The Flowers Still Bloom

It was a very fine walk on a brilliant morning, and I easily used up all 36 frames of a roll of Fuji 200. On top of that, in processing the roll with my Unicolor C-41 kit I also came up with solutions to two problems which have plagued my color processing.

The last half dozen rolls of color I have used have been marred by red stains, mostly located in the spaces between frames, but also spilling into the picture area.  The fix for that problem seems to be just increasing the time in the Blix solution from six to eight minutes.

The other problem is a longer term one.  The negative strip was binding up in the plastic reel of the Paterson tank so that I had great difficulty in getting the last six frames or so onto the reel.  Quite often the film strip would kink and badly mar the negative.  I had previously improved the loading of the film onto the reel by completely winding the film back into the cartridge and then removing the film from the cartridge in the dark bag.  That seemed to make the winding on of the film onto the reel go more smoothly at first, but I still ended up most often with difficulties near the end.

So, this time I rewound the film nearly to the end in the camera, but left a little bit of the leader sticking out of cartridge.  I then cut the end the leader so that I had a straight edge at the end and I clipped the corners, providing a very slight taper.  I then put the cartridge into the dark bag and popped the top off with a church key to remove the film which I then loaded onto the reel.  The result was a smooth ride of the film all the way to the end.

I concluded that the film loading problem was due to the film wobbling slightly as it travels along the groves in the plastic reel and the sharp corners catching in the partitions along the course of the grooves.  I tested that idea by running a short length of film all through the reel and observed that the film did jam, but could be freed by jiggling the film or the reel a bit.

Another thing I have been doing for a while now is paying attention to the instructions which came along with the CineStill processing kit I used just one time; they are much more detailed than the Unicolor kit.  The CineStill instructions advise adding two percent to the processing time for each roll of film processed in the reusable chemicals.  Both Unicolor and CineStill say that eight rolls per kit is the limit, but my experience has been that you can get at least twice that.  The CineStill kit also has detailed instructions for push, pull and variable temperature processing.

diy color

This is my setup for color film processing.

If you search the web for tips on doing your own C-41 color film processing you will find people suggesting rather elaborate temperature control schemes, often involving aquarium heaters, turkey roasters or expensive rotary agitators.  None of that is necessary if, like me, you are mostly processing one roll at a time.  I just run some hot water into a plastic pan into which I put the developer, blix and stabilizer to warm to the recommended temperatures.  When the developer reaches 102 deg. I pour it into the developing tank, turn off the hot water and set the tank in the pan.  Since development only takes 3.5 minutes, there is very little temperature change that takes place.  The blix phase is less critical in regard to time and temperature, and the stabilizer goes in at room temperature.   I have developed nineteen rolls of color film using this method and the one-liter Unicolor kit and have not seen any unusual color shifts or other processing problems.  Below are some shots from my last roll shot on Fuji 200 in my Contessa 35.