Tetenal Colortec C-41 Reuse

[jrydberg]

The Tetenal manual states that you can get between 12 and 16 rolls from 1L working solution. The manual also states that you should develop 4 rolls per round and liter. There are development and blix times for four rounds.

The C41 kit only states reuse information for one liter working solution, whereas the Tetenal E6 kit states reuse information for both 1L and 500ml solutions.

How should one go about when your processor/tank does not take 1L solution?

I work with an ATL-1500 with the one-reel (120 format) small tank and the three-reel (120 format) large tank.

Should I

(1) run two rolls (on one reel) in the small tank, using 500 ml and reuse these chems in the next round

(2) run two rolls (on one reel) in the small tank, using enough chems from the 1L working solution to cover the film, and reuse these chems in the next round

(3) run two rolls (on one reel) in the small tank, using enough chems from the 1L working solution to cover the film, and then pour back the used chems into the working solution and use that solution for the next round

(4) run four rolls in the large tank with as much chems as possible, and pour the used chems back into the working solution and use that solution for the next round

(5) find a way to get 1L working solution into the large tank

or

(6) use as little chems as possible to cover the film (270ml in the small tank I belive), and never reuse the chems, and accept that I will only get six rolls out of a 1L working solution

It drills down to two questions: How should the chems be reused? And how much chemistry is needed to develop a single roll of 120 film?

 

[MikeSeb]

I vote for #6 whether you use the large or the small tanks. You'll do a bit better than six per liter, but I see no reason to squeeze every last molecule of "development" from each liter. Unless you have the optional separation apparatus required to capture used chems for reuse, you're going to be using them one-shot anyway in the Jobo. (I have the exact same processor and also do a lot of C-41, strictly one-shot.)

What I'd do is try to batch-process your films as much as you can. Wait until you have four to six rolls (depending on how much you're shooting) and do them all at once. You probably know you can get two rolls on each reel (that's what the little red tabs on the sides of the reels are for), so it's easy to do up to six in the big tank.

Fill the solution bottles with chems using the observation glass for each as described on the processor's instruction placard, and go to town.

 

[Ed Sukach]

I would appreciae help! Where can Tetenal chemistry be purchased in the USA?

 

[glaiben]

Where can Tetenal chemistry be purchased in the USA?

B&H had it as of September and shipped it - both E6 and C41.

 

[nickandre]

B&H ships powders and some tetenal concentrates. They're weird with that.

Don't use less than the full amount of developer in a tank. That will cause oxidation of the developer. Fill the tank up and reuse until the developer turns deep, deep red and it stops working. Don't hesitate to run a clip test by taking an inch of film, put it in the properly heated developer for 3.25-3.75 mins and then blix it. If the Dmax is good, the developer is good. OTOH, if the film is pale (relatively, color neg film never gets that dense) you can extend the development time or toss it, your decision. The results get sub-optimal, probably fine for scanning work. First use time reccomendation is 3:15, second use 3:30, third use 3:45 for the developer. It's not as critical as these books make it seem.

Your primary concern is developer oxidation. Fill the bottle and try not to lose any. Squeeze the air out and cap it tight enough. The reason I went to replenishment is (besides cost) that you can top off the bottle with replenisher to compensate for loss. I've had bottles last for 6 months, when full, and be perfectly usable.

 

[jrydberg]

I vote for #6 whether you use the large or the small tanks. You'll do a bit better than six per liter, but I see no reason to squeeze every last molecule of "development" from each liter. Unless you have the optional separation apparatus required to capture used chems for reuse, you're going to be using them one-shot anyway in the Jobo. (I have the exact same processor and also do a lot of C-41, strictly one-shot.)

[...]

Fill the solution bottles with chems using the observation glass for each as described on the processor's instruction placard, and go to town.

I can not really remember off hand what the observation glass levels are (330, 660?), but a full tank was around 750ml or something. That's two films per 250ml if you use the large tank with six rolls in it. That evens up to 40 rolls for a 5L kit. Pretty decent.

 

[jrydberg]

Don't use less than the full amount of developer in a tank. That will cause oxidation of the developer. Fill the tank up and reuse until the developer turns deep, deep red and it stops working.

[...]

Your primary concern is developer oxidation. Fill the bottle and try not to lose any. Squeeze the air out and cap it tight enough. The reason I went to replenishment is (besides cost) that you can top off the bottle with replenisher to compensate for loss. I've had bottles last for 6 months, when full, and be perfectly usable.

You're suggesting to always use as much chemicals as the tanks can hold, and try to reuse it as much as possible? Never mix it back with the "fresh" working solution.

Wonder what the maximum amount the small tank can hold is!

 

[mtjade2007]

There is really no free lunch in using chemicals. I do not use Tetenal but my experience in using Kodak chemicals is never try to over use the chemicals if you want the highest quality images from your negatives. I can't tell you exactly how many ml of juice you need to use per roll. Kodak gives a very good guideline on its C-41 chemicals. If you follow it you can't go wrong. But people found they can get away from going over the guideline a bit. But to me, I want only top quality negs and I found it difficult to trying to save from over using the chemicals. Experiment and find the actual chemical capacity. By crossing the true capacity of the chemicals you may see everything fine but the scanned images. If I were you I will use Kodak chemicals. It is cheaper than Tetenal. By using it correctly it produces negs of absolutely top quality.

What will go wrong you may ask if you cross that true chemical capacity boundary in processing your films? The negs will appear to have good density still. But once you scan them you will notice the grain and shifted colors. If you paid top dollars for high quality professional films don't lose them from cheap processing.

 

[wogster]

B&H ships powders and some tetenal concentrates. They're weird with that.

Don't use less than the full amount of developer in a tank. That will cause oxidation of the developer. Fill the tank up and reuse until the developer turns deep, deep red and it stops working. Don't hesitate to run a clip test by taking an inch of film, put it in the properly heated developer for 3.25-3.75 mins and then blix it. If the Dmax is good, the developer is good. OTOH, if the film is pale (relatively, color neg film never gets that dense) you can extend the development time or toss it, your decision. The results get sub-optimal, probably fine for scanning work. First use time reccomendation is 3:15, second use 3:30, third use 3:45 for the developer. It's not as critical as these books make it seem.

Your primary concern is developer oxidation. Fill the bottle and try not to lose any. Squeeze the air out and cap it tight enough. The reason I went to replenishment is (besides cost) that you can top off the bottle with replenisher to compensate for loss. I've had bottles last for 6 months, when full, and be perfectly usable.

For film developing it's always better to err on the side of caution, I would rather throw out a developer early then to lose a film because I was trying to skimp on chemistries. Most of my films are of things that I can't re-shoot or can't re-shoot without wasting a lot of time and energy. That's why I use B&W one shot, haven't done colour processing in years, my volume is too low, rather get a pro-lab to do it.

For printing, you can use chemistries longer, because if the print fails due to bad chemistries, you can always reprint. Although bad chemistries don't always show up as a total failure, sometimes it will be a weird colour shift, that you spend all day trying to fix, and then next session with fresh chemistries and the same negative prints perfectly first time, that's something you don't do twice....

As to oxidation of developers, in the B&W world the answer is a brown glass bottle with a wax lined metal cap, using glass beads or marbles to make up the volume, I would assume this would also work best for colour developers.

 

[nickandre]

The tetenal kit gives capacities. It assumes that you use it and pour it back. If you've deteriorated 500 ml 1/3 the way to exhaustion, pouring it back means the liter has gone 1/6 to exhaustion. Just use what you need and pour it back. Erring on the side of caution would be to follow written capacities.

 

[papo]

I always make two batches of working solutions, 1/2 liter each. I develop 8 films in each batch, 2 at a time, i.e. in four sessions. I use the times recommended in the instructions. It works well.

 

[jrydberg]

I always make two batches of working solutions, 1/2 liter each. I develop 8 films in each batch, 2 at a time, i.e. in four sessions. I use the times recommended in the instructions. It works well.

This is what I have done too, but I see cyan casts (in highlights) and grain on rolls 5 to 8 (esp rolls 7 and 8).

 

[papo]

It's a bit strange, I've never had such problems. I'll try to describe exactly what I do (even though it's mostly repeating the instructions, but I want to avoid any misunderstanding):

I use Jobo 1500 which can accomodate up to four reels with 35mm film or 2 reels with 120 film. But I always use only two films: 35/35, 120/120 or 35/120.
I use a Jobo CPE-2, which rotates at about 30 rpm, reversing rotation after two revolutions.
For each session I use about 400ml of solutions which I return back to the 500ml bottles.
I use the uniform temperature of 38 deg.Celsius for the whole process.

In each batch of 1/2 liter:

1. Preheat the closed tank with the films for 5' .
2. Develop: 3'15" for films 1-2, 3'30" for films 3-4, 3'45" for films 5-6 and 4'00" for films 7-8 .
3. Stop development in the 4% solution of citric acid, for 30" .
4. Bleach fix: 4'00" for films 1-2, 6' for films 3-4, 10' for films 5-6 and 15' for films 7-8 .
5. Rinse: I exchange water in the tank every 30" or so, for the total of about 5' .
6. Stabilize: 1' .

No rinsing after the stabilizer.

I keep the working solutions in half-liter bottles (cola, sprite, or anything like this) and press them so that there is no air left above the liquid (be careful to keep the bottles locked if you have children). I haven't observed any problems even if two or three months passed between films 1-2 and 7-8.