'Vacu vin' + bottle recommend to preserve C-41 chemicals.....

[sperera]

Hi all.....looking at the 'vacuum vin' product that allows you too suck out the air and create a vacuum for bottles with your chemicals....anyone care to comment about this or similar better product....would also appreciate a bottle and vacuum top (to call it thus) combination to buy over here in Europe? thanks for your comments

 

[koraks]

The obvious solution would be wine bottles, as they are made of glass (impermeable) and vacuvin accessories will work with them.

But personally, I just use smaller clear glass bottles with screw on caps and fill them to the rim before capping off. That way there's no air and no need for vacuum.

I also have some doubts concerning the quality of the vacuum created by vacuvin systems; how much air will actually be evacuated? I'm not sure...

 

[sperera]

thanks for the comment!

 

[AgX]

But personally, I just use smaller clear glass bottles with screw on caps and fill them to the rim before capping off. That way there's no air and no need for vacuum.

With screw on caps one should consider the risk of corroson when using metal caps. Best with metal caps are cast seals. But even then one has to consider the fluid at closing running into the thread thióugh then no longer ib contact with the content of the bottle.

I know of a photographic research lab where tiny beverage glass bottles with alunminium screw caps were used to store test batches of developers.

 

[koraks]

I myself use plastic caps for this reason. Indeed, metal caps may corrode depending on materials and chemistry used.
In the past I also used glass jars from foodwares (e.g. olives etc.) with metal lids. I've seen some pretty fascinating rusticles on those, and some of them rusted all the way through in a matter of months. Evidently, this is pretty disastrous for both the cap and the chemistry...

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I have c-41 film developing kit stored twice well over one year and used for 20- films.
It was in left over plastic bottles for swimming pool chemicals.
I squeezed them to have no air and was keeping them in refrigerator.

 

[TonyB65]

I use one litre wine bottles and a vacuum pump with these rubber corks, they're great, very quick and easy to use and they definitely pump all the air out. The corks start clicking when all the air is removed and you can feel the resistance when you're pumping. It literally takes seconds to pump out a nearly empty bottle and I've had bottles with 100ml in the bottom and it's kept fresh no problem, I can't recommend them enough.

 

[koraks]

I have c-41 film developing kit stored twice well over one year and used for 20- films.

Me too. I only found out how disastrous this was when I tried optically printing negatives from that era. Scanning was sort of OK, but in hindsight, my negatives from that practice were not even in sight of anything decently developed. Never again.

 

[sperera]

Me too. I only found out how disastrous this was when I tried optically printing negatives from that era. Scanning was sort of OK, but in hindsight, my negatives from that practice were not even in sight of anything decently developed. Never again.

sorry koraks, what point are you making....interested to know

 

[sperera]

Thanks for your comments everyone.....I have bought the Vacu Vin and some spare caps so I can use on multiple bottles.....in the same purchase on amazon I have bought some 2000ml reagent bottles for when I mix the Tetenal 2.5ltr C-41....and then will buy bottles os 1000ml Vichy Catalan carbonated water (I don't drink wine haha) to store separate 1000ml segments once mixed and will use the Vacu Vin bottle stoppers!

 

[koraks]

sorry koraks, what point are you making....interested to know

Okay, you asked, so I'll respond, but please keep in mind this is going to be a personal story and you may or may not recognize yourself in it. I'll share it because we are all too keen on sharing our successes, but it's the flipside of these stories where the learning happens.

So, I have come across many reports of people (re)using C41 chemistry (especially developer) for incredible amounts of time, often way beyond the recommended lifetime or development capacity of the manufacturer. In most cases, these reports are not accompanied by verifiable results, and if they are, the are generally scans from negatives for which we simply don't know how much correction (manual or automatic) has been applied to get decent results.

Influenced by these reports, when I started out doing my own color processing, I also thought that I could get away with using color chemistry far beyond manufacturer recommendations. And what do you know - I got images! And colors, too!! Gosh, I suppose all these people must have been right; lifetime and capacity specifications of manufacturers are indeed ridiculously conservative! To paraphrase a US congressman from decades ago: "look at the damn pictures!" All my negatives were scanned and digitally processed - because hey, we all know that color negative requires extensive color correction afterwards because scanners and their software often don't know which side is up in terms of color rendition lacking an objective reference for correct color.

So I scanned, I corrected, got images that looked sort of OK to me, and I thought all was well. Yes, I did notice the shadows fading to red and color casts all across the images as my developer grew old and used (let's say >6 months and God knows how many rolls & sheets). But come on, I was using some pretty beat up old and non-cold stored color film anyway, so I just put it down to that - and I scanned, corrected, and sort of got away with it. By the time about a year had passed since mixing the chemistry fresh, there was really no way around it and I had to conclude it was virtually dead. Still, roughly one year of good use from a liter of developer, bleach and fix is pretty awesome!

Then, of course, time progressed and I started being interested in optical RA4 printing (the blood flows eh...) As you may know, optical printing requires that the negatives are pretty decent (or rather: pretty much perfect) if you want any kind of accurate contrast and color rendition. So as I gained experience with RA4 printing, I started to see my old color negatives in new light (literally). Turns out most of them are complete and utter crap. Unusable. While digital magic suggested to me they were pretty nice, the enlarger taught me that the prince was in fact an ugly frog.

So long story short, where does this put me currently?

• When I hear people using the same batch of color developer for weeks or even months on end, I envy them - and hope they'll remain as happy as they are today with what they got.
• If I reuse the same C41 developer, it's for testing purposes or crapshoot negatives only, and always within a few days of its first use or mixing the developer. Any developer gets discarded after at most a few days of first use.
• For quite some time, I've mixed my own C41 developer to ensure freshness: mix right before use and discard. I still think this is the ideal situation, but unfortunately, getting perfect results from DIY C41 chemistry is tricky given availability of reliable formulas and ingredients.
• Some time ago I caved and bought some Fuji minilab C41 chemistry, based on the experiences of an acquaintance who does the same and stores the mixed developer in full, stoppered glass bottles. With great trepidation I look at these bottles as I see them sitting in the darkroom and I pray to the chemistry Gods that their contents indeed will remain as fresh as the stories go. But I've learned from those stories and am fully prepared to through 6 liters of developer down the drain if experiences of others prove to not translate to my situation again.

So the relevance of questions concerning storing color chemicals, as far as I'm concerned and at my current level of experience, is limited to the following:

• Developers: only concentrates with NO active development agents (usually the A concentrate in tripartite systems); any concentrate with color development agents that has been opened has a death clock ticking which tends to run off within a few weeks. And only mixed working strength developer with its necessary antioxidants (usually HAS) in full, stoppered bottles, unused, and in the hopes that they will indeed remain good. Fingers crossed...
• Other chemistry such as bleaches and fixes: bleach lasts very long and pretty much indefinitely, either as concentrate or working strength. I found that particular care is not even needed in storing these, so vacuum systems etc. are pretty much overkill. Fixer: it'll sulfer out at some point, after a few months or years. No matter how you pet it, make love to it, nurture it - it'll die. It just takes longer than developer. Who cares; it's cheap.
• Any attempts at applying a vacuum, purge gases (nitrogen, argon etc.) will IMO offer a brief extension of the inevitable and are not in any way superior (quite the opposite) to storing in bottles that are filled to the brim and stopped with a tight-fitting cap.

As you can tell from the above, my vacuvin is used for wine (and with extremely limited success, consistent with online reviews - hence my doubts about the quality of the vacuum. If you open a bottle of wine, the best you can do is DRINK IT!) and I don't bother with canisters of nitrogen, argon or Protectan. Chemistry either keeps well and doesn't really need these things, or it doesn't keep well and then it practically doesn't matter what you throw at it as it'll go belly up on you anyway.

 

[sperera]

really appreciate this Korak.....takes along time to write these things.......its simple for me.....for professional jobs I always buy and use NEW chemicals, NEVER take a chance...I work add it to the price I give clients.....this is more to keep to use with the personal stuff.....i risk it a bit as you say......I've got 2.5ltr of C-41 to mix up and use for a shoot of apartment interiors for a client as we speak.....

 

[koraks]

Sounds good Stephen, I think your philosophy is very sane.

And yes, I experiment and push the boundaries myself all the time. It helps that it's never really critical for me; it's a hobby for me, not a profession. But there are always rolls or sheets that are more important than others. I take considerably less risks with those...

Failure combined with analysis/reflection is the most effective way to learn, so failure is for me not so much an option, but a necessity. Hence, I do many things that are not 'recommended' - when/if I can afford to waste the materials and I think there's some relevant knowledge to be gained. Some things are just not worth wasting stuff, time and money on.

 

[pentaxuser]

koraks, you make a good point about the quality of negs and the correlation with optical printing. I do not scan but it would appear that scanning is like paint, it can hide/correct a multiple of faults. Unfortunately many if not most of our members now use hybrid processes and while I have no problem with this it does mean that when a hybrid worker is showing a positive of a neg i.e. a "print" we need to know that (a) it is a scan that has been turned positive and (b) what post processing has been applied. Otherwise if the development process has been "unconventional" for want of a better word we might think that an optical print will be fine, only to discover that it will not.

pentaxuser

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I think ratio of scans vs dr printed c-41 is million to one these days.
I scan and print all three color films types. Develop, scan and print by myself.
I’m not color film user in general, so having one L Telenal kit for more than one year and for well than twenty films is fine by me.

All of those assumptions from wordy dude what I lie about it are ridiculous.

It is well known and it is well described what is happening. Film basically gets more grain.
Because I do print from 400 pushed at 3200 bw in DR, i’m not this anal about grain.

 

[koraks]

All of those assumptions from wordy dude what I lie about it are ridiculous.

I'm not saying you lied. I'm pointing out that my experience didn't match yours. If it works for you, then that's great! It just didn't work for me.

 

[reddesert]

I have one of the Vacu-vin caps. I use it for wine (but then, I also put the partially empty bottle in the fridge). The Vacu-vin obviously does suck some air out, but it is not a vacuum pump; you aren't really fully evacuating the airspace. There is no way you could pull a substantial vacuum with such a hand pump, or maintain it with a rubber seal of that type. I would guess that it only takes a few pounds force to pull the stopper out (recall 1 atmosphere is 15.4 lb/sq in), meaning there's not a full atmosphere holding it in. You can google up some tests that suggest the Vacu-vin evacuates at most 75% of the air, and that it leaks over time (I'm a little dubious that it all leaks out, since there is still a hiss when I open the bottle the next day). Evacuating most of the air is better than nothing, but oxidation will still occur, just more slowly.

I'm okay with using it on wine for a couple of days, but think squeezing the air out of the bottle will be superior for storing chemicals, especially if you need to store for more than a few days.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

"In most cases, these reports are not accompanied by verifiable results"
Wordy dude, this is occusing of lying. And it is ridiculous.