5 ms·

Regarding your aside, if you develop black and white at home, there are kits to develop C-41 and E-6 at home as well. They're as easy as any standard black and

by devb 10y ago

Regarding your aside, if you develop black and white at home, there are kits to develop C-41 and E-6 at home as well. They're as easy as any standard black and white process.

Laforet 10y ago
I've looked into these processes years ago but backed off because they seemed to require some really stringent temperature control. Is it no longer the case?
- Finnucane 10y ago
  It is mostly the case. Some of the kits are designed to be more manageable at home--not requiring lab-level controls. But still a little fussier than b&w, no matter what. Personally, I haven't looked into too much, because I am color blind and have a hard time with the printing. I stick to b&w now mainly. I just traded two Mamiyas for a Hasselblad 503. The Mamiyas are fine, but I have too many systems to feed now.
  - gchpaco 10y ago
    The printing is the fun part, anyway.
- paulmd 10y ago
  In general I'd say the C-41 kits are relatively simple for someone who's accustomed to B+W development. It comes down to being sure the chemicals are at the proper temperature and that agitation is even. There's much less tolerance for variation compared to B+W but it's still well within the reach of a diligent amateur who focuses on reproducibility and good lab skills. The main requirement is a temperature-controlled hot-water bath for warming the chemicals, which are relatively easy to construct with some creative use of aquarium equipment. Buy yourself a digital thermometer from Amazon to verify your chemical temperatures (you should have one anyway for B+W development). You may also want to consider a rotary development instead of hand agitation. If you can find a "roller base" unit, you can just place a standard developing tank on the rollers and it works fine. I love mine for B+W development too. Works like so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60rYmqkyfDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60rYmqkyfDg E-6 is a little more complex than C-41 and I do not recommend the DIY kits in general. The DIY kits are a simplified 3-bath version of the full 6-bath process and has negative consequences for quality and long-term stability of the resulting slides. Since it's more difficult and the finished product is inferior I recommend just getting it commercially processed. You can send it out at most supermarket photo centers, just mark "E-6 Process" on the "special instructions" box. It all gets sent to a processing company (often Fuji) and they know what to do with it. Nobody does in-house ("1-hour") processing anymore, sadly.
  - Laforet 10y ago
    Thank you, looks like little has changed since I checked last time. I live in a relatively mild climate and B+W development usually means measure the temperature of tap water once and go with it for the day. For C-41 it's also a bit harder to keep things at 39C which makers a larger gradient against room temperature than 20C, but in the end I suppose it's not too hard with a water bath.
aaronbrethorst 10y ago
I use a community darkroom about a mile from my home: http://pcnw.org http://pcnw.org They have three film sinks, including one specifically designed for tray-based large format black and white film processing. They also have 18 enlargers, including a monstrous 8x10" enlarger: http://pcnw.org/facilities/black-and-white-darkroom/ http://pcnw.org/facilities/black-and-white-darkroom/ I bought Tetenal's C-41 kit last night with the Portra, and plan on developing there, as they also have filtered water, film dryers, and Photo-flo :)

by devb 10y ago

Regarding your aside, if you develop black and white at home, there are kits to develop C-41 and E-6 at home as well. They're as easy as any standard black and white process.

Laforet 10y ago

I've looked into these processes years ago but backed off because they seemed to require some really stringent temperature control. Is it no longer the case?

Finnucane 10y ago
It is mostly the case. Some of the kits are designed to be more manageable at home--not requiring lab-level controls. But still a little fussier than b&w, no matter what. Personally, I haven't looked into too much, because I am color blind and have a hard time with the printing. I stick to b&w now mainly. I just traded two Mamiyas for a Hasselblad 503. The Mamiyas are fine, but I have too many systems to feed now.
- gchpaco 10y ago
  The printing is the fun part, anyway.
paulmd 10y ago
In general I'd say the C-41 kits are relatively simple for someone who's accustomed to B+W development. It comes down to being sure the chemicals are at the proper temperature and that agitation is even. There's much less tolerance for variation compared to B+W but it's still well within the reach of a diligent amateur who focuses on reproducibility and good lab skills. The main requirement is a temperature-controlled hot-water bath for warming the chemicals, which are relatively easy to construct with some creative use of aquarium equipment. Buy yourself a digital thermometer from Amazon to verify your chemical temperatures (you should have one anyway for B+W development). You may also want to consider a rotary development instead of hand agitation. If you can find a "roller base" unit, you can just place a standard developing tank on the rollers and it works fine. I love mine for B+W development too. Works like so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60rYmqkyfDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60rYmqkyfDg E-6 is a little more complex than C-41 and I do not recommend the DIY kits in general. The DIY kits are a simplified 3-bath version of the full 6-bath process and has negative consequences for quality and long-term stability of the resulting slides. Since it's more difficult and the finished product is inferior I recommend just getting it commercially processed. You can send it out at most supermarket photo centers, just mark "E-6 Process" on the "special instructions" box. It all gets sent to a processing company (often Fuji) and they know what to do with it. Nobody does in-house ("1-hour") processing anymore, sadly.
- Laforet 10y ago
  Thank you, looks like little has changed since I checked last time. I live in a relatively mild climate and B+W development usually means measure the temperature of tap water once and go with it for the day. For C-41 it's also a bit harder to keep things at 39C which makers a larger gradient against room temperature than 20C, but in the end I suppose it's not too hard with a water bath.

aaronbrethorst 10y ago

I use a community darkroom about a mile from my home: http://pcnw.org http://pcnw.org They have three film sinks, including one specifically designed for tray-based large format black and white film processing. They also have 18 enlargers, including a monstrous 8x10" enlarger: http://pcnw.org/facilities/black-and-white-darkroom/ http://pcnw.org/facilities/black-and-white-darkroom/ I bought Tetenal's C-41 kit last night with the Portra, and plan on developing there, as they also have filtered water, film dryers, and Photo-flo :)