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Home colour development

C

Cesare

pfm Member
Ian mentioned a while back that he was going to have a dabble at colour development at home.

I'm wondering if people who have had a go can share their experiences and offer some advice as to whether it is worth bothering.

I have been considering getting a better tank system for home for my B&W stuff, and have wondered if I should even consider support for C41, say, with a Jobo tank, or whether I should just stick to the manual stuff I know (get a bigger paterson tank) and let the labs handle colour for me.

Any advice?

Cesare
 
I'm about to buy a Tetenal home C41 kit, in the next few days.

AFAICT, from speaking to a few people who've used it, it's pretty easy - dev times are short, so all you need is a bain marie type arrangement to keep the chemicals at the right temperature for a short period, and provided you're accurate with the timings, there's nothing else to it.

I'm going to buy another tank though, so I don't get any chemical residues from b&w to colour.

I'll let you know how I get on with it.
 
Cesare, The only colour stuff I ever did seriously at home was printing rather than film processing. Printing is a PITA because of the colour balancing that you have to do and the fact that the paper is sensitive to any light leakage in your room. I think my brother still has all his dark room stuff in his loft including the thermostatically controlled tank - I'm sure you kind find this stuff on ebay, so good luck!

Cliff
 
Cliff,

Yes, i'm only interested in development rather than printing. I am reasonably happy with the process, but compared to B&W the temps and timings seem very tight

Kodak quote 37.8C +/- 0.15C for their process. I can't imagine getting reproducable results with that sort of temp margin, but then maybe they are being anal about it, and it's more forgiving than they suggest...

Also, just how toxic are these chemicals? Questions questions...

Ian, I think i'll wait and see how you get on. I might pick up a processor if I see one going cheap, and i've got a plan to get a spare sink setup in the garage for doing films. I don't think I should be tipping C-41 chemicals anywhere near the kitchen sink...

Cesare
 
The bleach fix contains sulphuric acid, that's the main one to worry about. It does seem the chemicals are very reusable though, so you get a lot of processing out of a relatively small amount of chemicals.

Those I've spoken to seem to think temperature is only critical +/- 0.5 degrees, which is certainly achievable without a processor. I'll report back how I get on.
 
At a slight tangent to this, is there a thermostatically controlled heater element available which can be put into a container of water to keep it at a controlled temperature during development? I'm thinking of keeping the fixer and stop bath water etc. at 20 degrees whilst the developer is in the tank. It's ok with tap water, but a heater would be easier no?
 
Fix and stop is not very temperature critical. For b&w I put a jug of mixed fixer in a hot bath of water until the fixer gets to 22 degrees, and I have a few jugs of fresh water ready, also at 22 degrees, for stop and wash. By the time the dev stage is over they're generally between 18 and 20 degrees, which is well within tolerances.
 
The only reasons I can think of for getting into home C-41 or E6 development are if you don't have access to a professional colour lab, or if you have a regular and high volume workflow that needs to be processed quickly. By contrast, I can understand developing the skill to print Cibachrome or something similar at home, where the end result can be much better than you can get from a professional lab, although a digital process is probably going to be easier to manage now in terms of getting prints that would have been the preserve of master printers only in an analogue world. Just my 2c, and I'll be interested to see peoples' experiences if they do get into this.

Anex - the Jobo system will give you fine control over temperature, time and agitation. Otherwise having a sink full of water at the right temperature into which your tank is immersed is not a bad substitute. I develop most of my sheets in a Combi tank, or by hand in a tray in order to flex the development for individual sheets in the latter stages of development.
 
Tantris said:
The only reasons I can think of for getting into home C-41 or E6 development are if you don't have access to a professional colour lab, or if you have a regular and high volume workflow that needs to be processed quickly.
Click to expand...

E6 is quite complicated, but the results I've seen from home C41 are very good, it doesn't appear to be terribly difficult, and it's considerably cheaper than lab processing. I maybe shoot one roll of C41 a month, and for that, being able to do the occasional bit of processing at home seems worthwhile.
 
For one roll a month I'd use a professional lab, but as I said above I'll be interested to see how you get on.
 
And i'd be doing it for fun rather than for cost. I'd be more likely to experiment with pushing and messing with colour film as I do with B&W if I was in control of the developing.

BTW, most colour film stock has an orange colour to aid getting correct colours out of printing. For us people using scanners this is of no consequence and I presume makes it harder to get the colours right when scanning. Anyone know which films are designed for scanning not printing?
 
Also Ian, at 1 roll a month i'd have thought the chemicals will go off before you get through the batch...
 
Cesare said:
Also Ian, at 1 roll a month i'd have thought the chemicals will go off before you get through the batch...
Click to expand...

This is what airtight containers are for :)

I'll probably do more if I don't have to send it for processing, one of the things I don't like about colour film is losing control of any aspect of the process.
 
OK, but my experience is that the colour development process is one that is best managed by a highly standardised and industrialised process, which is what a professional lab can offer, with most of the individual control being exercised later at the printing stage. You've got much less latitude for significant contrast or tone control or push/pull in C-41 development, without affecting some other variable such as the overall colour cast. It's different from black and white where you can control these factors quite effectively to get consistent and predictable effects in the negative. Anyway, good luck, and I'll be interested to know how much control you can exercise.
 
I'm ended up buying a Jobo rotary processor (manual not automatic) so i'll give this a go with B&W development and have a dabble with colour at some point...

Cesare
 
ok, I've now processed my first roll of C41 (Superia 400). Still drying, but I'll post some scans when I have them. I went for the one litre Tetenal Colortec kit, £15 from Silverprint. Tetenal claim it's reusable 15 times, most people seem to use it for twice that. That gives about 60 rolls of 120, so very cheap.

The process is extremely easy. If you can keep the developer at 38.5 degrees +/- 0.5 for 3 1/4 minutes, that's really the only temperature critical bit AFAICT. I had no problems, and the results look decent from having a look with a loupe. Piece of piss really, much easier than I thought it would be. Three airtight 1 ltr containers to store the mixed chemicals is pretty much all the extra equipment you need, although I did buy another tank to use just for C41, to minimise chemical contamination.
 
This roll was shot in very heavy fog, so possibly not the best test of colour fidelity. I like how they've come out though.

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Will try to shoot a roll in more normal light this week, although may not get a chance until next week.
 
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