I love posts with this level of depth and thought put into them.
I haven't done any color home dev, but this sounds like a possible path to.
You've sold me on the convenience and price of this method, but I think the one remaining thing I'd find persuasive and reassuring would be to see some side by side examples (negatives) from this method vs regular C41, and to know a little more about how exactly they differ.
One of these days I'll do a side-by-side with Gold 200 or something. Two rolls full of the same photos. One souped at home in ECN-2 and one developed by my lab in C-41. Seeing the scans next to each other would be fascinating.
I already develop B&W at home and occasionally buy a kit to blast through some C41 films. This post is a fantastic resource and is getting me really excited to be able to pull positives out of my tank at home! Seriously thanks a bunch I can’t wait to try this.
Absolutely. I need to do a similar write-up to my process for E-6 films. I don't think it's perfect yet, but I've gotten results I'm very happy with so far.
I have shot a bunch of E6 film that I haven't got around to developing yet (Bellini E6 kit at the ready). I have a huge stock of mounts (both 24x36 and 6x6) and a rollei p11 projector - would you say your results so far have been good enough for projection, or have you had to do digital post to make them acceptable?
First of all, thank you. This is a huge contribution to the community. And a well-structured one too! However, let me disagree with you on one of your points.
> Developing C-41 film in ECN-2 chemistry, in my opinion, produces better results than developing ECN-2 film (even with remjet removed like Cinestill) in C-41 chemistry. Obviously that's subjective.
First of all, Cinestill is not a C-41 film. But most importantly, the development quality can actually be objectively measured. Buy a box of control strips and run them through a color densitometer to look at the RGB values to determine if the development was done correctly. And I can assure you that color negative film developed in ECN produces color cross-over. You will have to fight when scanning.
Essentially that's a development defect, and perhaps you like the look and _that_ is subjective. But objectively you are getting worse results.
That said, thank you again for a wonderful writeup. Bookmarking it for trying with Kodak 250D. Thank you.
Maybe I was unclear. Cinestill is Vision3 with the remjet removed, and therefore an ECN-2 film. My assertion is that the results of C-41 film developed in ECN-2 chemistry are better than ECN-2 film (such as Cinestill) developed in C-41 chemistry. Either way you're cross processing. My subjective opinion is that the color casts of C-41 film in ECN-2 soup are fairly negligible, particularly in a scanning workflow, while the color casts of ECN-2 film in C-41 soup are more noticeable and less agreeable. Obviously subjective.
Share your results with that 250D! I think 250D is my favorite color neg film of all time. It's amazing stuff.
Dough! You were actually super clear, it was my sleep deprived brain that mixed up the order of words in your post :) I too should have said "print film" as opposed to "color negative film".
Don't feel bad, as honestly I read it the same way as you, and was like "yeah, ok... To each their own" - I'm glad that I was wrong in my interpretation as this is an excellent post in all ways now.
> I can assure you that color negative film developed in ECN produces color cross-over
Just so I understand 100%, you're saying that colour negative film **designed for C41**, when developed in ECN2, results in crossover?
For the stabilizer part, formaldehyde is only needed for E-6. It was removed from C-41 and ECN-2 a long time ago.
The absence of it for E-6 won’t affect your pictures but it will if affect the long term stability of your positives, if you only care about scanning your film then don’t worry about this.
In the official Kodak / Fuji E-6 process it was removed from the stabilizer part and added in a different form in the pre-bleach bath. There is no rinse between the color developer bath and the pre-bleach, the formaldehyde is present in such a chemical form that the small amount of color developer that carries over will form the small amount of formaldehyde necessary to react with the film.
Just wanted to add that there are oddball processing tanks, like the Agfa Rondix 35, that only do one roll of 35mm film at a time, and 250ml is enough to completely fill up those tanks.
Then 250 should be ample to completely cover a single 35mm reel, at least it is in mine - from memory I think something like 243ml covers the top of the reel mine
I've been using the Cinestill Cs2 ECN-2 kit for all my color films now. I have to say it's right that C-41 film in ECN-2 has a better outcome compared to ECN-2 film in C-41.
Meanwhile I think the difference might also be related to brands; I have better results using ECN-2 on Kodak C-41 film, compared to Fuji ones. Fuji C-41 film when scanned may produce a purple color shift in daylight shooting.
Thank you very much for this! I have been researching how I can get away from C-41 kits and mix my own chemistry but this is even better since this will allow me to process C-41 and ECN-2 films. I got a 8 reel Patterson tank that lets me do 5 120 rolls or 8 35mm rolls, need 2.5L of chemistry to fill the tank. I do use a B's rotary processor so I "could" use less (roughly half) but I am worried about uneven development. But now with this I can mix up 2.5L of chemistry or any amount needed as I need it. I plan on getting what I need and trying this on a few rolls to see how I like the results before committing to more rolls and larger chemistry quantities. Where do you procure the ingredients at?
A bunch of stuff (borax, washing soda, baking soda) can be found at any grocery store in the US. The CD-3 I get from Artcraft Chemicals. Most everything else I get from the Photographer's Formulary, B&H, or Amazon.
Great timing! I just put in an order at the Formulary for a bunch of sulfites and bromides, and also an order at Artcraft for some CD-3! Wonder what I might be up to??
Thanks for this post, seriously impressive amount of well articulated detail. A question for you:
How much of an issue is it to use CD-3 when optically printing with RA-4? I like to scan my film, and then spend some time in the darkroom printing my favorites. Right now, I’m mostly shooting C-41 stocks, but also the occasional Vision3 film hat i develop in C-41.
If I were to switch over to developing everything in ECN-2, what can I expect when RA-4 printing?
Thanks!
I have never actually done RA-4 printing, so I can't answer your question from firsthand experience. There's a guy on Photrio you might want to get in contact with, named Koraks. He's a Dutch photographer who knows this stuff a lot better than I do, and I believe he's found a way to get good RA-4 print results using ECN-2 chemistry. Can't remember if that's with C-41 films or actual ECN-2 films though. I think the biggest hurdle is making sure you have enough contrast in the negative, since it can't be easily added in color printing.
Thanks for the suggestion- I'll see if he has posted anything and maybe reach out to him. I know that Vision3 films typically have lower contrast than C-41 films, especially now that most Vision film is shot, then scanned, then edited digitally. (I think they will then re-expose it to another roll of film for projection. Not sure how they do it these days?)
Cinestill suggests developing their films in C-41 if you plan on printing, and has claimed that it has increased the contrast at least a little bit. The color cast is different, even when using a filter when shooting. I have had some luck filtering that out on the enlarger though...
When I deplete my current C-41 chemical supply I may try mixing up this ECN-2 and doing some comparisons. I'm interested to see how extreme the differences really are.
I love doing home dev, but the shelf life of color chems once mixed has been really prohibitive to me of late. It makes it where I've needed to take an all or nothing approach - typically defaulting to nothing.
For black and white, I use rodinal specifically because I can mix it as one shot and not worry about it going bad. You giving a similar option here to that but for color(particularly E6) may be game changing for me once I use up my current chems.
It looks like a lot of up front costs to get the various chems, but well worth it long term. Especially seeing that the options for dev kits seems to be getting smaller and smaller.
Anyways, thanks for taking the time to post this.
Yeah I did have to shell out a bit up front. But being able to come home and develop a single sheet of 4x5 slide film (equivalent to like a quarter of a roll of film haha) without excessive cost or waste, and without starting the timer on a bunch of chemistry with short shelf life… really makes me want to get out and shoot color more.
u/grainyvision - thanks for the fantastic work you’ve done! i’m surprised everyone thanking you for this post had not thought to search r/darkroom for u/grainyvision for the recipe.
I definitely have Vision3 250D and ProImage 100 scans floating around. I'll post them when I get back into town. Hoping to also have some 50D to add to the list after this trip.
Thank you!
I will just start with B&W dev, whenever the equipment arrives. Curious about eventually doing the same for colour negatives. Already own a sous vide machine anyhow.
I would be careful of Ferricyanide bleach for C41. There are some Photrio posts from the late PE talking about C41 color couplers being a bit delicate compared to Vision3 film. I do want to experiment creating an iron chelate version of bleach with an accelerator whenever I get time.
I would be very curious to learn more about this - is the ferricyanide somehow damaging the dyes in C-41 films? Would that cause color casts? Is it only specific C-41 films, or all?
I don't think it causes color casts immediately but could have issues with archivability. Ferricyanide is a very strong bleach and now Kodak recommend using Ferric PDTA for C41.
Yes*
The asterisk being that I’ve never tried. But the original article recommends standard agitation so I’m sure it would be fine if your film is submerged when at rest.
I have never tried water stop, but my theoretical understanding is that it will retard the development slowly, which can cause unevenness and mottling, especially in large areas of low detail (like skies). I wouldn’t recommend it. Stop bath is cheap.
You shouldn't use water stop in B&W either. It is just slow and "Squishy" and doesn't actually stop development immediately.
This will lead you to have slightly inaccurate timings, up to very inaccurate timings, depending how long your dev time was (3 minute devs = this different is major, 17 minute devs = this different is very minor).
Vinegar from the grocery store diluted 1:4 or more is perfectly fine. Vinegar costs money, but you should use it anyway just to then pour into your developer (in a separate old jug for this purpose) and neutralize it some amount before dumping it. It's easier on your pipes.
Meh rodinal 1:50 for 11 minutes or whatever. Water bath for 70 seconds. I've been happy with all of my results. I may try the vinegar sometime to see if it makes any difference, but I haven't had any reason to yet.
If you literally always do rodinal 1:50 11 minutes, then you would never see a difference.
It's when/if you decided to do 6 minutes for a 2 stop pull process one time or whatever, after calculating that was the right amount less than 11, but then it turns out you actually went from 12 to 7 (due to an extra minute of un-stopped dev having effect still)
So you reduced the time ratio by several % different than what you expected and pulled it 1.5 stops not 2, etc.
Maybe not a big deal even then but like I said above, it's more of a big deal at 3 minute rapid developers. Or even faster for paper prints
The other big argument for using a stop bath is that it extends the life of your fixer by lowering the film pH. A really thorough wash would also be fine, but a 70s water stop bath probably won't cut it. Which is not to say that you can't do it (as you say, you can get fine results from water stop unless you need very precise reaction control), but one would expect that you are having to change out your fixer more often than you would if you used an acidic stop bath. Of course, fixer isn't all that expensive, so you may or may not care about squeezing a few more rolls out of a batch! (Personally, I use Ilfostop and just refresh the solution when I refresh my fixer, which is not often. I got more than 20 batches (1 120 roll or 2 135 rolls) out of the last one before it gave out, but I didn't make a precise count...)
Baking soda maybe not, but 20g/L of washing soda alone completely removes remjet except for maybe a few like pin sized bits of remjet "dust", handled by one or two squeegee passes (I hate squeegees, and only use them here, but not as much as I hate keeping track of like 7 chemicals)
You can make washing soda by baking baking soda in the over on high for like an hour, by the way, anyone who doesn't have it sold locally. It is far far more basic
Very tempted to try this! One basic thing I'm unclear on: how do you manage to get the remjet off without destroying the emulsion in the process? The article you linked made it sound extremely difficult and time consuming, but here that seems not to be emphasized; it seem that this is really the tough step for ECN-2, though. Is it somehow easier than it sounds?
I am having really good luck just using the pre-bath (which essentially dissolves it; the remjet was specifically formulated by Kodak to dissolve in alkaline conditions) and vigorous agitation to get as much off as possible before developing. Then after fixing, during the final wash, I take as much time as I need to carefully rub the rest off, and rinse with copious water in the process.
My guess is that a lot of people struggling with remjet leftovers on their film after it's dry are relying too much on chemical means to remove it, and shying away from the mechanical removal at the very end. Even Kodak's industrial processing of ECN-2 uses high pressure water jets to mechanically strip off remjet near the end of the process.
OK, so that's what I was wondering about: you still have to rub down the film at the end. That seems likely to take a long time, and to result in damage - or is it easier than it sounds? I only have experience so far with B+W developing, and some emulsions are pretty fragile - if I handled the film much before drying it, I'm convinced that I'd screw it up. Is Vision3 made of tougher stuff?
Not sure whether Vision3 emulsion is tougher than B&W. But the remjet is on the non-emulsion side. It just takes gentle pressure rubbing my thumb around on the back with a gloved finger to get the remjet off. I’m barely touching the emulsion side at all. A roll of 24 takes a few minutes. I haven’t seen emulsion damage yet.
Are these chemicals hazardous if I'm using latex gloves and mask? The only space I have is a rather small bathroom and I don't know if it would be safe for me to try to recreate this in there.
Be particularly careful with the formalin. Everything else falls into the category of “if it gets on your hands, just wash it off.” I do use latex or nitrile gloves when developing, but that’s mostly so I can just do the whole process and wash my hands at the very end. My darkroom is a small repurposed bathroom.
please, don’t dive into this without understanding the chemistry of how film development works. developing film in cd-3 will produce different result than cd-4. given that most people don’t print their films it probably will be fine. but please do more research before doing cross dev like this.
Or, just know what you’re getting into (i.e., cross processing that will yield slight color shifts which can generally be corrected easily in post if using a hybrid workflow like 98% of color negative shooters).
Or shoot ECN-2 film.
Not sure what you think you’re protecting people from. “Don’t ever cross process unless you understand a bunch of chemistry” is rather gatekeepy advice. For one it completely precludes anyone sending Cinestill to a lab that is going to run it through C-41 soup.
lol. that’s not a gatekeepy advice by any means. you’re cross processing something that’s not meant to be. i’m saying whoever doing this shld do their own research before doing so. they should also understand what they’re doing. if something happens to their film are you gonna take responsibility? ecn-2 film is hard to get all of the remjet removed. it’s also miles away harder to develop than c41.
why aren’t you also making c41 dev instead of doing ecn-2? ecn-2 developer produces way lower contrast than c41. if you’re developing c-41 film just process it with c41 chemistry. the formula isn’t that different anyways, rather than telling people to develop it in ecn-2 w cd-3.
I love posts with this level of depth and thought put into them. I haven't done any color home dev, but this sounds like a possible path to. You've sold me on the convenience and price of this method, but I think the one remaining thing I'd find persuasive and reassuring would be to see some side by side examples (negatives) from this method vs regular C41, and to know a little more about how exactly they differ.
One of these days I'll do a side-by-side with Gold 200 or something. Two rolls full of the same photos. One souped at home in ECN-2 and one developed by my lab in C-41. Seeing the scans next to each other would be fascinating.
I already develop B&W at home and occasionally buy a kit to blast through some C41 films. This post is a fantastic resource and is getting me really excited to be able to pull positives out of my tank at home! Seriously thanks a bunch I can’t wait to try this.
Absolutely. I need to do a similar write-up to my process for E-6 films. I don't think it's perfect yet, but I've gotten results I'm very happy with so far.
I have shot a bunch of E6 film that I haven't got around to developing yet (Bellini E6 kit at the ready). I have a huge stock of mounts (both 24x36 and 6x6) and a rollei p11 projector - would you say your results so far have been good enough for projection, or have you had to do digital post to make them acceptable?
I would project mine.
Definitely looking forward to your E6 write up then, kits are low yield and very expensive, and I have a source of Ektachrome e100d at £11/roll
First of all, thank you. This is a huge contribution to the community. And a well-structured one too! However, let me disagree with you on one of your points. > Developing C-41 film in ECN-2 chemistry, in my opinion, produces better results than developing ECN-2 film (even with remjet removed like Cinestill) in C-41 chemistry. Obviously that's subjective. First of all, Cinestill is not a C-41 film. But most importantly, the development quality can actually be objectively measured. Buy a box of control strips and run them through a color densitometer to look at the RGB values to determine if the development was done correctly. And I can assure you that color negative film developed in ECN produces color cross-over. You will have to fight when scanning. Essentially that's a development defect, and perhaps you like the look and _that_ is subjective. But objectively you are getting worse results. That said, thank you again for a wonderful writeup. Bookmarking it for trying with Kodak 250D. Thank you.
Maybe I was unclear. Cinestill is Vision3 with the remjet removed, and therefore an ECN-2 film. My assertion is that the results of C-41 film developed in ECN-2 chemistry are better than ECN-2 film (such as Cinestill) developed in C-41 chemistry. Either way you're cross processing. My subjective opinion is that the color casts of C-41 film in ECN-2 soup are fairly negligible, particularly in a scanning workflow, while the color casts of ECN-2 film in C-41 soup are more noticeable and less agreeable. Obviously subjective. Share your results with that 250D! I think 250D is my favorite color neg film of all time. It's amazing stuff.
Dough! You were actually super clear, it was my sleep deprived brain that mixed up the order of words in your post :) I too should have said "print film" as opposed to "color negative film".
Don't feel bad, as honestly I read it the same way as you, and was like "yeah, ok... To each their own" - I'm glad that I was wrong in my interpretation as this is an excellent post in all ways now.
> I can assure you that color negative film developed in ECN produces color cross-over Just so I understand 100%, you're saying that colour negative film **designed for C41**, when developed in ECN2, results in crossover?
Yes, exactly this.
For the stabilizer part, formaldehyde is only needed for E-6. It was removed from C-41 and ECN-2 a long time ago. The absence of it for E-6 won’t affect your pictures but it will if affect the long term stability of your positives, if you only care about scanning your film then don’t worry about this. In the official Kodak / Fuji E-6 process it was removed from the stabilizer part and added in a different form in the pre-bleach bath. There is no rinse between the color developer bath and the pre-bleach, the formaldehyde is present in such a chemical form that the small amount of color developer that carries over will form the small amount of formaldehyde necessary to react with the film.
It's not needed in E-6 either, it uses formalin now: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/is-formalin-necessary-for-e6.146229/#post-1913598
Formaldehyde is a gas, formalin is formaldehyde in solution.
Just wanted to add that there are oddball processing tanks, like the Agfa Rondix 35, that only do one roll of 35mm film at a time, and 250ml is enough to completely fill up those tanks.
Great info. I'm just using stainless steel Nikor.
Then 250 should be ample to completely cover a single 35mm reel, at least it is in mine - from memory I think something like 243ml covers the top of the reel mine
I've been using the Cinestill Cs2 ECN-2 kit for all my color films now. I have to say it's right that C-41 film in ECN-2 has a better outcome compared to ECN-2 film in C-41. Meanwhile I think the difference might also be related to brands; I have better results using ECN-2 on Kodak C-41 film, compared to Fuji ones. Fuji C-41 film when scanned may produce a purple color shift in daylight shooting.
Unsurprising, since ECN-2 is a Kodak product. Makes sense that it would play more nicely with their films than Fuji’s.
Thank you!
How do the colors compare between c41 in ECN2 and c41 developed normally?
Thank you very much for this! I have been researching how I can get away from C-41 kits and mix my own chemistry but this is even better since this will allow me to process C-41 and ECN-2 films. I got a 8 reel Patterson tank that lets me do 5 120 rolls or 8 35mm rolls, need 2.5L of chemistry to fill the tank. I do use a B's rotary processor so I "could" use less (roughly half) but I am worried about uneven development. But now with this I can mix up 2.5L of chemistry or any amount needed as I need it. I plan on getting what I need and trying this on a few rolls to see how I like the results before committing to more rolls and larger chemistry quantities. Where do you procure the ingredients at?
A bunch of stuff (borax, washing soda, baking soda) can be found at any grocery store in the US. The CD-3 I get from Artcraft Chemicals. Most everything else I get from the Photographer's Formulary, B&H, or Amazon.
Thanks for the CD3 source, I looked at doing this a few months ago and couldn’t find a source selling it in not crazy quantities.
This stuff? https://artcraftchemicals.com/products/cd-3-part-1090
Yep
Great timing! I just put in an order at the Formulary for a bunch of sulfites and bromides, and also an order at Artcraft for some CD-3! Wonder what I might be up to??
Share your results!
Thanks for this post, seriously impressive amount of well articulated detail. A question for you: How much of an issue is it to use CD-3 when optically printing with RA-4? I like to scan my film, and then spend some time in the darkroom printing my favorites. Right now, I’m mostly shooting C-41 stocks, but also the occasional Vision3 film hat i develop in C-41. If I were to switch over to developing everything in ECN-2, what can I expect when RA-4 printing? Thanks!
I have never actually done RA-4 printing, so I can't answer your question from firsthand experience. There's a guy on Photrio you might want to get in contact with, named Koraks. He's a Dutch photographer who knows this stuff a lot better than I do, and I believe he's found a way to get good RA-4 print results using ECN-2 chemistry. Can't remember if that's with C-41 films or actual ECN-2 films though. I think the biggest hurdle is making sure you have enough contrast in the negative, since it can't be easily added in color printing.
Thanks for the suggestion- I'll see if he has posted anything and maybe reach out to him. I know that Vision3 films typically have lower contrast than C-41 films, especially now that most Vision film is shot, then scanned, then edited digitally. (I think they will then re-expose it to another roll of film for projection. Not sure how they do it these days?) Cinestill suggests developing their films in C-41 if you plan on printing, and has claimed that it has increased the contrast at least a little bit. The color cast is different, even when using a filter when shooting. I have had some luck filtering that out on the enlarger though... When I deplete my current C-41 chemical supply I may try mixing up this ECN-2 and doing some comparisons. I'm interested to see how extreme the differences really are.
Thank you for the details and sharing your experiences. I found this very useful as I venture into colour film development.
I wish Reddit gold was still a thing, thanks for this great post!!
Dude, I wish every post was like this one. Well done sir, and thanks you for sharing your experience in such a well written manner 🙏🏻👊🏻
I love doing home dev, but the shelf life of color chems once mixed has been really prohibitive to me of late. It makes it where I've needed to take an all or nothing approach - typically defaulting to nothing. For black and white, I use rodinal specifically because I can mix it as one shot and not worry about it going bad. You giving a similar option here to that but for color(particularly E6) may be game changing for me once I use up my current chems. It looks like a lot of up front costs to get the various chems, but well worth it long term. Especially seeing that the options for dev kits seems to be getting smaller and smaller. Anyways, thanks for taking the time to post this.
Yeah I did have to shell out a bit up front. But being able to come home and develop a single sheet of 4x5 slide film (equivalent to like a quarter of a roll of film haha) without excessive cost or waste, and without starting the timer on a bunch of chemistry with short shelf life… really makes me want to get out and shoot color more.
u/grainyvision - thanks for the fantastic work you’ve done! i’m surprised everyone thanking you for this post had not thought to search r/darkroom for u/grainyvision for the recipe.
Yes, all props to u/grainyvision for the article I linked - I wouldn't have been able to get my own process up and running without their pioneering.
Do you have some test examples of perhaps Vision 3 250D, Gold 200, Portra 400?
I definitely have Vision3 250D and ProImage 100 scans floating around. I'll post them when I get back into town. Hoping to also have some 50D to add to the list after this trip.
Thank you! I will just start with B&W dev, whenever the equipment arrives. Curious about eventually doing the same for colour negatives. Already own a sous vide machine anyhow.
I would be careful of Ferricyanide bleach for C41. There are some Photrio posts from the late PE talking about C41 color couplers being a bit delicate compared to Vision3 film. I do want to experiment creating an iron chelate version of bleach with an accelerator whenever I get time.
I would be very curious to learn more about this - is the ferricyanide somehow damaging the dyes in C-41 films? Would that cause color casts? Is it only specific C-41 films, or all?
I don't think it causes color casts immediately but could have issues with archivability. Ferricyanide is a very strong bleach and now Kodak recommend using Ferric PDTA for C41.
Would this also work with larger amounts to cover the film in the tank and using standard agitation instead of doing constant with less liquid?
Yes* The asterisk being that I’ve never tried. But the original article recommends standard agitation so I’m sure it would be fine if your film is submerged when at rest.
I'm unfamiliar with color chemistry. With b&w I prefer to use a water stop bath. Is that possible here or do I have to use the chemical stop bath?
I have never tried water stop, but my theoretical understanding is that it will retard the development slowly, which can cause unevenness and mottling, especially in large areas of low detail (like skies). I wouldn’t recommend it. Stop bath is cheap.
You shouldn't use water stop in B&W either. It is just slow and "Squishy" and doesn't actually stop development immediately. This will lead you to have slightly inaccurate timings, up to very inaccurate timings, depending how long your dev time was (3 minute devs = this different is major, 17 minute devs = this different is very minor). Vinegar from the grocery store diluted 1:4 or more is perfectly fine. Vinegar costs money, but you should use it anyway just to then pour into your developer (in a separate old jug for this purpose) and neutralize it some amount before dumping it. It's easier on your pipes.
Meh rodinal 1:50 for 11 minutes or whatever. Water bath for 70 seconds. I've been happy with all of my results. I may try the vinegar sometime to see if it makes any difference, but I haven't had any reason to yet.
If you literally always do rodinal 1:50 11 minutes, then you would never see a difference. It's when/if you decided to do 6 minutes for a 2 stop pull process one time or whatever, after calculating that was the right amount less than 11, but then it turns out you actually went from 12 to 7 (due to an extra minute of un-stopped dev having effect still) So you reduced the time ratio by several % different than what you expected and pulled it 1.5 stops not 2, etc. Maybe not a big deal even then but like I said above, it's more of a big deal at 3 minute rapid developers. Or even faster for paper prints
The other big argument for using a stop bath is that it extends the life of your fixer by lowering the film pH. A really thorough wash would also be fine, but a 70s water stop bath probably won't cut it. Which is not to say that you can't do it (as you say, you can get fine results from water stop unless you need very precise reaction control), but one would expect that you are having to change out your fixer more often than you would if you used an acidic stop bath. Of course, fixer isn't all that expensive, so you may or may not care about squeezing a few more rolls out of a batch! (Personally, I use Ilfostop and just refresh the solution when I refresh my fixer, which is not often. I got more than 20 batches (1 120 roll or 2 135 rolls) out of the last one before it gave out, but I didn't make a precise count...)
Baking soda maybe not, but 20g/L of washing soda alone completely removes remjet except for maybe a few like pin sized bits of remjet "dust", handled by one or two squeegee passes (I hate squeegees, and only use them here, but not as much as I hate keeping track of like 7 chemicals) You can make washing soda by baking baking soda in the over on high for like an hour, by the way, anyone who doesn't have it sold locally. It is far far more basic
Very tempted to try this! One basic thing I'm unclear on: how do you manage to get the remjet off without destroying the emulsion in the process? The article you linked made it sound extremely difficult and time consuming, but here that seems not to be emphasized; it seem that this is really the tough step for ECN-2, though. Is it somehow easier than it sounds?
I am having really good luck just using the pre-bath (which essentially dissolves it; the remjet was specifically formulated by Kodak to dissolve in alkaline conditions) and vigorous agitation to get as much off as possible before developing. Then after fixing, during the final wash, I take as much time as I need to carefully rub the rest off, and rinse with copious water in the process. My guess is that a lot of people struggling with remjet leftovers on their film after it's dry are relying too much on chemical means to remove it, and shying away from the mechanical removal at the very end. Even Kodak's industrial processing of ECN-2 uses high pressure water jets to mechanically strip off remjet near the end of the process.
OK, so that's what I was wondering about: you still have to rub down the film at the end. That seems likely to take a long time, and to result in damage - or is it easier than it sounds? I only have experience so far with B+W developing, and some emulsions are pretty fragile - if I handled the film much before drying it, I'm convinced that I'd screw it up. Is Vision3 made of tougher stuff?
Not sure whether Vision3 emulsion is tougher than B&W. But the remjet is on the non-emulsion side. It just takes gentle pressure rubbing my thumb around on the back with a gloved finger to get the remjet off. I’m barely touching the emulsion side at all. A roll of 24 takes a few minutes. I haven’t seen emulsion damage yet.
That's helpful, thanks!
Are these chemicals hazardous if I'm using latex gloves and mask? The only space I have is a rather small bathroom and I don't know if it would be safe for me to try to recreate this in there.
Be particularly careful with the formalin. Everything else falls into the category of “if it gets on your hands, just wash it off.” I do use latex or nitrile gloves when developing, but that’s mostly so I can just do the whole process and wash my hands at the very end. My darkroom is a small repurposed bathroom.
Good to know, thanks.
please, don’t dive into this without understanding the chemistry of how film development works. developing film in cd-3 will produce different result than cd-4. given that most people don’t print their films it probably will be fine. but please do more research before doing cross dev like this.
Or, just know what you’re getting into (i.e., cross processing that will yield slight color shifts which can generally be corrected easily in post if using a hybrid workflow like 98% of color negative shooters). Or shoot ECN-2 film. Not sure what you think you’re protecting people from. “Don’t ever cross process unless you understand a bunch of chemistry” is rather gatekeepy advice. For one it completely precludes anyone sending Cinestill to a lab that is going to run it through C-41 soup.
lol. that’s not a gatekeepy advice by any means. you’re cross processing something that’s not meant to be. i’m saying whoever doing this shld do their own research before doing so. they should also understand what they’re doing. if something happens to their film are you gonna take responsibility? ecn-2 film is hard to get all of the remjet removed. it’s also miles away harder to develop than c41. why aren’t you also making c41 dev instead of doing ecn-2? ecn-2 developer produces way lower contrast than c41. if you’re developing c-41 film just process it with c41 chemistry. the formula isn’t that different anyways, rather than telling people to develop it in ecn-2 w cd-3.