Developing C41 in B&W chems?

FishyFish

FishyFish

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Nige
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I've just finished a roll of C41 in my OM-1. Unfortunately the camera has developed a fault which makes the shutter lock after taking a shot. The shutter releases, but also fires again, when the advance level is used a second time. From previous experience, the result is lots of crappy, blurred shots interspersed in between the good ones.

I dong fancy paying a lab to develop the roll given the likely outcome, and don't have the chems to develop C41 at home, so I'm thinking of using some Adonal and developing the roll as black and white

Anyone have any experience / guidance on how best to do this please? The film is Agfacolor 200 which expired probably 15 or more years ago. I shot it at 80asa to compensate for the age, but will develop it at box speed.

Thanks.
 
I tried it with an OOD Agfa Vista Nige, as it had been scuffing about in the car for a couple of years and I didn't think it was worth the expense of sending it to Filmdev. I used Rodinal 1:50 for 13 mins and got reasonable results. The film comes out as a pretty dingy orangey-brown, but a bit of PP got a better result.

Straight scan (as colour)

2021-03-18-0001.jpg

Processed by desaturation, curves adjustment, noise, smart sharpen and contrast tweak

2021-03-18-0001-copy-desat,-curves,-noise,-smart,-contrast,-tp.jpg
 
I have tried it but it came out very grainy, but then I did it because the film got wet in the camera which might have had an effect, Peter's look a lot better than mine.
I'm more than happy to put it through C41 for you if you trust me not to cock it up.
 
Peter B said:
I tried it with an OOD Agfa Vista Nige, as it had been scuffing about in the car for a couple of years and I didn't think it was worth the expense of sending it to Filmdev. I used Rodinal 1:50 for 13 mins and got reasonable results. The film comes out as a pretty dingy orangey-brown, but a bit of PP got a better result.

Straight scan (as colour)

View attachment 325856

Processed by desaturation, curves adjustment, noise, smart sharpen and contrast tweak

View attachment 325857
Click to expand...

Thanks Peter. That sounds pretty close to what someone used on a YouTube video I found this evening. The only real difference being they devved for 15 mins.
sirch said:
I have tried it but it came out very grainy, but then I did it because the film got wet in the camera which might have had an effect, Peter's look a lot better than mine.
I'm more than happy to put it through C41 for you if you trust me not to cock it up.
Click to expand...

Thanks Chris. That a very kind offer, but if there's more than a couple of halfway usable pictures on the roll, I'll be surprised. :D At least a third of them will be blurry ruins thanks to the shutter issue I encountered on the camera, and I'm not honestly sure how the film will hold up anyway, so my attempt to dev them in B&W chems will give me a learning exercise if nothing else. Plus the small bottle of Adonal has been sat there feeling lonely for a year while I keep taking out its more attractive DD-X companion. :)
 
There's a thread here:
www.talkphotography.co.uk

Poundland Vista in Rodinal?

I came across this artcle today, and I'm intrigued: https://tightfistedphotography.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/stand-cross-process-of-c41-poundland-film-in-bw-chemistry There's only one example image though, and the comments hint that the whole thing is a bit hit-or-miss. Has anyone tried this...
www.talkphotography.co.uk www.talkphotography.co.uk

It works and it worth a try, but it's not as good as dedicated black and while film.
 
Funny how this subject rolls around every now and then.

I have done Colour film in caffenol, that came out surprisingly well, colour film in paper developer, that worked quite well, and the tried and tested rodinal stand developing.

I think its one of those things I enjoyed at the time to see what would happen, but its not something I'd actively look to do, except perhaps with very expired colour film where I didn't trust its condition. I certainly wouldn't do it for anything important.
 
VirtualAdept said:
Funny how this subject rolls around every now and then.

I have done Colour film in caffenol, that came out surprisingly well, colour film in paper developer, that worked quite well, and the tried and tested rodinal stand developing.

I think its one of those things I enjoyed at the time to see what would happen, but its not something I'd actively look to do, except perhaps with very expired colour film where I didn't trust its condition. I certainly wouldn't do it for anything important.
Click to expand...

Likewise. I've only done because:

  1. It was a roll of expired colour negative film of unknown provenance.
  2. The camera has developed a fault meaning there will be a lot of duff frames.
  3. I didn't want to spend money (or waste anyone else's time) to get it developed as colour given points 1 & 2 above.
I scanned a few frames earlier (but then had to go out). After some tweaking in Lightroom they don't look too bad, although there's a LOT of grain. Not sure if that's because of my rough and ready development times, or the Adonal.

I'll post some results later.
 
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As it is C41 film, it is a colour process. The Bleach fix provides the process to link the colour pigments to the silver halide. A long time since I used film but surely it does not cost much to have a single C41 film processed.

Dave
 
Dave Canon said:
As it is C41 film, it is a colour process. The Bleach fix provides the process to link the colour pigments to the silver halide. A long time since I used film but surely it does not cost much to have a single C41 film processed.

Dave
Click to expand...

I know that it's a colour film. The reason for deliberately developing it in B&W chems is that I can do that at home as I have the chemstry to hand. I don't have the chemicals (not the desire) the develop C41 at home at the moment. It would cost me around £6 to have the film lab developed, but as I knew a lot of the images would be no good due to the camera fault described above, and as the film iteself may have been be no good either due to it's age and me having no idea as to how it was stored, then that was not something I wanted to spend.

The main reason I used this particular roll of film, knowing it might be iffy, was to have an attempt at making a whole roll of double exposures by running it through the camera twice without wasting a good roll of film. Sadly the various lockdowns meant that this "project" stretched out beyond what I wanted, and so I decided to just shoot the remainder of the frames normally, at which point the camera fault made itself known.
 
What scanner are you using? I actually found c41 in black and white harder to scan on my flatbed than I did using one of those cheapy webcam type boxes.
 
VirtualAdept said:
What scanner are you using? I actually found c41 in black and white harder to scan on my flatbed than I did using one of those cheapy webcam type boxes.
Click to expand...

I scan 135 on a Plustek Opticfilm 8100.

The photos I've posted have all had quite a bit of punch added to them in post-processing. This is what they look like straight from the scanner:

Dorothy Pax base scan.jpg

I might have been able to get punchier scans by playing around with the scanner settings more (or even by scanning as colour files and then trying to remove the orange mask), but I was happy enough with the results I got.
 
Think they've come out rather nicely Nige, I've certainly produced far worse B&W with b&w film and developer (I'm looking at you, delta out of my new rollei)

I did find that colour film in paper developer worked surprisingly well too, possibly better than stand developing in rodinal.
 
VirtualAdept said:
Think they've come out rather nicely Nige, I've certainly produced far worse B&W with b&w film and developer (I'm looking at you, delta out of my new rollei)

I did find that colour film in paper developer worked surprisingly well too, possibly better than stand developing in rodinal.
Click to expand...
Thanks Mads. Yeah, I've had worse rolls of dedicated B&W too.
 
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