then bleaching it gets a regular C-41, or E-6 CD. Then bleach and fix.

But the contrast is the effectively the same in b&w as colour, the b&w silver layers act as a mask to form the colour through, if the contrast/density range was poor, then so would it be on the resulting colour neg.

2F/2F · Oct 21, 2010

What does a black and white development followed by a normal C-41 development achieve compared to a standard C-41 development process?

Look at a standard-processed C-41 negative, you can see that it is low in contrast compared to a b/w neg of normal contrast. Print a normal-contrast black-and-white negative on RA paper, and you will see why C-41 negs are made to be this way. RA paper is high in contrast. It works together with the low-contrast C-41 negatives to form prints of normal contrast. C-41 film has so much dynamic range and latitude because it is so low in contrast.

Athiril · Oct 21, 2010

2F/2F said:
What does a black and white development followed by a normal C-41 development achieve compared to a standard C-41 development process?

Look at a standard-processed C-41 negative, you can see that it is low in contrast compared to a b/w neg of normal contrast. Print a normal-contrast black-and-white negative on RA paper, and you will see why C-41 negs are made to be this way. RA paper is high in contrast. It works together with the low-contrast C-41 negatives to form prints of normal contrast. C-41 film has so much dynamic range and latitude because it is so low in contrast.

That's a bit O/T to the OP, but do I need a reason to try something? Do I need any reason to keep doing something other than I like it, or for fun?

Coincidentally, it allows you to run all steps at 20c.

2F/2F · Oct 21, 2010

You are the one who brought up subject that you call "O/T" in the first place. I am simply asking why you do it, out of curiosity. "I can do whatever the heck I want without stating any reasons to anyone" is a given. I actually want an answer to my question. If I wanted to attack your reasoning, I would just do it, so don't think that is why I was asking.

My comments on the contrast of C-41 materials were aimed at the fellow who said that developing C-41 film in b/w developer gives dense, low contrast results. My experience with C-41 films in b/w chemistry, like yours, is completely different than what he stated. Sure, there is lots of density in the high tones, but also lots of contrast.

Athiril · Oct 21, 2010

2F/2F said:
You are the one who brought up subject that you call "O/T" in the first place. I am simply asking why you do it, out of curiosity. "I can do whatever the heck I want without stating any reasons to anyone" is a given. I actually want an answer to my question. If I wanted to attack your reasoning, I would just do it, so don't think that is why I was asking.

My comments on the contrast of C-41 materials were aimed at the fellow who said that developing C-41 film in b/w developer gives dense, low contrast results. My experience with C-41 films in b/w chemistry, like yours, is completely different than what he stated. Sure, there is lots of density in the high tones, but also lots of contrast.

I didn't think my post was O/T, I was clarifying that b&w processing gives plenty of contrast, and gave an example... there wouldn't be plenty of contrast in the final colour image if there wasn't in the b&w image, original scan has a wide histogram - indicative of a wide density range, with highlights not beyond my V500's capability, Epson puts the dMax at 3.4, but I know for a fact that is total bollocks just like their "optical" resolution claims, iirc, it's around 2.8-3.0 from experience, and these results were just a bit under that @ box speed, with a good separation (dMax - dMin, whatever the two actual values were).

But then the standard density for Reala is spposed to hit ~2.8

I wasn't responding to it like an attack, sorry if it seemed so.

There are other beneficial reasons that I believe are there for re-hal processing, but I don't want to make any such statements I don't have significant evidence for.

I had trouble with 14 year old Vision1 500T being exceptionally low contrast, or rather a very poor density range (I'm talk so far squashed together was beyond rediculous), very difficult to get a good separation from shadows to highlights, I had to mix a very high contrast developer for it... managed to stretch out 3 stops of range over most of the histogram...grainy as all hell..inaccurate colour.. but thats another story.

Superia 800 in XTOL 1+0, dense!

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