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.
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 RolleiJust to confirm, the Rollei non-digikam/compard/etc. kit uses two bottle to mix into a blix.
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 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...
AFAIK Kodak never recommended BLIX or supplied BLIX kits for C-41 and E6, Ron Mowrey is living evidence for my claim.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.
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.
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.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.
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.
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.
Anyone else think that the use of "digi" is weird here? And "digitaltruth?" Both deal with analog.
Insights, anyone?
This applies to "Rollei Colorchem" kit, however there is also the "Compard Digibase" kit which for obvious reasions is also related to "Rollei" too.
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.
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.
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.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 [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.
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.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?)
Tetenal lists a surprisingly long working solution shelf life. Here, too, I chickened out and used it only for a week or two.How about the situation where the blix is in storage for some time - does it lose bleaching power?
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.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.
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'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...
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.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.
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