Why is home processing for color not nearly as wide spread?

Bikerider · Oct 25, 2021

Unless it isn't available in Canada, you can get smaller kits than 10L to process C41. I usually buy 5l kits of a 'brew' called Digibase (Made in Germany) and mix it film by film as needed and in some cases mix enough to process 5 films which I do over a period of time. I only use developer once and the minimum quantity I need is 150cc for rotary processing so 5ltr lasts me quite a time. When I mix more i,e to develop 5 films what I don't use immediately is stored in 150cc glass screw-top bottle with neoprene inserts in the cap. If the developer is then warmed before the screw top is applied , once the cap is on as it cools it forma a partial vacuum inside and the developer is perfectly useable at least up to a month afterwards.
I am using less and less colour neg film simply because it is getting so damn hard to buy. As I said in a previous post there appears to be a world wide shortage with no solution what to do.

Bikerider · Oct 25, 2021

mehguy said:
Film was the only means of producing images for over a century. The amount of film cameras produced matched that demand. Now that the demand is much smaller, i dont think the scarcity of working film cameras is an issue.

Are you absolutely sure about this? A few years ago I could (and did) buy a used Bronica SQa body complete, 2 backs, plain prism, plus a 40mm, 50mm 80mm and 150 lenses for a lot less than £1000

Finding and actually buying a complete body alone will set you back for more then I paid for the body alone. I am now a completely 35mm and bought a Nikon F6 for £625, when you can find one for sale they are all well over £1000. I sold mine for £1200. It is the same with F100's a couple of years ago you could get a decent one for about £125, now they are selling in excess of £250 to £275. Manual focus Nikon Fm2/Fe2 are in the hundreds of pounds (I have seen one for sale for £325) whereas until quite recently they were a fraction of those prices. A well used 60 year old Leica M2 or 3 models in not very good shape cosmetically are attracting well over £1000. (The original price new with F2.8 Elmar in 1963 was £125)

It is either a shortage of good usable cameras because the others have expired though old age or they are being horded by collectors? Nikon no longer have spares for any of their film cameras with the possible exception of the F6 which only recently has been discontinued, Being electronic, they will all suffer a prolonged demise with only the mechanical F1/F2 and Nikkormats being usable and repairable.

Apart from Nikon, where are all the Canon AE1's or A1's? They sold millions of them. Being electronic they will have gone the same way as the other electronic ones. Even the now venrable Pentax SV models and Spotmatics. which being mechanical still soldier on, but the prices are rising because there are not a lot around. yeas they are to be found on Flea-Bay but in what condition. I trust that organisation less than Kim Jong Un saying he will become a Buddhist Monk.

mehguy · Oct 25, 2021

Bikerider said:
Are you absolutely sure about this? A few years ago I could (and did) buy a used Bronica SQa body complete, 2 backs, plain prism, plus a 40mm, 50mm 80mm and 150 lenses for a lot less than £1000

Finding and actually buying a complete body alone will set you back for more then I paid for the body alone. I am now a completely 35mm and bought a Nikon F6 for £625, when you can find one for sale they are all well over £1000. I sold mine for £1200. It is the same with F100's a couple of years ago you could get a decent one for about £125, now they are selling in excess of £250 to £275. Manual focus Nikon Fm2/Fe2 are in the hundreds of pounds (I have seen one for sale for £325) whereas until quite recently they were a fraction of those prices. A well used 60 year old Leica M2 or 3 models in not very good shape cosmetically are attracting well over £1000. (The original price new with F2.8 Elmar in 1963 was £125)

It is either a shortage of good usable cameras because the others have expired though old age or they are being horded by collectors? Nikon no longer have spares for any of their film cameras with the possible exception of the F6 which only recently has been discontinued, Being electronic, they will all suffer a prolonged demise with only the mechanical F1/F2 and Nikkormats being usable and repairable.

Apart from Nikon, where are all the Canon AE1's or A1's? They sold millions of them. Being electronic they will have gone the same way as the other electronic ones. Even the now venrable Pentax SV models and Spotmatics. which being mechanical still soldier on, but the prices are rising because there are not a lot around. yeas they are to be found on Flea-Bay but in what condition. I trust that organisation less than Kim Jong Un saying he will become a Buddhist Monk.

A lot of the cameras you mention specifically are very much in demand and it's really a very small minority of cameras that are seeing the prices seriously climb. The Leica M3? Nikon F6? Canon AE1? these cameras and their legacies are talked about to death. If you look outside this very concentrated bubble, there are great film bodies to still be had for almost nothing. Minolta SRT, Konica Autoreflex, Nikon N55, Cosina C1S, and literally every M42 mount camera ever made. There are tons of these film bodies kicking around, and nobody cares about them.

Even something like the Nikon F3, which was produced for 20 years, hasn't seen an astronomical price increase. Sure it's gone up, but not to unreasonable levels. There's tons of these bodies to go around.

The point and shoots though..... I can't seem to find any for what they were going for at thrift stores anymore. But those appeal to a different customer than the SLRs and rangefinders.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Oct 25, 2021

I live near Montréal, so getting C41 developed isn't an issue. It's the RA4 printing that's a more involved scenario.

Bikerider said:
Unless it isn't available in Canada, you can get smaller kits than 10L to process C41. I usually buy 5l kits of a 'brew' called Digibase (Made in Germany) and mix it film by film as needed and in some cases mix enough to process 5 films which I do over a period of time. I only use developer once and the minimum quantity I need is 150cc for rotary processing so 5ltr lasts me quite a time. When I mix more i,e to develop 5 films what I don't use immediately is stored in 150cc glass screw-top bottle with neoprene inserts in the cap. If the developer is then warmed before the screw top is applied , once the cap is on as it cools it forma a partial vacuum inside and the developer is perfectly useable at least up to a month afterwards.
I am using less and less colour neg film simply because it is getting so damn hard to buy. As I said in a previous post there appears to be a world wide shortage with no solution what to do.

Bikerider · Oct 25, 2021

mehguy said:
A lot of the cameras you mention specifically are very much in demand and it's really a very small minority of cameras that are seeing the prices seriously climb. The Leica M3? Nikon F6? Canon AE1? these cameras and their legacies are talked about to death. If you look outside this very concentrated bubble, there are great film bodies to still be had for almost nothing. Minolta SRT, Konica Autoreflex, Nikon N55, Cosina C1S, and literally every M42 mount camera ever made. There are tons of these film bodies kicking around, and nobody cares about them.

Even something like the Nikon F3, which was produced for 20 years, hasn't seen an astronomical price increase. Sure it's gone up, but not to unreasonable levels. There's tons of these bodies to go around.

The point and shoots though..... I can't seem to find any for what they were going for at thrift stores anymore. But those appeal to a different customer than the SLRs and rangefinders.

There may be tons of them lying around but not in dealers shop sales lists The F3 models are rarer than hens teeth and I've not seen a decent one for years. Minolta SRT models are also at a premium there simply are none around.

Yes it is a concentrated bubble but there is no doubt about it the lack of decent reliable instruments has driven the prices up. With electronic models, once a diode or a circuit board packs up there are none or very few spares to repair them.
I bought a Nikon F80 a year or so ago, that cost me £40. The same dealer has one in stock now in rough condition and they are asking almost double what I paid.

I would say over half the models you quoted above only very rarely appear for sale anywhere in UK and when they do a good proportion of them could be in doubtful mechanical condition as well as appearing 'rough'

koraks · Oct 25, 2021

unityofsaints said:
chemicals going stale quickly

I get >12 months of storage for working strength developer stored in full glass bottles; significantly longer for bleach (indefinitely) and fix (several years). It's really a non-issue.

Bikerider · Oct 25, 2021

Michel Hardy-Vallée said:
I live near Montréal, so getting C41 developed isn't an issue. It's the RA4 printing that's a more involved scenario.

RA4 paper and chemicals.That is o.ne item that does not seem to be difficult to buy in UK. I use out of preference the Kodak Ektacolour 20L kit and the life of the chemicals in a deep tank processor is very very good so long as they are replenished on a strict basis of 10cc per 80sq ins. I have had a developer slot in use for nearly 12 months before I changed it to let me clean out the slot of the tar residue.
I can buy Fuji paper in cut sheets up to 12x16, but for preference I buy Kodak 12" wide rolls. It is massively cheaper. I have a home made dispenser using aluminium sheets and riveted together contains the roll and pull out the paper as I need it from a light tight slot at the bottom. I usually cut sheets 16" long and if needed I can cut them down to size later under a DUKA safelight.

An old English proverb says " Necessity is the mother of invention".

sillo · Oct 25, 2021

Bikerider said:
I can buy Fuji paper in cut sheets up to 12x16, but for preference I buy Kodak 12" wide rolls. .

You able to find any right now? I had a few bookmarked for when I got more comfortable printing and now the time has come and they're wrapped up in the Kodak everything shortage.

mshchem · Oct 25, 2021

I just checked Unique Photo in New Jersey. They have 10L Ektacolor Bleach Fixer and Developer in stock. Shipping is reasonable UPS ground.

Bikerider · Oct 25, 2021

sillo said:
You able to find any right now? I had a few bookmarked for when I got more comfortable printing and now the time has come and they're wrapped up in the Kodak everything shortage.

You are right! My supplier for my Kodak paper has no roll in any size or surface. That's a bummer! They have sheets of Fuji and also rolls but they will only supply 2 rolls at a time and at quite a price. As a roll of 12 x 88m Kodak will last me around 18 months, I am not going to buy 2 rolls of Fuji of approx the same length, only to waste one. I have no way of storing it in a cool room or even a large fridge so there is a risk it will go off before I can use it.

Just what are these people at Kodak/Fuji playing at? It is as if they have pressed the self destruct button.

Update I have just found another UK supplier who has 12" x 84mtr rolls of Fuji in all surfaces for less cost than the Kodak equivalent and in single rolls too. They have a Pearl surface that sounds interesting. I am not a fan of Fuji paper but if a negative has enough 'punch' it can be OK

unityofsaints · Oct 25, 2021

koraks said:
I get >12 months of storage for working strength developer stored in full glass bottles; significantly longer for bleach (indefinitely) and fix (several years). It's really a non-issue.

Yes sure but if you're using it intermittently you have to PH check, replenish etc. so it's really not trivial. B&W is just one-shot and lasts forever unmixed.

RPC · Oct 25, 2021

Color chemistry, when stored properly. can last as long as b&w chemistry. I store Kodak C-41 and RA-4 chemistry in glass containers filled and sealed tightly, and have had them last for many months, even years with no noticeable loss in quality. I have found developers, stored this way, after mixing, can last longer than the concentrates. The C-41 bleach and fix can be reused several times without replenishment.

koraks · Oct 26, 2021

unityofsaints said:
it's really not trivial

I disagree.
Color processing at home, both C41 and RA4, doesn't have to be complicated or daunting in the least. I hope nobody is going to reject their plans on this false perception.

mtjade2007 · Oct 26, 2021

Exposing a sheet of RA-4 paper with filtration is the part that is complicated. Usually you will have to do it a couple of times hence wasting paper and chemicals until you get it right. Some people can look at the negative projection under the enlarger and figure out the filtration and the exposure in one shot. I was never able to do that. Is it just me or what?

koraks · Oct 26, 2021

mtjade2007 said:
Some people can look at the negative projection under the enlarger and figure out the filtration and the exposure in one shot.

I don't think so.
Human color perception isn't sufficiently accurate to get even near that level. Either these people are lying, or they're making mediocre prints without realizing it, or they have a very consistent workflow dialed in (i.e. shooting under the same lighting conditions with the same lens on the same film all of the time) and as a result everything will print more or less neutral at the same filter settings.
If anyone says "I can dial in the filtering by the look of the projected image", don't believe their lies. They're deliberately bragging or they are totally clueless.

mtjade2007 said:
Exposing a sheet of RA-4 paper with filtration is the part that is complicated. Usually you will have to do it a couple of times hence wasting paper and chemicals until you get it right.

That's not any more complicated than determining with test strips the right contrast and exposure for a good B&W print, really. Indeed, I find that I need roughly just as many test strips and prints for a B&W print as for an RA4 print. Of course the challenge is different, but it's not necessarily bigger for either workflow.

David A. Goldfarb · Oct 26, 2021

I used to do color. As others have said, temperature control was an issue. Cost effectiveness depended on the volume you were doing.

For me, a big reason I set color aside was that it was more about standardization than it was about creativity--that is unless you were doing masking or dye transfer, which were beyond my capabilities at the time.

Bikerider · Oct 26, 2021

koraks said:
I disagree.
Color processing at home, both C41 and RA4, doesn't have to be complicated or daunting in the least. I hope nobody is going to reject their plans on this false perception.

Absolutely 100% correct. It isn't difficult, it is a skill that once mastered or even learned is actually quite esy

Bikerider · Oct 26, 2021

mtjade2007 said:
Exposing a sheet of RA-4 paper with filtration is the part that is complicated. Usually you will have to do it a couple of times hence wasting paper and chemicals until you get it right. Some people can look at the negative projection under the enlarger and figure out the filtration and the exposure in one shot. I was never able to do that. Is it just me or what?

I don't think that anyone can judge just by looking at the image projected onto the baseboard, if they say they can they are at the least telling fibs! I have been processing RA4 for close on 30 years and I can get close to what is needed, but that is only because I have standardised with my materials and chemistry. (Challenging at the moment with my usual films in short supply!)
The simplest way to get quite accurate is to use one of the Kodak printing filters which can suggest which way to go when altering filtration. You cannot buy them new, but they are plentiful second hand. The filters may fade over time but that doesn't matter, it is only a guide which way to go.

Another way is to dry the test strip off using a hair dryer, especially with Kodak film because the colour shift is more noticeable in the shadows. With Kodak the drying off is essential because of a deep blue cast which disappears when dry. It isn't too obvious with Fuji.

RPC · Oct 26, 2021

Some have stated that color lacks the creativity of b&w. In my experience, the presence of colors in a photo gives far more possibilities for creativity than shades of gray, even with all the b&w darkroom controls. I occasionally do b&w developing & printing, but pulling a beautiful color print out of the tray is far more rewarding, and entirely worth any extra (in my opinion, small) inconveniences there may be compared to b&w.

Bikerider · Oct 26, 2021

RPC said:
Some have stated that color lacks the creativity of b&w. In my experience, the presence of colors in a photo gives far more possibilities for creativity than shades of gray, even with all the b&w darkroom controls. I occasionally do b&w developing & printing, but pulling a beautiful color print out of the tray is far more rewarding, and entirely worth any extra (in my opinion, small) inconveniences there may be compared to b&w.

Oh I wish it were that easy. By and large when doing colour printing what you see is what you get. Say as an example you are intending to make a 12 x16 print. The darkroom is all set up, the chemicals are all at the optimum 35 degrees C. You start by turning off the light, setting up the enlarger, focussing it on the baseboard and make a test strip from what you judge to be an average tonal section.. Shall we say the range of steps are in increments of 5 seconds for a total of 25 seconds. Step 1 is far too pale step 2 a bit better step 3 is getting there step 4 is not far off but step 5 is exactly what we want. (Assuming the colour balance is correct as well) Slip a sheet of12x16 paper into the easel and make the 25 second exposure and develop, stop, then blix and wash it. Finally dry off the print and view in good light either daylight or under a cool light LED (about 6500 Celsius). The section you used to make the test strip is spot on but there is a bit that is too bright. Oooops back to the drawing board (or easel......)

If it were B&W, all we would do is do another test strip, possibly change the filtration for a softer grade and get what you are looking for by burning in or dodging the incorrect area.. Make the same B&W print again but alter the exposure/filter to darken the bright area or if the case is the other way give the area a little less exposure.

With colour it is a whole different ball game, If you darken or lighten an area there will be a contrast change and a change in colour balance which is hellishly difficult to correct, and impossible to correct in the case of too much or too little contrast. It is possible to get away with it over roughly 1.5 stops either way, but any more the difference become obvious to someone with damn near perfect colour vision (which I have).

That said, colour materials have a much greater latitude with exposure than B&W, so an ill exposed film by as much as 2 stops out either way, can be reclaimed by a skilled printer, but that is pushing the boundaries which are limited. But making a print using this latitude to make different exposures on one sheet of paper will become visible by an obvious miss- matched colour balance. B&W I would suggest offers more creativity than colour mainly because of the parameters that come with colour negative film.

Perhaps the best of both worlds is B&W printing using a chromogenic film like Ilford XP2. You choose.......27 yrs of colour printing have brought up most of the pitfalls and shown me how to avoid them,

RPC · Oct 26, 2021

Bikerider said:
Oh I wish it were that easy. By and large when doing colour printing what you see is what you get. Say as an example you are intending to make a 12 x16 print. The darkroom is all set up, the chemicals are all at the optimum 35 degrees C. You start by turning off the light, setting up the enlarger, focussing it on the baseboard and make a test strip from what you judge to be an average tonal section.. Shall we say the range of steps are in increments of 5 seconds for a total of 25 seconds. Step 1 is far too pale step 2 a bit better step 3 is getting there step 4 is not far off but step 5 is exactly what we want. (Assuming the colour balance is correct as well) Slip a sheet of12x16 paper into the easel and make the 25 second exposure and develop, stop, then blix and wash it. Finally dry off the print and view in good light either daylight or under a cool light LED (about 6500 Celsius). The section you used to make the test strip is spot on but there is a bit that is too bright. Oooops back to the drawing board (or easel......)

If it were B&W, all we would do is do another test strip, possibly change the filtration for a softer grade and get what you are looking for by burning in or dodging the incorrect area.. Make the same B&W print again but alter the exposure/filter to darken the bright area or if the case is the other way give the area a little less exposure.

With colour it is a whole different ball game, If you darken or lighten an area there will be a contrast change and a change in colour balance which is hellishly difficult to correct, and impossible to correct in the case of too much or too little contrast. It is possible to get away with it over roughly 1.5 stops either way, but any more the difference become obvious to someone with damn near perfect colour vision (which I have).

That said, colour materials have a much greater latitude with exposure than B&W, so an ill exposed film by as much as 2 stops out either way, can be reclaimed by a skilled printer, but that is pushing the boundaries which are limited. But making a print using this latitude to make different exposures on one sheet of paper will become visible by an obvious miss- matched colour balance. B&W I would suggest offers more creativity than colour mainly because of the parameters that come with colour negative film.

Perhaps the best of both worlds is B&W printing using a chromogenic film like Ilford XP2. You choose.......27 yrs of colour printing have brought up most of the pitfalls and shown me how to avoid them,

I don't experience the problems you seem to have in the darkroom with color printing. I have a standard starting filtration and exposure for each film type, based on printing experience, usually taking one or two additional small test prints, to get the color and exposure right, as I shoot consistently. I print with trays at room temperature which greatly simplifies things.

In my opinion, b&w is so full of variables that it can be as difficult as, or more difficult than color. Film, development, print paper types, and contrast adjustment certainly allow for lots of control, but making it all come together for that perfect print can end up being daunting and time consuming.

Color being more standardized, means if you just process film properly you will get correct color and contrast with your film. You control contrast with the choice of film, although there are ways to control contrast in the darkroom.

The use of color in your shooting is where the real creativity and beauty lies, IMHO.

mtjade2007 · Oct 27, 2021

koraks said:
I don't think so.
Human color perception isn't sufficiently accurate to get even near that level. Either these people are lying, or they're making mediocre prints without realizing it, or they have a very consistent workflow dialed in (i.e. shooting under the same lighting conditions with the same lens on the same film all of the time) and as a result everything will print more or less neutral at the same filter settings.
If anyone says "I can dial in the filtering by the look of the projected image", don't believe their lies. They're deliberately bragging or they are totally clueless.

Well, I was once in a minilab chatting with the owner and watching a girl operating their printing machine. That was back in the late 80's and the machine wasn't too automated so the girl had to manually expose each frame on the film. She made adjustments (filtration and exposure) when she felt necessary. I thought that was amazing and the owner confirmed to me that she could visually look at the projected negative image and make filtration and exposure changes almost right on. So I think with training it is possible to build up the skill.

koraks · Oct 27, 2021

mtjade2007 said:
So I think with training it is possible to build up the skill.

I don't. Sorry.
Your story is a nice one, but the explanation of her acumen is likely elsewhere. I.e., for commonly used film types, filtration settings were known, and most of the variability would have been in different kind of scenes. If the girl saw an indoor, tungsten exposed scene shot on daylight film, she would have known to bump both yellow and magenta by a huge margin. She would have known the approximate corrections to apply for a shadow scene compared to a sunlit one, etc. That sort of experience is of course perfectly reasonable to expect from a proficient printer.
Especially if you take into account the fact that in the late 80s, index prints were already on the block and minilab operators just took the index print and based adjustments for individual prints on the relative differences between the frames on the index print.

Training a human observer to accurately judge the need for a +/-10CC adjustment (still a fairly coarse adjustment, mind you!) based on just a projected negative - not a chance.

Bikerider · Oct 27, 2021

RPC said:
I don't experience the problems you seem to have in the darkroom with color printing. I have a standard starting filtration and exposure for each film type, based on printing experience, usually taking one or two additional small test prints, to get the color and exposure right, as I shoot consistently. I print with trays at room temperature which greatly simplifies things.

In my opinion, b&w is so full of variables that it can be as difficult as, or more difficult than color. Film, development, print paper types, and contrast adjustment certainly allow for lots of control, but making it all come together for that perfect print can end up being daunting and time consuming.

Color being more standardized, means if you just process film properly you will get correct color and contrast with your film. You control contrast with the choice of film, although there are ways to control contrast in the darkroom.

The use of color in your shooting is where the real creativity and beauty lies, IMHO.

I don't disagree that there are so many variables with B&W, but it is far easier to work with, you don't have to worry about colour balance, infact we often deliberately alter that with filters - yellow orange red etc etc. Lower processing temperatures which are easier to control, a decent light level with a comparatively bright safelight. Plus of course the multiple grades that are possible with today's papers. I don't find it any more difficult than any other process.

I cut my photographic teeth way back in 1963 when things were not so easy and learned how to deal with any problems that life threw at me and did not even touch colour work until around 1993 when RA4 was in common use.

A selected quote from your post (problems you seem to have in the darkroom) I don't have problems! (except of my making). I was just making a point of the possible pitfalls comparing colour and B&W. I do both and happily swap between one and the other without problem but I put this down to experience. Colour for me takes a lot less thinking about than B&W, but where is the hardship in that?

Colour work IS standardised (or should be|) and that is partially the 'trick'. I have long been an advocate of keeping things simple and always using the same make of film, the same film developer, the same paper.and paper developer and thing are simple. Things are going sadly awry of late, with film being harder to find but that for me is not a problem - yet - I have quite a stock. I also use both FUJI and Kodak paper. But I know both 'normal' filtration values which are easy to change. Using different colour films when out is easy to say but not so easy to do unless you carry multiple bodies loaded with different stock.

That aside, take into account the things over which you have no control such as the colour temperature of daylight, it changes from dawn to dusk, the increased difficulty of keeping temperatures accurate, more important than with B&W. It is a fact of life that, if you burn in or dodge out different colour density then you do change the colour balance. You can prove this yourself by deliberately over or under exposing a print the colour balance is different. This is what happens when you alter different colour areas in a print by dodging or burning

foc · Oct 27, 2021

mtjade2007 said:
That was back in the late 80's and the machine wasn't too automated so the girl had to manually expose each frame on the film.

Even though the printing machine (in the late 1980s) was not as automated as say a Frontier, it still read the negative exposure and would have made a colour correction according to the colour channel selected. Some of these printers also had a small CRT monitor that displayed a positive image of the negative to be printed and so some colour adjustment could be made on a visual BUT the operator was looking at a positive image.

Back in the late 1970s, I used to make custom large colour prints, commercially, on a colour head enlarger in a darkroom. We had a set of homemade charts for different film types which we used as a basis for starting a colour and exposure test. But that's just what they were, a reference point. Even though I spent 4 years at it, I could never correctly guess a negative without doing the tests.

Machine printing was easy peasy compared to it.

I must agree with @koraks , on this.

Why is home processing for color not nearly as wide spread?

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