trying for low gamma xpro negs from E6 - advice?

i recently shot photos on EC400(cold-stored, tested) and "Retrochrome 400"(FPP VNF stock) at a gig for "my" band in very low light. i managed to eke out some exposures with both shot at 1600(at f/1.4!!!), but i have serious doubts i'll get usable images in a 2-stop push e6 process because i don't trust my meter(CWA meter in my 7000 AF is very easily tricked by small lights at the venue). i've decided to experiment with some sort of xpro process as i want to develop for the darkest shots that could be on that roll, without ruining the exposures that might be somewhat thin in a positive process due to my somewhat rash use of exposure compensation(hard to keep track of this stuff when you can't feel your fingers and you're trying to manually focus in a moshpit). i can't really go with a c41 xpro due to the runoff contrast of that xpro.

i've therefore decided on formulating some sort of custom negative developer in the hopes of eking out some latitude from a very bad situation, as i've already made some promises to people(thankfully not monetarily, i am very CC attribution) and therefore i can't lose the exposures. i don't really know how to go about this. i have a lot of free time to work on this, but my budget is relatively low, and i'm going in blind. i am therefore asking the people with the most accumulated experience - i.e y'all.

some questions for the chorus:
has anyone here formulated photo engineer's hypothetical "cd3 + citrazinic acid" negative xpro developer that may reduce contrast/gamma to make xpro material more practical? i'm considering starting from the ecn-2 formulas, but i have no idea how accurate that'd be really. my background in photochemistry is staring at wikipedia pages and pouring solutions together from formulas i found on the internet, so i'm very in over my head.

is it even possible to get access to citrazinic acid as someone who has no connections to a lab that could order from someone like fisher or sigma-aldrich? i'm not really an agoraphobe but i don't know anybody that could pull those strings for me and i've recently taken leave from uni which means i can't really get this stuff through there. are its substitutes(h and j-acid) more easily available and has anyone figured out their substitution ratios?

are there any resources that explain how some common color developers function, and how their components interact? i have some vague ideas on how ph and choice of agent affect results, but not much more.

if you've made it here, thanks for reading through all of this and any advice(even if it's "you're screwed, you'd be better off throwing the film in the trash") is appreciated!!!

Welcome to Photrio.
Do you have access to the venue that would permit you to take some more shots under the same conditions, for the purpose of experimenting with custom development?

MattKing said:

Welcome to Photrio.
Do you have access to the venue that would permit you to take some more shots under the same conditions, for the purpose of experimenting with custom development?

Click to expand...

sadly no, i'm about 1200 miles away from the venue most of the year. i'm planning on just trying to tune such a process for e6 stocks currently made(though i have a brick of epp and ec400 i'd be willing to spare a roll or two from for tweaking purposes) and using step wedge charts and a color checker passport to get to something somewhat neutral and then processing the film from whatever result i get there.

Snip test.

What is your main goal?
Would you like to have a color developer designed for the process (E6) or something similar and at the same time does not contain cetrazinec acid
Is this what you want?
Yes or no ?
If the answer is yes, well, I have the solution, but from Russia,,
Color Developer
1. Sodium hexametaphosphate .......................... 3.0 g
2. Hydroxylamine sulfate ........ ........................... 1.5 g
3. CD4................................................................ 6.2 g
4. Potassium carbonate ................................... 75.0 g
5. Sodium sulfite ..... .......................................... 3.0 g
6. Potassium bromide .. ...................................... 2.0 g
7. Water to make ............................................. ... 1 L
pH = 10.8-11.0

Color Developement -12 min 25C

mohmad khatab said:

--snip--

Click to expand...

my current goal is to produce lower-contrast negatives from e-6 film(without losing significant speed) unlike the very high gamma(as some would put it "blown out") results from c-41 processing. i'd be willing to consider alternative materials that did the job, it's more that i knew of photo engineer's discussions of a cd3 + citrazinic acid custom developer(from https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/x-processing-epy-ept-epj-and-epp.24387) and wanted to start from there. i don't currently know how to get access to citrazinic acid however, so i was asking for advice about that as well.

mptcultist said:

my current goal is to produce lower-contrast negatives from e-6 film(without losing significant speed) unlike the very high gamma(as some would put it "blown out") results from c-41 processing. i'd be willing to consider alternative materials that did the job, it's more that i knew of photo engineer's discussions of a cd3 + citrazinic acid custom developer(from https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/x-processing-epy-ept-epj-and-epp.24387) and wanted to start from there. i don't currently know how to get access to citrazinic acid however, so i was asking for advice about that as well.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, my friend, there is no effective citrazinic acid, I am tired of researching this,, I even called it (the evil acid),,
I could not get it, and when I went to the agents of the Sigma company in Cairo, they told me that they could bring anything for me from Germany specifically, but for a very huge amount -
What did you leave the idea of (E6) completely?
Tomorrow after a while I re-read the words of the great teacher (PE) and read between the lines, and the conclusion is that it is possible to obtain almost the same results, but with a longer development time,,
- And when I reviewed the oriental formulas, I actually found that they depend on this method, so that citrazinic acid is removed and the development time is prolonged, with the replacement of (CD3) element and using (CD4) element instead.

And I actually applied this formula and it brought me impressive results,
- Do not tire yourself, my friend, with cross- as long as there are more successful solutions.
I gave you the color developer you need, you can use following first developer and you will be able to get very good transparency, trust me I won't gain anything from deceiving you,

first developer
Sodium hexametaphosphate ....................... 2.0 g
Sodium sulfite ........ .................................. 40.0 g
Sodium tetraborate .......... ........................ 15.0 g
Hydroquinone ..................... ...................... 4.5 g
metol ....................... ...............………......... 3٫0g
Potassium carbonate .................. .............. 30.0 g
Potassium bromide .............................. ...... 2.0 g
Potassium thiocyanate ................................ 2.0 g
Potassium iodide .................................... 0.007 g
Water to make ....... .................................... 1 L
pH = 10.0-10.2 ............. 12 min25 C ± 0.25

Rinse 10 min
Stop Bath 2 min 25C
Re-exposure with a lamp or with chemical solutions

Color Developer
1. Sodium hexametaphosphate .......................... 3.0 g
2. Hydroxylamine sulfate ........ ........................... 1.5 g
3. CD4................................................................ 6.2 g
4. Potassium carbonate ................................... 75.0 g
5. Sodium sulfite ..... .......................................... 3.0 g
6. Potassium bromide .. ...................................... 2.0 g
7. Water to make ............................................. ... 1 L
pH = 10.8-11.0......................... -12 min 25C

Rinse 12- min

Any bleach solution (except copper bleach), and any (Fixer)
In practice, any solution (Blex) available to you will suffice.

............................................................................................................You will surely succeed with the will of God and His help.