Why Still C-41 Blix?

mtjade2007 · May 23, 2022

I recently saw a few Youtube videos introducing C-41 processing at home. Each of those videos uses blix chemical. I know C-41 process well as an amateur and I have always thought it's a bad idea to blix, rather it should be bleach then fix. This was based on what PE's talk about blix. I am not a chemist so I don't remember the reasons. I simply keep that in mind as a rule of thumb. I always use Kodak C-41 chemicals and it always contains a separate bleach and a fix. Besides, bleach can be reused over and over for a very long time. If blix is used then one has to keep buying blix which can be expensive and wasteful. So why the authors of those videos teach people using blix in C-41? Are they insane sending wrong info to newbies?

McDiesel · May 23, 2022

The authors of Youtube videos hunt for the eyeballs. Vast majority, if not all, C41 home kits available for sale in the US are blix-based, so they must produce videos that can be followed by their audience.

If you were to ask why the hell Cinestill and others are pedaling blix, the answer is cost. They advertise "Process 8 rolls for $30" so their incentive is to include as little as possible for your $30. Looks like the kids who get into film are not demanding quality at all. In fact, they love funky colors, poor scanning, expired films, Lomongraphy purple, etc. Perfectly exposed, developed and scanned C41 negative looks boring to them, so the benefits of separate bleach + fixer aren't valued.

grat · May 24, 2022

I know I'm not getting the best results when using Blix, and I know the chemicals are going to have a short life-- but I don't develop enough to justify going the full-blown replenishment route, and it's difficult to get the separate chemicals in smaller quantities.

On the other hand, I've been satisfied with what C41 development I have done.

Rudeofus · May 24, 2022

There may be factors, which may not matter much to us here, but which drive both industry, youtubers and user base towards BLIX based kits:

BLIX kits are simpler than kits with separate bleach&fixer.
Bleach is an acidic liquid, which comes right after "radioactive" in terms of "we won't ship this".
People, who ask for separate bleach&fixer are generally not the people scouring youtube for "how to process C-41" clips.

pentaxuser · May 24, 2022

grat said:
I know I'm not getting the best results when using Blix, and I know the chemicals are going to have a short life-- but I don't develop enough to justify going the full-blown replenishment route, and it's difficult to get the separate chemicals in smaller quantities.

On the other hand, I've been satisfied with what C41 development I have done.

That sounds like a pretty good summary that largely answers the question

pentaxuser

koraks · May 24, 2022

mtjade2007 said:
rather it should be bleach then fix. This was based on what PE's talk about blix.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall PE concluding something along the lines of "a blix will give results nearly indistinguishable from bleach + fix but only if it's well-formulated and in good condition" (i.e. not over date, over-used etc.) While I personally think that separate bleach and fix are preferable mostly for practical reasons, I really don't think there's anything inherently wrong with blixed negatives, at least not to the extent that it will actually present visible problems in prints or scans.
There's a lot of caveats that can be made especially at a more theoretical level, but as far as I'm concerned, I don't see how a good blix used sensibly would be a real-world problem.

AgX · May 24, 2022

Rudeofus said:
......
3.People, who ask for separate bleach&fixer are generally not the people scouring youtube for "how to process C-41" clips.

It might be a bit more complicated. For instance the Bellini C41 amateur kit has Bleach and Fixer apart.
But then is washless...

bags27 · May 24, 2022

This thread started me searching for a more disaggregated way of C-41 (that is, keeping bleach and fix separate) and happened upon this, which deserves attention. Author claims superior results. I'd be really interested in everyone's thoughts.

C-41 with Kodak Flexicolor at Home

Introduction Developing color film at home is not as hard as some people make it out to be. If you have a safe place to do this and are used to working with photo chemistry, being able to do C-41 (…

www.kabbottphoto.com

McDiesel · May 24, 2022

Flexicolor is a no-brainer. Vastly cheaper and to-the-spec quality. @grat you are missing out. You don't need to go "full replenishment route". You can use Flexicolor one-shot:

Prepare full 5L of developer replenisher and keep it in a AstraPouch bag. Lasts me about 8-9 months before I use it all. That's $23.
Mix 1L of fixer. Will be good for 8 rolls.
Mix 1L of bleach. Will be good for 8 rolls.
Mix 1L of developer solution by mixing water, starter and the replenisher form the 5L bag above. That's good for one-shot development of 4 rolls.

That's all. Develop in batches of 4 rolls. Replace developer after each batch, and fixer+bleach every other batch. Not much different from B&W. Fully compliant with Kodak specs in Z-131.

bags27 · May 24, 2022

Good discussion here:

Kodak Flexicolor Delevoper Starter LORR Expiry

I've been using Kodak Flexicolor Developer Starter LORR and purchasing it from Unique Photo: https://www.uniquephoto.com/product/kodak%2Dc%2D41%2Ddev%2Dstarter%2Dlorr%2D1%2D2l%2D6601074/_/searchString/developer%20starter Often, this bottle arrives with 2-4 months left on the expiration and at...

www.photrio.com

mtjade2007 · May 24, 2022

Here is the thread PE talked about why Kodak and Fuji never released any blix chemicals for negative films. Starting at post #7 he explained why blix is not a good idea for C-41 films.

C41 process at home

Hello out there... I have been doing my own B&W developing at home for some time now and I love it. But recently I have gotten a wild hair to try my hand at trying to develop some of my color films. I was wondering if anyone could help me out with how the process would work (for a beginner)...

www.photrio.com

In the thread PE said he actually worked on a blix and had a patent on it with two other workers. I think what that means is blix can work but bleach and fix is much more practical, cheap and yield perfect result.

Moose22 · May 24, 2022

Interesting, I bought some C41 kits from FPP. They have separate bleach and fixer. I guess the older ones did blix according to that link,

$20 right now which should do 13 to 15 rolls. I haven't used them yet, I am not shooting much color and I'll never get my $20 worth if I don't store up a few rolls of color ahead of time.

anyway, I've never done any c41 before, but I guess good on me for not doing blix when I do?

@McDiesel thanks for the overview. When I get back into color I can set that system up pretty easily. What will that come out to, like $30 of chemistry for 20 rolls? Still cheaper than the lab's $8 a roll and it solves me "gotta do 15 in a month" conundrum. I can find 4 rolls of things to take pictures of!

sillo · May 24, 2022

Moose22 said:
Interesting, I bought some C41 kits from FPP. They have separate bleach and fixer. I guess the older ones did blix according to that link,

Did you buy the "super" c41 kit? If you did it's not actually a c41 kit, it's an ecn2 kit.

Moose22 · May 24, 2022

sillo said:
Did you buy the "super" c41 kit? If you did it's not actually a c41 kit, it's an ecn2 kit.

Yeah, though they advertise it as c41. I haven't actually used it yet, bought it when I was buying some film they had a good price on and haven't shot more than 4 rolls of color since.

What's the difference in the developer? Is it going to come out wonky? I don't exactly intend to use it on anything that matters either way, but the big reason I bought it was that it was less than $20, which seemed worth a gamble. The more expensive kits for low volume color come out expensive enough per roll I'd just use the lab.

For a longer term solution, I'd rather do what McDiesel says and put together a flexicolor setup to use one shot. It seems approachable and I have almost everything on hand except chemistry and the box-o-wine bags to store the solution.

grat · May 24, 2022

Freestyle: Unless I want to make 50L, they're out of stock. They'll be getting the 20L in "soon".
B&H: Won't deliver. (10L Fixer available)
Adorama: No Longer Available.
UniquePhoto: Appears to have the 1.2L bottles in stock, and willing to ship. That's new. Slightly confusing, as the Fixer is "C-41R" and the bottle says "RA"-- and that's for mixing 10L, but that's not the end of the world.

In short, every time I've considered Flexicolor (or Fujihunt when that was a thing), it's been out of stock, and a bit bewildering.

On the other hand, the Unicolor and Cinestill kits Just Work.

pentaxuser · May 25, 2022

Moose22, just out of interest, do FPP give any hint that its super C41 kit is not in fact a C41 at all? As it stands it sounds as if it's the equivalent of false labelling like Ilford calling say, Kentmere 400, HP5

Thanks

pentaxuser

koraks · May 25, 2022

Moose22 said:
What's the difference in the developer?

Pretty much everything. Most notable different developing agent (CD3 vs. CD4) and different pH.

Moose22 said:
Is it going to come out wonky?

That's a guarantee. Both color balance and gamma will be off by a mile. Might be correctable in digital post processing.

Moose22 · May 25, 2022

koraks said:
Pretty much everything. Most notable different developing agent (CD3 vs. CD4) and different pH.

That's a guarantee. Both color balance and gamma will be off by a mile. Might be correctable in digital post processing.

I'll call it cross processing and only use it for "art" shots then.

Moose22 · May 25, 2022

pentaxuser said:
Moose22, just out of interest, do FPP give any hint that its super C41 kit is not in fact a C41 at all? As it stands it sounds as if it's the equivalent of false labelling like Ilford calling say, Kentmere 400, HP5

Thanks

pentaxuser

Then name it a C41 kit. But I went and looked and they say it's CDN-2 but gives perfect results in C41.

Interesting, but the sample photo they use is Colorplus, a film I've never shot or scanned, so I have no idea if that's what it looks like were I to shoot it and send it to my local lab.

I'm not too worried. It's $20, and they DO say CDN-2. I just won't use it for anything that I care about.

koraks · May 25, 2022

Moose22 said:
they say it's CDN-2 but gives perfect results in C41.

Ouch. I'd consider that pretty misleading, to be honest.

Moose22 · May 25, 2022

I'm looking now -- I don't remember this when the kit first appeared, but the name says C-41/ECN-2. I probably misremembered that it wasjust C41 in the title and ECN=2 in the name...

Darkroom Supplies - FPP C-41 Color Negative Film Development Kit (1 Liter - Powder)

FPP's Color Negative Film Development Kit - 1 LiterDevelop Color Negative C-41 at home. Contains DEVELOPER - BLEACH - FIXERDetailed Instruction Sheet included with your kit What will I need? You will need the basic darkroom tools - tank, beakers, etc. to develop your color film. If you're new...

filmphotographystore.com

I probably should have just gone to the page and looked rather than rambling here.

Oren Grad · May 25, 2022

Flic Film offers C-41 kits with separate bleach and fix. Their products are sold in the US by Photo Warehouse.

https://flicfilm.ca/color-film-chemistry/

https://www.ultrafineonline.com/ulcez8coprki.html

Why Still C-41 Blix?

mtjade2007

McDiesel

grat

Rudeofus

pentaxuser

koraks

Moderator

AgX

bags27

C-41 with Kodak Flexicolor at Home

McDiesel

bags27

Kodak Flexicolor Delevoper Starter LORR Expiry

mtjade2007

C41 process at home

Moose22

sillo

Moose22

grat

pentaxuser

koraks

Moderator

Moose22

Moose22

koraks

Moderator

Moose22

Darkroom Supplies - FPP C-41 Color Negative Film Development Kit (1 Liter - Powder)

Oren Grad

Why Still C-41 Blix?

Moderator

Moderator

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency