Developing colour film at home

Steve

Steve

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I'm confident and happy with my results of black and white processing at home.

But following my numerous bad memories of processing colour in the early 1980s I've left colour developing well alone. I'm not sure if my problems were due to old technology/processes that are now easier, or whether I was just a lazy teenager who couldn't follow instructions properly and was able to 'get away with it' for black and white but not colour.

Am thinking now of trying colour again, and was curious as to how many of you process your own colour films?

Any observations or comments on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated.
 
Hi Steve,

I had a play with C-41 back in february using a water bath as a form of maintaining correct temps.

Tbh I've fairly consistaent results throughout the films devd in the Tetenal Colortec kit.

Take a look here
 
I tried it at home and decided it was too much of a faff for me, b&w is simple but colour is a tad more finicky, more steps harder to maintain the higher temperature required and it doesn't suit my slapdash approach to processing.
 
I too use the tetenal c41 kit with a water bath like Asha, an aside from this last time, which was my own fault for being a muppet, I've been pleased with the results.

It's a bit more of a faff than b+w, true, but not so much as I'd expected
 
Asha said:
Is that to keep in line with your slapdash approach to composure, subject content, exposure etc etc etc ?? :exit: :D:D:D
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It is to keep in line with my slapdash approach to life :D
 
I use a solid picnic cooler to get the chemicals to temp and then rely on the fact that the really critical dev stage is only 3 mins 15, so the temperature of the chems won't change much. I'm using the Rollei kit and the only bad roll I had was early on when I started the dev at 40C thinking that I'd need to allow for cooling. It's a bit of a pain getting the chems to temp, but apart from that it's pretty easy to do without any extra temperature control or undue stress about timings and so on.
 
Asha said:
Hi Steve,

I had a play with C-41 back in february using a water bath as a form of maintaining correct temps.

Tbh I've fairly consistaent results throughout the films devd in the Tetenal Colortec kit.

Take a look here
Click to expand...

I must have missed that thread first time round... those results look great. I would be delighted to get as good as them.

Thanks for the advice everyone,,,,think I will get myself a kit and give it a go.
 
I've done a couple of rolls using the Tetenal kit and they were ok but it's a bit of a potch to be honest.
My nearest Asda do develop only for 2 quid a roll so I don't think I'll bother with another kit.
 
I was quite happy with the Tetenal kits (both the C41 and the E6) ones - using a large insulated "coolbox" for the waterbath (with a tropical aquarium heater dropped in for good measure) I got really quite decent and consistent results. It's a bit faffier and a little more frenetic than B&W owing to the additional steps and shorter dunk times for the chemicals - but for someone who's "got their ducks in a row" with B&W it's not difficult.

Only Reason I stopped is that it's so rare I shoot anything at the moment, the chemicals would "go off" before i'd had full usage of them - as I found when I munged a roll from the Homeless Holga :bang:.

If I go back to regular shooting again at some point, i'll very probably buy another couple of the kits though... there's something incredibly special about souping your own E6 in particular - that little roll of "stained glass miniatures" coming out of the tank...
 
TheBigYin said:
... there's something incredibly special about souping your own E6 in particular - that little roll of "stained glass miniatures" coming out of the tank...
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Love that description! :)

E6 isn't difficult to do as long as you're careful with times and temperatures. I started off with E6 developing and Cibachrome/Ilfachrome printing, so after that B&W seemed really easy ;) Never did much C41, although RA4 printing from negatives was also reasonably straightforward.
 
Keen to give this a go at some point but as I don't use a lot of colour I suspect it's not going to be a regular thing and I am going to find the chemicals don't last.

Could anyone tell me the shelf life of colour chemicals compared to B&W? Is there any initial outlay beyond the chemicals - I assume all my B&W kit can be used? What is the temperature that needs to be used?

I get the impression that it is a less forgiving process from the point of view of timing or temperature errors?

TIA

Mark
 
The instructions in the Tetenal E6 kit tell you to process at 38 degrees C, and give timings based on that with a tolerance of half a degree which is entirely unrealistic in an amateur darkroom! They don't tell you what to do if the temperature differs from that which isn't helpful either. The kits I used to use years ago gave a table of different temperatures and times which gave you an idea of how much difference a few degrees made, and it wasn't much. The Tetenal instructions say that concentrates last 24 weeks once opened, and 8 weeks once diluted although that reduces if they're part-used.

It is less forgiving than B&W, but it is perfectly manageable in a normal developing tank and an average bathroom!
 
C41 is inherently more forgiving as negatives don't need to be so precisely "correct" on exposure of development - any small errors can easily be corrected in printing. Instructions for the Tetenal C41 kit have the same 38 degree C requirements, but they also give alternative timings for 30 degrees which is easier to achieve.

As for kit required, you should be fine using your B&W stuff if you've got a developing tank, some chemical bottles and measuring jugs, and a thermometer.
 
Many thanks, I will try it at some point but I will need a new thermometer as both mine max at 30 degrees C!

Mark
 
If I'm honest Mark, unless you've got a proper rotary developer thingy, I'd use the alternate timings at 30deg anyway
 
Does anyone use those Jobo CPE2 processing drums?

They seem to crop up on ebay for reasonable prices every now and then.
 
I have a CPE-2, worked very well, will be putting it up for sale soon as i don't shoot colour neg any more.
 
Now starts the mantra... I dont need a cpe-2, I dont need a cpe-2...
 
I used to have a CPE-2 but only used it for prints - never bothered using it for developing film. It's easy enough keeping the temperature of a normal dev tank steady by standing it in a sink or bowl full of warm water. The dev times for E6 and C41 are short enough for the temperature not to change too much. Granted, the CPE-2 has a thermostatically controlled water bath where you can also keep the dev/fix chemicals at the right temperature too, but that just seemed overkill for E6.
 
Steve said:
Does anyone use those Jobo CPE2 processing drums?

They seem to crop up on ebay for reasonable prices every now and then.
Click to expand...

I had one with the lift for a while and was very impressed with it, if I had room to leave it set up I would have been more likely to carry on dev'ing colour film but I'm short on space here so it had to go.

Sometime in the future when I get a full on darkroom I'll get another one.
 
I have a CPE-2 Plus with lift as well and I find it a very good and reliable machine. Definitely worth it if one shoots a lot of colour neg. I save about £4 a roll using it I reckon. However it does take some time, 30 minutes roughly from start to finish not including preparations.
 
+1 for a Jobo, but only worth it if you shoot a regular amount of colour film, and have the space (a ventilated space, blix is a bit nasty).

The lift attachment is not vital, but a very useful feature to have.
 
RaglanSurf said:
I tried it at home and decided it was too much of a faff for me, b&w is simple but colour is a tad more finicky, more steps harder to maintain the higher temperature required and it doesn't suit my slapdash approach to processing.
Click to expand...

There's no reason you can't do slapdash processing, I fully intend to as I bought my C41 kit for cross processing purposes mainly! :thumbs:
 
Steve said:
Does anyone use those Jobo CPE2 processing drums?

They seem to crop up on ebay for reasonable prices every now and then.
Click to expand...

Ive got one that i use for B&W developing (5x4 and 120) and its fine, takes up a lot of space though! I thought the prices were mental on ebay for what they are and was lucky to get mine as "cheap" as i did (although there is one on there now stuck at £30 with a couple of days left). The jobo tanks are pretty expensive too. If ive only 1 roll of 120 to do then i'll usualy just stick with a paterson daylight tank.

Havnt tried it for colour devs yet. The guy i got it off chucked in some bottles of colour chemicals he had left over and they stank my flat out so i binned them and that put me off trying :) That could of been due to the age of them though or maybe colour chems just stink?
 
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Well I did colour dev (and printing) for about 15 years and just stood the chemicals and tank in a bowl of hot water....what I can remember is the fix (or was it the dev) shouldn't be thrown down the sink as it can corrode some metals..can't remember any really nasty smells though, maybe it was because I smoked then and my nose wasn't at it's best for smelling :)
 
As a student back in the late eighties I did the aquarium heater in a plastic water bath thing mostly with Tetanol E6 rather than C41 and found it fairly easy to get good results if you were carefull.

In 2008 when i started playing with film and basically LF I used the same kit however I now use two Foto-Sell GL80 print processors to do the full Fuji E6 if you do enough it gives much better economy I also use the soloutions in Jobo gear to do 120 and the very occassional 35mm.

I can't really coment on C41 but if you get tempted by E6 there are a few things to consider, looking at firstcall the 1L kit is 36 wheras the 5L is 69 you can get 12 films out of the 1L and 60 out of the 5L bit of a no brainer if you shoot enough however the bad news is you either wnt to knock up small quanties or do lots in a batch as mixed the blix has a very short life as in under two weeks I would say for consistant results this is amongst the reasons I moved away from it he Fuji Hunt Pro 6 chemistry is better in so many ways but I can see that the 400 up front cost to get started would put people off although long term you save a fortune.

Sometimes you can get lucky with Jobo gear I got given a CPE 2 and brought a CPA off ebay for 20 just needed an hour of TLC.
 
Thought I'd bump this thread instead of starting a new one :) I've been thinking on it for a while and tonight I finally ordered my colour developing kit from Firstcall. I decided to go for the Rollei Digibase one with separate bleach and fix as I wouldn't mind having a go at bleach bypass as well as normal colour developing!

Now I finally have a reason to shoot all this Vista that is cluttering up my film cubby :D
 
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