TX in C-41

Anscojohn · Mar 15, 2009

Hello All,
A friend gave a partial roll of TX to the local Walgreens. When she told me it was done in an hour, but the film was was "completely blank" I said "UH OH," they obviously ran it through C41. Have not seen the film yet. I know she was in mid-roll when she wound it back, and a roll of FP-4 I ran through and souped looked fine. Does C-41 have a bleach which would clear the film? Or what?

Photo Engineer · Mar 15, 2009

Ordinary B&W film run through C-41 will come out blank due to the bleach!

PE

Anscojohn · Mar 15, 2009

Photo Engineer said:
Ordinary B&W film run through C-41 will come out blank due to the bleach!

PE

That answers it. Thanks, PE.

MikeSeb · Mar 15, 2009

Oh gawd.

Sorry to hear about this.

It's obvious one can assume nothing at all at any place purporting to process film. There's a brand new WalMart SuperStore (?Super Center, Super Something?) near me; I asked them if they do 120 film (which an older, less conveniently located store DID do when last I checked) and both the pink-cheeked clerk and the grizzled photo-area manager replied, "Do you mean APS?"

Sigh. I gotta pray my Jobo holds out.

jim appleyard · Mar 15, 2009

I think this will turn into one of those fun threads that starts: "When I took my film to...."

Speaking of which, I knew a guy from Reuters who dropped off a roll of E-6 at a one-hour place and, yup, they ran it thru C-41.

removed-user-1 · Mar 15, 2009

jim appleyard said:
I think this will turn into one of those fun threads that starts: "When I took my film to...."

Not quite "When I took my film to...." - I've had to rethink everything about film recently because the one really good lab that I was aware of in Charlotte (Camera World of NC) closed at the end of 2008. Biggs has a lab but they are variable. I've processed my own E6 and C41, and of course black and white, so I'm thinking I'll do it all myself from now on.

I asked the Boone Walgreens to tell me about their slide processing and they didn't even know what I was talking about, they had apparently never heard of E6. They do a good job with C41 so I thought they would at least have a send-out service, but they just said they could not do any slides.

If anybody has suggestions for good reliable mail-order labs I'd love to know!

Anscojohn · Mar 15, 2009

I once souped a coupla 4x5 sheets of E-2 (not E-4, not E-6--I was young at the time) Ektachrome in DK-50. Hmm, come to think of it, looking back into the deep mists of time, the color of the negs I got, they sort of looked like what you all must get nowadays with stand development in Pyro!!!(vbg)

srs5694 · Mar 15, 2009

Anscojohn said:
A friend gave a partial roll of TX to the local Walgreens. When she told me it was done in an hour, but the film was was "completely blank" I said "UH OH," they obviously ran it through C41.

I had the same experience with a roll of Ilford (HP5+, IIRC) at a local CVS. They swore up and down that they could process it when I pointed out it was conventional B&W. I was just starting up with photography again after a gap of a couple of years, and more than that since I'd used minilabs, so I took them at their word, thinking the machines could now do conventional B&W as well as color. When the negatives came back blank the clerk tried to blame my camera!

jim appleyard said:
Speaking of which, I knew a guy from Reuters who dropped off a roll of E-6 at a one-hour place and, yup, they ran it thru C-41.

At least that'll produce images -- negative images with weird color balance, but possibly usable.

rthomas said:
I asked the Boone Walgreens to tell me about their slide processing and they didn't even know what I was talking about, they had apparently never heard of E6. They do a good job with C41 so I thought they would at least have a send-out service, but they just said they could not do any slides.

If anybody has suggestions for good reliable mail-order labs I'd love to know!

The last time I asked at my local Walgreens, they also said they couldn't do slides, even as a send-out service. I wasn't sure if they were just mistaken or if they've terminated that service entirely; your comment suggests the latter.

As to reliable mail-order labs, Dwayne's is one name that comes up regularly. I've used them before, but only for Kodachrome. (They're the last lab in the world that processes Kodachrome.) Reviews here on APUG seem mixed, but it's not clear whether that's because they've really got problems or because problem reports are getting extra-concentrated here. A&I seems to be well-respected, but I've never used them. You used to be able to get pre-paid A&I mailers from B&H, but I don't see them there any more. (B&H does sell pre-paid Fuji mailers, but I believe those now go to Dwayne's. This might be more cost-effective than using the Dwayne's order form; as I recall, Dwayne's charges a lot for return shipping.)

Personally, I've been doing my own E-6 for the past few years, and I prefer this to sending it out. It's more hassle than B&W, though, since it's more baths. (I prefer the results from Kodak's 6-bath kit to those from the third-party 3-bath kits I've used.)

Anscojohn · Mar 15, 2009

In order to have "fun" I once asked the "technician" at the local CVS pharmacy if I could ask a technical question: Would the pictures be out of focus because I dropped the film. After consulting with a colleague, they decided that if the film had been dropped before it was exposed, it would probably be ok; but that after exposure, the pictures would fuzzy.

wogster · Mar 15, 2009

Anscojohn said:
In order to have "fun" I once asked the "technician" at the local CVS pharmacy if I could ask a technical question: Would the pictures be out of focus because I dropped the film. After consulting with a colleague, they decided that if the film had been dropped before it was exposed, it would probably be ok; but that after exposure, the pictures would fuzzy.

One must remember the people at a CVS, Wallyworld, etc, often think that the ultimate in film photography was the disposable camera..... Really though I would have thought the C41 processing machine would check the DX code, and flash a big message on the screen, that the film is not compatible with the process that machine provides and stop. The issue is that these places often pay minimum wage and offer no formal training....

As film becomes more and more a niche product, expect staff in fewer and fewer places to know about the different types of film, most of these places are just somewhere that people can take their digital images and get some kind of print without using up $25 of ink from the home desktop printer.

For decent quality commercial film processing I expect that most films will follow the example provided by Kodachrome, it will go from a lab on every corner, to a lab in maybe major cities, to a lab in each state/province, to a few labs in the country, to a lab in the country, to a lab or two on each continent, to a few large international labs, to an international lab..... However I also expect that home processing kits will become more popular, as will mixing up chemistries from basic chemicals. While this is easiest for B&W, it will extend out to the colour processes as well.

If Kodak still wants to have a business, perhaps their best option is to produce a kit, contains a developing tank, reel, thermometer, concentrates to produce 1L of chemistries, all comes in a changing bag with a nice instructional DVD. Refills of just chemistries would also be produced. One kit for C41 and one for E6. Negatives can either be scanned or taken to a lab for printing....

Maybe a better idea is a powder based chemistry, pour the powder into a clean, dry, empty pop bottle, add water to 1L, shake until dissolved.

Photo Engineer · Mar 15, 2009

Paul;

Kodak did once make such a product as did Ansco and a few others. Some were directed towards B&W and others to color. Kodak made a "Hobby Pack" that made 1L of either E6 or C-41 up until about 1990 or 1995. I have various left over parts of these still on the shelf here. Their "Tri Chem Pack" for B&W was famous for years for doing single rolls and making prints. It used a universal MQ developer.

As interest faded, the product lines were dropped by all companies one-by-one.

PE

Neal · Mar 15, 2009

Hi Paul,

"...I would have thought the C41 processing machine would check the DX code..."

Unfortunately the machine never sees the DX code. All C-41 goes through exactly the same process (except of course for push/pull, but that isn't available at most drugstores).

Neal Wydra

wogster · Mar 15, 2009

Photo Engineer said:
Paul;

Kodak did once make such a product as did Ansco and a few others. Some were directed towards B&W and others to color. Kodak made a "Hobby Pack" that made 1L of either E6 or C-41 up until about 1990 or 1995. I have various left over parts of these still on the shelf here. Their "Tri Chem Pack" for B&W was famous for years for doing single rolls and making prints. It used a universal MQ developer.

As interest faded, the product lines were dropped by all companies one-by-one.

PE

Maybe they need to consider bringing it back....

trexx · Mar 15, 2009

wogster said:
Really though I would have thought the C41 processing machine would check the DX code, and flash a big message on the screen, that the film is not compatible with the process that machine provides and stop.

The DX coding on the cassette only has three chunks of information; film speed, number of exposures, and latitude of the film. There can also be barcodes that have other information. But in general neither are used in processing.

mts · Mar 15, 2009

You all make a good case to support my starting two threads: Alternative C-41 and alternative E-6. Give important film to minimum wage service clerks? Not a good idea.

jim appleyard · Mar 15, 2009

Anscojohn said:
I once souped a coupla 4x5 sheets of E-2 (not E-4, not E-6--I was young at the time) Ektachrome in DK-50. Hmm, come to think of it, looking back into the deep mists of time, the color of the negs I got, they sort of looked like what you all must get nowadays with stand development in Pyro!!!(vbg)

You could be onto something here, call the US Patent Office!

...and then there was the lab that processed the paper backing from a roll of 120, but not the film; true, according to another friend.

wogster · Mar 15, 2009

trexx said:
The DX coding on the cassette only has three chunks of information; film speed, number of exposures, and latitude of the film. There can also be barcodes that have other information. But in general neither are used in processing.

Not the DX silver and black part, but the bar code, I thought that had more info in it, and was intended to be used by processors.

cmacd123 · Mar 16, 2009

REminds me of the poor kid in the 70's who broght a rool of Bulk loaded tri-X into the store were I worked. He had of course used an AnscoCrome empty cassette. (they were sold for anscochome easy loaders) and just wrote "tri-x" by hand on a small label. There was JUST A HINT of an image perhaps indicating the chemistry in the lab had a bit too much use. I still rember the "sick to the stomach" look on the poor Kids face.

cmacd123 · Mar 16, 2009

wogster said:
Not the DX silver and black part, but the bar code, I thought that had more info in it, and was intended to be used by processors.

Big factory labs can use it. It just is a number which is assigned to a given type of film. The Idea is that a "BIG" lab could sort the film and perhaps run different types through different processing machines, so that all the fuji say would end up on one master roll, and all the Kodacolour G on another.
The Latent image bar codes on the bottom of the negatives are also designed for this aim, by telling the printer what film channel to use. these days when prints are made with scanning the negatives the difference is probaly not that much.
In a one hour lab, only the latent image codes are likly used, and then only to put the frame number on the back of the print.

TX in C-41

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