Processing Colour Neg at Gauge Film

[gaugefilm]

Hi all,

Now things are starting to quieten down here processing wise I'm looking to start exploring colour negative to round out our lab. I'm pretty much in the dark when it comes to processing 8mm colour neg so i turn to this forum for advice and help.

What's the best process to use for 8mm? C41, ECN2?

Can it be hand processed or is a machine the only way to go for this?

Thanks in advance, we hope to have a quality colour neg service up and running before the year is out!

Best
Kevin

[jpolzfuss]

Hi,

the process depends on the film. As a rule of thumb all olour-negative filmstocks for still photography are C41, while all olour-negative cine-filmstocks (Vision3, ...) are ECN-2.

You can verify this by taking a look at the tech-docs:
http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploaded ... TI5213.pdf

Further details about ECN-2 can be found here: http://www.kodak.com/go/h24 (especially in this PDF: http://motion.kodak.com/motion/uploadedFiles/h2407.pdf )

After removing the remjet, the ECN-2 films can be hand-processed with C41-chemicals:
https://vimeo.com/77440343
http://blog.wakingmist.com/?p=1481
However this will (or at least might) result in different colours and different contrasts compared to ECN-2.
It's also unclear whether using C41 might result in less stable results (= the colours might fade or shift faster compared to the same film processed with the "correct" chemicals).

Jörg

[mudfly9]

This is what my first attempt at processing a roll of Vision3 50D in a lomo tank looked like:

https://vimeo.com/91076098

I sourced all the chemicals separately and made up the developer and bleach recipes as shown on Kodak's website, I used standard C-41 fix and stabiliser. The real difficulty is that blasted rem-jet! I did the developing then took the film out of the tank up hung it up (ECN-II is safe to light at this stage) to wipe off all the rem-jet. I used the extremely unscientific method of wiping it off with wet kitchen roll. Following this I re-spooled it and carried out the rest of the process. The developer which initially looked a bit like watered down milk had turned a dark grey due to the rem-jet, I filtered it a few times through coffee filters to get rid of most of this.

As you can see from the film, it's pretty dirty and massively uneven due to the short developing time, despite my constant agitation. I had an opportunity to make it slightly better when Andec only developed half a cartridge due to it snapping, they didn't even let me know, just sent back half a developed roll and a cartridge with film left in it! The first minute and a half of this film is the result of that:

https://vimeo.com/96475208

Needless to say I've never used Andec since. I'm sure it's possible to improve upon this Lomo tank process considerably but it involves one heck of a lot of cleaning of the reels to stop everything else getting mucky, I would suggest some kind of machine would be the way to go with this in the long run. I'll happily let you know where I got my chemicals from or even send you some in little bags if it'll help you along the way.

[Pj]

Hi

Great to hear. I think processing ECN 2 film in C41 chemistry is fine, I know still photographer have done this for years as motion picture film works out cheaper than still film. I think some who do this substitute the developer from E6 chemicals, though not I'm exactly sure about this. The problem is getting ECN 2 chemicals in small quantities.

I think a manual process is fine using the Lomo spiral, bu probaby a custom built tank, you'll have to work out how to remove the remjet layer. I been thinking that it's best remove the remjet before the film is processed by building or buying [if it's possible a unit where the layer is removed just before it's loaded on the Lomo spiral.

Pav

[gaugefilm]

First colour neg test has come out really well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_9_6tG ... kj7i0p5NWg

[Pj]

Hi

This is great. Did you process in C41 or ECN 2 chemistry? How did you deal with the Remjet?

Pav

[gaugefilm]

Hi Pav, I believe we discussed this over Facebook? Cheers, Kev.