We followed up the car show with lunch at a Wells Park community event where I was able to finish off the 36-exposure roll of ColorPlus 200, and Cate got her face painted.
My color film gets processed with the Unicolor C-41 kit from Freestyle and then it goes into my digital darkroom.
I had to replace the router yesterday after a close-by lightning strike. Most of the rest of the hardware and software is close to fifteen years old. The Dell 690 running Windows XP was purchased ten years ago, having been retired from a long career in government service. The Epson 2450 flatbed scanner works with Silverfast SE and Photoshop cs2.
6 comments:
I really want to try home processing C-41. I am always impressed with your results. Somehow, it has always seemed overly complex to me.
C-41 processing is actually easier than b&w in several ways. Same number of steps in the process and you get to reuse all three components so there is no mixing of chemistry except for the first time. I just set the developer and the blix containers in a shallow pan and bring up the temperature to the correct level by running a slow stream of hot water into the pan. The developing time is always the same for any C-41 film regardless of film speed.
I'm looking forward to using the Unicolor kit for processing Ilford XP2 which is a b&w C-41 film. I used to use a lot of the Kodak BW400CN and really liked it for its fine grain and wide latitude. Plus, the processing only costs about a buck a roll as one kit will easily do twice what is advertised.
I see Freestyle offers a number of different kinds of C-41 kits. You like Unicolor?
I've had good consistent results with the Unicolor kit. I think it may be the least expensive. I get the 1 liter kit as that seems the easiest to deal with. I have gotten up to 24 rolls processed with a single liter kit. I have heard of people getting many more by extending the developing time.
I get my Unicolor C-41 from freestyle as well and it is fantastic. I have to note that the blix went bad after about 8 rolls of 120,ruining a roll of Portra 400 with a dark red cast. Should not have happened.
I get some small white spots on the images occasionally, but that could be my fault. I can't decide whether it is better to invert the tank for agitation, or to use the little stirring stick in my plastic tank. I keep the mixed chems in peroxide bottles in the refrigerator. That is okay, except that it is hard to pour out the fluids smoothly. I may try some different containers with the next batch.
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