Supertechnicolorexperience extravaganza ^^

The royal castle with the statue of Karl Johan III
Kodak Ektar 100, shot with Rolleiflex 2.8F.
Processed with the Tetenal C-41 rapid kit

The cool thing about home-processing, is that you can experiment and fail without anyone blaming you. (then again, you can't blame anyone either if/when you cock-up ^^)

You also learn a whole heap by doing stuff on your own.
- using Google and forums, usually helps solving most issues and clarifying stuff you wonder about.

I've pondered about getting into color-development for a while now, first I thought about E-6 processing (positive slide film processing), but after a fellow analog shooter got arrested and faced charges for importing GHB, after he bought a Tetenal E6 kit from Germany, I instantly put those plans on the shelf.


- He was acquitted of any charges, as the police-lab (off course) never found any GHB, only chemicals for developing film. The customs strip-tests are flawed and cause false positives.

The customs service has since changed it's testing methods, but I am still skeptical ordering a kit for $150, just to have the customs-service ruining the chemicals by opening the cans.

Last week, I found that I could buy a C-41 processing kit, 1 liter, for about $40, (C-41 processing, creates color negatives), from fotoimport and since I had a bunch of color films sitting in my freezer, I thought, why the hell not.

The only problem these days, is that the cold and short winter days, really doesn't have all that much color to have fun with, but I strolled around Oslo a Saturday and took a few test shots to play with.

Royal castle main entrance
Kodak Ektar 100, shot with Rolleiflex 2.8F.
Processed with the Tetenal C-41 rapid kit

Late afternoon, baloons at Karl-Johans street
Kodak Ektar 100, shot with Rolleiflex 2.8F.
Processed with the Tetenal C-41 rapid kit

I also wanted to test Fuji Reala 100, and luckily I had 1 kg (!) of M&M's sitting at home which I was never going to eat anyway (don't know why I bought it, I don't like it, I think I ate two before giving up ^^).

A pretty good test-subject though.
I opted to shoot the reala at EI 80, which proved to be ok, Reala seems to be more neutral in color, while the Ektar is slightly warmer.

M&M's in a wine-glass, contrast setting
Fuji Reala 100 at EI 80, shot with Rolleiflex 2.8F.
Processed with the Tetenal C-41 rapid kit

Chilly morning
Fuji Reala 100 at EI 80, shot with Rolleiflex 2.8F.
Processed with the Tetenal C-41 rapid kit
(Never mind the dust in the upper right corner, I was to laz to remove it)

Book sale
Fuji Pro 400h, shot with Yashicaflex C.
Processed with the Tetenal C-41 rapid kit

Iron horse
(Interesting rendering of red colors here)
Fuji Pro 400h, shot with Yashicaflex C.
Processed with the Tetenal C-41 rapid kit

Your average statue
Fuji Pro 400h, shot with Yashicaflex C.
Processed with the Tetenal C-41 rapid kit

Both E6 and C-41  are very temperature sensitive, so one really has to plan everything beforehand and be very careful keeping the temperature within +-0.5 degrees celsius all the time.

This means that the temperature of everything must be calibrated before you start, even pre-heating the processing tank and the film. This helps keeping the temperature stable during the 3 minute 15 seconds first development stage.
The other stages, there are 3 with this kit, have room for a larger variation in temperature (38 +-5 degrees for the BLIX (bleach and fix) and 30-40 degrees for the last STAB (stabilizer) stage.).
A good practice, is to watch the thermometer pretty closely during the process and keep the chemicals in a warm water-bath until they are used.

I am actually very pleased with the resulting photos, I also got to try my Rolleiflex more \o/.
- And also my  Yaschicaflex C

Next project concerning color, will be to cross process some Fuji Provia 100 E6 film in C-41 and see what kind of strangeness I end up with. ^^

Oh, and also try and capture something more interesting than these boring test photos, sorry about that =)