Tetenal E-6 3-bath reuse

[Stan160]

Bear with me, I have seen other threads, but my question is different to the others I have found.

All three of the developing tanks at my disposal require a chemical volume of 620ml to cover two 35mm films. The kit instructions are based on using 500ml of chemical at a time.

If I have 12 35mm films to develop with a 1l kit. Can I develop them in pairs, assuming I return the 620ml of each solution back to the 1l container it came from after each use? If this is possible, how does this effect the timing adjustments given in the instructions?

Of course, I could develop a single film at a time in 500ml chemistry, but that would take twice as long.

Thanks,
Ian

 

[Stan160]

Just in case anyone comes across this and wonders...

I went ahead and used the chemicals as described in my previous post. All worked fine, with the exception of a slight magenta cast on one film. I don't think this problem was caused by the processing - there were two films in the tank, and only one had the cast, and this was the first tank I processed. Film was expired, so that's probably more likely the cause.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Magenta shift is indeed usually a film age/storage issue with E6 films.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Kodak gives a table for changing development times, adjustments used if developer is re-used for additional film before it spoils or is exhausted. You have to adhere to this with the Kodak chemistry to prevent slight shifts in color. This table is on their web site. I have no idea if Tetenal would follow the same table, but they used to provide a compensation table in their own kits from many many years ago.

PE

 

[Stan160]

The Tetenal chemicals also require the times to be adjusted as the solutions are reused. Adjustments given in Table B Dead Link Removed.

My adaptation was to ignore the 3-use limit on the chemicals and return them to the 1l bottle after each use. With 2 films per tank therefore, I followed table B but replaced the word "film" with "tank" in the header.

Apart from the one rogue film, the results look equivalent to what I have had returned from commercial labs, at least to my untutored eye.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Use what works then.

PE