When did the Rollei C-41 kits start using BLIX?

[mklw1954]

The last Rollei Digibase kit I purchased from Freestyle, with separate bleach and fix, was in December 2011. I recall that Freestyle no longer sold the separate bleach and fix kits soon after that which is why I went back to Unicolor. I also recall that many Digibase kits then were sold with oxidized developer Part C; this happened with mine and Freestyle replaced it.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

@ Mr. Bill. I have to say, very interesting (how many people in the whole world would say that?) Back in the 1980's I was a "Filtration Products Sales Engineer" for a large distributor in southern California, LA. Unicolor was a customer and I still remember well my first visit. Jaw dropping, watching those master and print films fly around on rollers, twisting this way and that, room to room, overhead at many feet per second, the huge developing tanks, the silver recovery units humming. They looked like big car batteries. These were a long way from the little things my father kept in used fixer jugs to reclaim the silver!

I'm sure you know whereof I speak.

But meanwhile, back at the kitchen sink.............. I maintain that blix works fine for us amateurs. It has been around far too long to be a bad choice, vs. separate. The companies making the kits, well, I trust them to make the right decisions vs. me spending nights awake worrying if my negs or slides will be around for the great grandchildren. Or how to slash costs to the penny or minimize effluent. Did you have to? Did Unicolor have to? Of course. I don't and it would be a foolish waste of time.

One could, I guess, add another fixing stage to cover that base if so desired.

BTW, did you ever hear the story that Kodak's paper plant on the Cache La Poudre River south of Greeley, CO had more natural silver coming in than they were allowed to discharge? Yes, they had to clean up the natural water to EPA quality!

 

[Paul Verizzo]

The last Rollei Digibase kit I purchased from Freestyle, with separate bleach and fix, was in December 2011. I recall that Freestyle no longer sold the separate bleach and fix kits soon after that which is why I went back to Unicolor. I also recall that many Digibase kits then were sold with oxidized developer Part C; this happened with mine and Freestyle replaced it.

You can get a 5L Fuji Hunt kit from FS for "only" $130, quite a price penalty to pay for getting separate bleach and fixer. https://www.freestylephoto.biz/660163-Fuji-C-41-X-Press-Kit-5-L-Processing-Kit

Or, a 20L RA-4 Bleach and Fix kit for $65: https://www.freestylephoto.biz/108252-Silver-Pixel-RA-4-Bleach-Fix-and-Replenisher-to-Make-20-Liters I'll presume that if used with film the capacity might be less. But there ya go.........

 

[pentaxuser]

Just to confirm, the Rollei non-digikam/compard/etc. kit uses two bottle to mix into a blix.

Thanks. I find the whole "thing" about kits from Rollei very complicated, a bit like films from Rollei where film A is/is not the same as film B depending on whom you last spoke to and thus in the same way it is difficult to get to a clear understanding of what kits have blix and what have bleach and fix from Rollei

I have yet to hear from anyone who seems to have any kind of statement from retailers in the U.S. about why the separate bleach and fix kits from Digibase are no longer imported. Is this a retailer decision or a Digibase decision?

pentaxuser.

 

[RPC]

We can all do what we feel works best for us, but I am glad there are more knowledgeable and experienced people like PE and Mr. Bill out there to tell us reasons for using a separate bleach and fix as the more technically correct choice, even for amateurs. This is no doubt important to some. As for trusting manufacturers, I don't always, as some are just trying to sell a product and not as concerned about the quality it delivers. I trust Kodak, as their chemistries are known to deliver high quality and they have never marketed a blix for film for reasons PE has explained to us in other threads.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

We can all do what we feel works best for us, but I am glad there are more knowledgeable and experienced people like PE and Mr. Bill out there to tell us reasons for using a separate bleach and fix as the more technically correct choice, even for amateurs. This is no doubt important to some. As for trusting manufacturers, I don't always, as some are just trying to sell a product and not as concerned about the quality it delivers. I trust Kodak, as their chemistries are known to deliver high quality and they have never marketed a blix for film for reasons PE has explained to us in other threads.

The old Kodak C-41 kits didn't use blix? Don't know, just wondering.

Companies like Maco, Tetenal, and Unicolor aren't exectly brewing chemicals in the garage, you know. Your cynicism is noted, but that doesn't mean it's universally correct. Speaking as a CPC (Certified Professional Cynic) myself.

Being perfect is a great goal, especially in engineering. Being good enough is actually often perfect, and meets many functional needs.

 

[Mr Bill]

... the silver recovery units humming. They looked like big car batteries. These were a long way from the little things my father kept in used fixer jugs to reclaim the silver!

Now you done it... got me started talking... Yeah, I used to love to see other operations, just about anything being manufactured. But I suspect that we would have seen the Unicolor operation as "small."

We built our own silver recovery units for blix with a continuous-flow arrangement; something I'd never heard of anyone else doing. Each "unit" had four staged cells, 'bout 20 gallons each, overflowing into each other; used blix comes in one end, desilvered blix out the other end. We ran as much current into each as we could (commercial DC power supplies), just short of sulfiding (as the silver level goes down, the current has to be reduced). As I recall, about 225 amps on the first one, tapering down to about 175 amps at the end. (Note, this is for BLIX, which takes about 5x the current-density that fixer would.) 'Bout 3 liters/minute flow, stop it once a day and knock off about 20 lb silver flake. It worked so well we built a couple more. They went on for at least 25 to 30 years with virtually no design change - still the screwy belt tensioning system we prototyped with, some slotted pvc plates that got bolted down. That was always a little thorn in my side, but they (the management) would never let us redesign; "It works good enough; you've got more important thing to work on."

I recall being around there when a couple guys from an outfit that built silver recovery gear were getting a tour. The one was telling the other, "Now look how big these brushes are; this is what I'm telling you we need to be doing with our units!" (These are rotating cathodes so brushes are needed.) I told him that basically we didn't know what we were doing; we had a minimum cross-section goal, then arbitrarily doubled or tripled that as a safety factor, and went shopping. The brushes we ended up with had been designed for a small crane, but we had to make our own slip rings. Using the Thomas Edison method - test different materials for one with the lowest wear rate.

That's probably about enough reminiscing...back in the good old days...

 

[Paul Verizzo]

The information I have on the Digibase chemistry is from what I downloaded back when it was available.

Anyone else think that the use of "digi" is weird here? And "digitaltruth?" Both deal with analog.

Insights, anyone?

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Now you done it... got me started talking... Yeah, I used to love to see other operations, just about anything being manufactured. But I suspect that we would have seen the Unicolor operation as "small."

We built our own silver recovery units for blix with a continuous-flow arrangement; something I'd never heard of anyone else doing. Each "unit" had four staged cells, 'bout 20 gallons each, overflowing into each other; used blix comes in one end, desilvered blix out the other end. We ran as much current into each as we could (commercial DC power supplies), just short of sulfiding (as the silver level goes down, the current has to be reduced). As I recall, about 225 amps on the first one, tapering down to about 175 amps at the end. (Note, this is for BLIX, which takes about 5x the current-density that fixer would.) 'Bout 3 liters/minute flow, stop it once a day and knock off about 20 lb silver flake. It worked so well we built a couple more. They went on for at least 25 to 30 years with virtually no design change - still the screwy belt tensioning system we prototyped with, some slotted pvc plates that got bolted down. That was always a little thorn in my side, but they (the management) would never let us redesign; "It works good enough; you've got more important thing to work on."

I recall being around there when a couple guys from an outfit that built silver recovery gear were getting a tour. The one was telling the other, "Now look how big these brushes are; this is what I'm telling you we need to be doing with our units!" (These are rotating cathodes so brushes are needed.) I told him that basically we didn't know what we were doing; we had a minimum cross-section goal, then arbitrarily doubled or tripled that as a safety factor, and went shopping. The brushes we ended up with had been designed for a small crane, but we had to make our own slip rings. Using the Thomas Edison method - test different materials for one with the lowest wear rate.

That's probably about enough reminiscing...back in the good old days...

Oops........talk about memory. In my case, failure. The lab that I worked with was Technicolor. Probably too much Unicolor chemistry discussion here and the old brain synapses malfunctioned. Again.

 

[Rudeofus]

The old Kodak C-41 kits didn't use blix? Don't know, just wondering.

AFAIK Kodak never recommended BLIX or supplied BLIX kits for C-41 and E6, Ron Mowrey is living evidence for my claim.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

AFAIK Kodak never recommended BLIX or supplied BLIX kits for C-41 and E6, Ron Mowrey is living evidence for my claim.

Not saying they did, just my quesion. It's obviously a matter of what the chemical engineers, marketing people, and ultimately a manager decided which way to go. Could have as easily gone the other way, witness Maco and Unicolor and almost everyone else over these years.

 

[RPC]

The old Kodak C-41 kits didn't use blix? Don't know, just wondering.

Companies like Maco, Tetenal, and Unicolor aren't exectly brewing chemicals in the garage, you know. Your cynicism is noted, but that doesn't mean it's universally correct. Speaking as a CPC (Certified Professional Cynic) myself.

Being perfect is a great goal, especially in engineering. Being good enough is actually often perfect, and meets many functional needs.

Kodak C-41 kits never used a blix. There are valid technical reasons why, as PE has explained.

There are companies out there marketing things such as "monobath" color kits. Before I knew any better I tried two of these kits and both were shot. Poor shelf life and even when new, delivered results inferior to standard chemistry, I trusted them and look what happened. That was before I learned better from this site about color chemistry and who and what can be trusted.

What is acceptable to you may not be acceptable to someone else. Information is there to serve the needs of many, not just one.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

"What is acceptable to you may not be acceptable to someone else. Information is there to serve the needs of many, not just one."

That is EXACTLY what I've been trying to say. That for myself and millions of other home users, blix is just fine with certain, real benefits. And for someone that for whatever reasons, imagined or real world, wants separate chemicals, go for it. And maybe there are those who can no longer get the separate baths, or only with great difficulty, and they should be reassured that blix is not the devil incarnate.

Mi dos centavos...... And that's all it is.

 

[RPC]

You've made the claim "blix works fine for us amateurs". Speak for yourself. It may not be acceptable to others when they learn the facts.

 

[Rudeofus]

You've made the claim "blix works fine for us amateurs". Speak for yourself. It may not be acceptable to others when they learn the facts.

As you may know, I have dabbled quite deep into bleaches and BLIXes, so I claim to have some knowledge about what they do, and I have processed hundreds of rolls myself. My old slides (souped in Tetenal's kits) look just as good as the ones I did later with separate bleach&fix. There are some amateur kits which took some rather questionable short cuts, but there are BLIX kits out there which consistently deliver excellent results.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

You've made the claim "blix works fine for us amateurs". Speak for yourself. It may not be acceptable to others when they learn the facts.

Really, drop it. I've very much allowed everyone their own desires, I have no need to be found right for everyone in every circumstance. Everything I've brought up is just a presentation of what I've found along the road and assorted conclusions. Discussion, not dogma.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

As you may know, I have dabbled quite deep into bleaches and BLIXes, so I claim to have some knowledge about what they do, and I have processed hundreds of rolls myself. My old slides (souped in Tetenal's kits) look just as good as the ones I did later with separate bleach&fix. There are some amateur kits which took some rather questionable short cuts, but there are BLIX kits out there which consistently deliver excellent results.

Yes, you are the bleach/fix Lord around here! All hail! I've saved your thread about how to make use of separate bleach and fixer when presented to be mixed. I have a liter of new blix from a Unicolor set. I will use that for awhile as I absorb your chemistry advice from that thread and perhaps go the separate route.

Why? Better quality? Who knows? But just for the fun of it. I think THAT'S reason enough.

And thanks for the observation which I would have suspected but had no proof as you do.

 

[Mr Bill]

The old Kodak C-41 kits didn't use blix? Don't know, just wondering.

To the best of my knowledge, Kodak never used a blix for C-41, which I think says something about it. In my experience Kodak has always taken a more conservative stance, to the (quality) benefit of the user.

[Update: I'm too slow on the draw here; I see a couple people have pointed this out already]

Companies like Maco, Tetenal, and Unicolor aren't exectly brewing chemicals in the garage, you know.

Sure, but they're no Kodak, either.

Cute little story about Trebla (a one-time maker of aftermarket photo chems; I KNOW they did a lot of volume in North America, at least), where I had a few friends. (I would never tell the story if they were still around, but they closed up shop quite a few years back...)

Anyway, I and a couple of coworkers were having a tour of their recently revamped plant. The head guy was explaining how they had done a ground-up redesign of the plant. They had included a mezzanine for loading chemicals into the top of the reactors - no more of these ladders leaning up against 'em, etc. So he led us into the plant, and first thing we saw - there was a tall ladder leaning against one of the big cylindrical stainless steel reactors, which had a huge dent in the side. So we all (well, maybe not him so much) had a good laugh. Turns out the operator had pumped out a batch of something, but forgot to open a vent. I dunno how they dealt with it, probably pressurized it to pop the dent back out, I imagine.

So even significant players don't necessarily do everything "right."

 

[AgX]

Anyone else think that the use of "digi" is weird here? And "digitaltruth?" Both deal with analog.

Insights, anyone?

Yes, weird. For instance I first learned of Digitaltruth here at Apug and wondered why at a then pure analogue forum repeatedly such firm was hinted at. Until I looked at their film comparisons.

Thus conditioned I felt less annoyed... when Maco introduced their colourfilm offer around the tradename Digibase. To my understanding the name was based on their first colour film, a maskless negative film. As manufacturer Agfa too, Maco emphazised by ommission of the mask it being designed for scanning. Thus a film as base for a digital workflow. That tradename was then applied also on their regular E-6 film a well as their C-41 kit.

 

[AgX]

This applies to "Rollei Colorchem" kit, however there is also the "Compard Digibase" kit which for obvious reasions is also related to "Rollei" too.

The relation is not only that Maco meanwhile typically present their products as Rollei, and Compard being strongly related to Maco, but when the Digibase C-41 kit was introduced it actually had the Rollei brand. Which meanwhile vanished from this kit and appeared on their other C-41 kit.

 

[RPC]

Really, drop it. I've very much allowed everyone their own desires, I have no need to be found right for everyone in every circumstance. Everything I've brought up is just a presentation of what I've found along the road and assorted conclusions. Discussion, not dogma.

Okay, I'll drop it. My goal is to not attack anyone personally but help readers get the most complete and accurate information.

 

[Mr Bill]

As you may know, I have dabbled quite deep into bleaches and BLIXes, so I claim to have some knowledge about what they do, and I have processed hundreds of rolls myself. My old slides (souped in Tetenal's kits) look just as good as the ones I did later with separate bleach&fix. There are some amateur kits which took some rather questionable short cuts, but there are BLIX kits out there which consistently deliver excellent results.

Rudi, I don't doubt that you got good results. But here's a few things to consider:

Does the aftermarket blix have enough capacity to handle some heavily (or over) exposed rolls? How about a couple such rolls in a hand tank? What about other films - are some more difficult to bleach than others? (Maybe some of the easier films have some sort of bleaching "accelerator" built in?)

How about the situation where the blix is in storage for some time - does it lose bleaching power?

I don't know the answer to these things; maybe it DOES continue to work fine; but I tend to be skeptical unless Kodak (or Fuji-Hunt?) has put their stamp of approval on it.

At any rate, my experience is mainly with the Kodak formulations used with the low speed Kodak pro portrait films. With those, in a cine processor running at 50 ft/min, and maybe 3 to 4 hundred gallons of bleach in the processor tank, we had to keep constant aeration in the tank - a continue layer of bubbles on the surface - else the bleaching would fall off. (This is per the Kodak control strips, which have a "bleaching test" that helps to stress the bleach, for an early warning.)

At any rate, incomplete bleaching is not that big of a deal. Retained silver doesn't affect longevity of the image as far as I know, and the film can always be rebleached if necessary.

Ps, on this about this a bit further, I've sometimes been puzzled by something of the internet lore about overexposed color neg film giving a pastel-sort of appearance. Now I know from experience - very seriously-controlled testing, albeit over a dozen years ago?? - that studio portraits on Portra 160 could be over exposed by 3 or 4 f-stops, and optical prints could be hand balanced to the same color, and the results would be nearly identical. Yet the wedding-shooter lore, and apparently their printed results, is that it gives "dreamy" pastel colors. I always attributed this to problems (or perhaps artistic interpretation) with the scanning process. But now, I wonder if this may have been a bleaching deficiency...

Pps, as a general note to readers, the traditional photofinisher test for bleaching/fixing is to video the film with an infrared scope, in the dark. The film should appear completely blank (the dyes are transparent to IR). If one sees any trace of an image this means that silver has been left behind, but it's not apparent whether it is a bleach or fixer problem. This is answered by both refixing (only) and by rebleaching AND refixing a test sample of the film. If fixer, only, changes the film then you know the fixer is deficient. If the bleach plus fixer shows a change, but the fixer only test did not, then you know that the bleach is deficient.

 

[Rudeofus]

To the best of my knowledge, Kodak never used a blix for C-41, which I think says something about it. In my experience Kodak has always taken a more conservative stance, to the (quality) benefit of the user.

In some cases they simply refused to bring a product to market, because they didn't expect enough profit from it to justify the costs, or because that product wasn't really part of their core market strategy anyway, or because they were afraid that the new product would eat into sales of existing products. There are all kinds of solid business reasons for not bringing a product to market despite its technical merit. Tetenal offers separate bleach&fix for both C-41 and E-6 packages for minilabs, while these BLIX kits are aimed at home amateurs. Kodak may not have cared much for that amateur market, leaving them behind at the first sign of market decline.

 

[Mr Bill]

In some cases they [Kodak] simply refused to bring a product to market, because they didn't expect enough profit from it to justify the costs, or because that product wasn't really part of their core market strategy anyway, or because they were afraid that the new product would eat into sales of existing products. There are all kinds of solid business reasons for not bringing a product to market despite its technical merit.

Sure, but in the earlier days of C-41 and up through the heyday of 1-hour labs, at least, Kodak was rolling in money, and gave a great deal of support to users in areas that I'm pretty sure were not profitable. And they were frequently looking into other areas of possible products (we used to sit in on a periodic "technology review," "here are some interesting things we've explored; do you think your company might find a possible use for them)?"

My best guess, and it is just a guess, is that they didn't think that film blix would be a reliable SAFE product. (I say "safe" because it is possible that they might have made a reliable film blix, but perhaps with chemicals that are potentially dangerous for the general consumer.)

Something not well known is that Kodak used to publish documents with various "process alternatives" using non-standard variations (they were for industry use, and perhaps just on request?). I don't recall a film blix ever being mentioned. If it was seen as possibly doable, I think it would have been described (perhaps it was, but I just don't remember).

 

[Rudeofus]

Does the aftermarket blix have enough capacity to handle some heavily (or over) exposed rolls? How about a couple such rolls in a hand tank? What about other films - are some more difficult to bleach than others? (Maybe some of the easier films have some sort of bleaching "accelerator" built in?)

With E-6 it's simple: exposure doesn't much matter, since all the silver halide gets converted to metallic silver either by FD or by CD. So as far as silver load is concerned, E-6 is as tough as it gets.

In case of C-41 you will likely have less metallic silver, but the fixer part is strained more due to DIR couplers releasing powerful restrainers. At least Tetenal's C-41 BLIX instructions give very long process times for reused BLIX - many times I simply didn't reuse as much as I could have in order to avoid mind boggingly boring 15 minute BLIX times.

How about the situation where the blix is in storage for some time - does it lose bleaching power?

Tetenal lists a surprisingly long working solution shelf life. Here, too, I chickened out and used it only for a week or two.

At any rate, incomplete bleaching is not that big of a deal. Retained silver doesn't affect longevity of the image as far as I know, and the film can always be rebleached if necessary.

If incomplete bleaching and fixation is not caught in time, Silver Sulfide may form from retained silver and environmental Hydrogen Sulfide. You won't be able to address these with rebleaching.

Here is one so far only theoretical argument against BLIX: if you bleach and fix finished B&W prints, especially in originally darker regions some brown stain will remain regardless of bleach time and agent. From what I have read, this brown stain is Silver Sulfide formed during fixation with Thiosulfate. Evidently this brown stain forms on metallic silver but not on silver halide grains - we know from experience, that these are dissolved by fixer without visible residue. Therefore one should not expect Silver Sulfide formation in a regular bleach & fixer process, since metallic silver never gets in contact with Thiosulfate. But in a BLIX process metallic silver and Thiosulfate together could form Silver Sulfide, before the Ferric EDTA and the Bromide can turn the metallic silver into Ferrous EDTA and Silver Bromide. This residual Silver Sulfide would be stable - probably a lot more long term stable than the dyes, but it would have an off color which shouldn't be there, which can't be re-BLIXed away. So far I have no hard evidence for this actually happening, but I also don't have sensitive means to measure tiny amounts of retained Silver Sulfide.

I've sometimes been puzzled by something of the internet lore about overexposed color neg film giving a pastel-sort of appearance. Now I know from experience - very seriously-controlled testing, albeit over a dozen years ago?? - that studio portraits on Portra 160 could be over exposed by 3 or 4 f-stops, and optical prints could be hand balanced to the same color, and the results would be nearly identical. Yet the wedding-shooter lore, and apparently their printed results, is that it gives "dreamy" pastel colors. I always attributed this to problems (or perhaps artistic interpretation) with the scanning process. But now, I wonder if this may have been a bleaching deficiency...

It could well be a process deficiency, but what if a wedding photographer happened to run into a lab that just set up and dialed in fresh chemistry? Would the nice pastel colors they were after suddenly give way to a gaudy look?

I guess it's a question what you compare Portra against. If put up against Kodak Gold or Fuji Superia, then Portra is most definitely more muted in color, especially the NC Portras from back then. I'd wage a guess, that neither Gold nor Superia were even considered in a professional photo studio, whereas wedding pics were certainly compared against Aunt Tillie's and Uncle Jim's snap shots on consumer film.

Pps, as a general note to readers, the traditional photofinisher test for bleaching/fixing is to video the film with an infrared scope, in the dark. The film should appear completely blank (the dyes are transparent to IR). If one sees any trace of an image this means that silver has been left behind, but it's not apparent whether it is a bleach or fixer problem.

Funnily this can now be done by rank and file amateurs equipped with ICE capable scanners+software. With my bleach&fixer incarnations I am able to get just 10% light loss in the infrared channel, which is equivalent to a density of 0.05 - this is below the limit allegedly set by process control strips. I can't even say whether these 10% are due to retained silver or due to film base not completely transparent to IR light. Will check my ancient BLIXed slides/negatives when I get around to it.