I shot part of a roll of Fuji 200 in my Pentax Spotmatic at the Abó ruins in the morning and finished it off at Quarai in the afternoon. Knowing that my C-41 kit was pretty anemic at this point I decided to drop off the film for processing on the way home at the one place in town that still develops color film.
I was a little surprised to find the the local lab's results had all the same deficits as I have been seeing in my own C-41 results at home. The negatives looked to be one or two stops under-done, and there were quite a few white spots to be stamped out in Photoshop, along with some red stains bleeding in from the spaces between frames.
The Unicolor and Cinestill C-41 kits I use are out of stock at all the on-line sites I have looked at, and that seems to be expected to persist until the Fall. I have poked around on the net to get some insight on the shortages and quality issues, but have not come up with any explanations.
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Two more from the Abó site. The little Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim does a nice job of blending the subject and its environment.
6 comments:
The Film Photography Project's C41 kit is in stock at the moment. If you use the code "forever" you'll get $2 off.
https://filmphotographystore.com/products/darkroom-supplies-fpp-c-41-development-kit-1-liter?_pos=6&_sid=213436cba&_ss=r
Many thanks for that good tip. The FPP prices are a few bucks more, but maybe this will hold me until the market improves.
Both the Unicolor and Cinestill (Same price as FPP) are in stock at Unique Photo. With both at $30, I'd honestly recommend trying the Cinestill kit, as I've heard better things about it.
Unicolor: https://www.uniquephoto.com/product/unicolor-powder-c-41-film-negative-processing-kit-1-liter
Cinestill: https://www.uniquephoto.com/product/cinestill-cs41-c-41-kit-1-qt800341
If it helps at all, I've used a water bath for my C-41 development (Heated with an off-the-shelf Sous Vide cooker), only agitated with the agitation stick that comes with most tanks, and leaving the tank submerged in the water bath for as much of the processing as possible. My results (I'm using Kodak chems) have been indistinguishable from anything my lab gives me.
Another good source tip. Odd that the big outlets are out; you would think they would have a better supply chain.
I had better luck initially with both the Unicolor and Cinestill kits. I do use just the agitation stick for color. It will be interesting to see how the FPP kit compares. I am puzzled by the poor results from the local shop as I think they use a big Fuji processor, so you would think that there would be few glitches with that kind of setup.
If you ever want to take the deep-dive into Kodak Flexicolor, they sell that too. I've stretched out my Kodak chems to nearly a year, with very few difficulties. Only downside is that you have to buy a ton of everything. The fixer alone is great for both BW and color, since it's so cheap.
5 liters Developer: https://www.uniquephoto.com/product/c-41-dev-repl-lorr-tm-5l-ek-kodak-xhaz-hazsp1-832-0608-8231672
Developer starter: https://www.uniquephoto.com/product/kodak-c-41-dev-starter-lorr-1-2l-6601074
10 liters Bleach: https://www.uniquephoto.com/product/kodak-flexicolor-bleach-iii-replenisher-6600258
Bleach starter: https://www.uniquephoto.com/product/kodak-flexicolor-c-41-bleach-starter-for-color-negative-film-1-gallon-8566796
Fixer (Mix 1+4): https://www.uniquephoto.com/product/kodak%2Dflexicolor%2Dc%2D41%2Dfixer%2Dand%2Dreplenisher%2Dfor%2Dcolor%2Dnegative%2Dfilm%2Dm%2D25%2Dg%2D1597392
Concentrate for 5 liters of Final Rinse: https://www.uniquephoto.com/product/kodak-c-41-rinse-replenisher-tm-5-liters-8673170
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