Tag Archives: cross

Developing E6 Slide film in Black and White chemicals

Expired Film, home processing, , , , , , ,

Hello again, I have a few posts in my draft folder so I feel more at ease now. Plus the days are getting longer and I have been able to get out. My knee is healing so all is well in the world. That being said I think I will start posting a few things again. And this post is exactly what it says on the tin. I wondered what would happen if I developed some slide film in black and white chemicals, if the title didn’t let you know that already.

When I research the idea every post said, don’t be daft, why would you bother. But I want to bother, because I can be bothered. So in the end I decided to do it anyway. I took a few shots and developed them in Kodak d-76 1:1 concentration for 16 minutes at 18 degrees. Then fixed it for 10 minutes. There were no recipes out there so I decided to try the same times with a longer fix as when I tried c-41 in black and white chemicals. I also over exposed the film by a few stops for good measure, it was expired film so it couldn’t hurt.

So what were the results?

The negatives were very dense due to the film’s base layer. The end results were very much like the C41 results. Oh, I didn’t see the point in de-hairing them. So at the end of the day, with lots of light and lots of contrast, the shots are interesting-ish. Nothing worse than some very old black and white film I have tried before.

It was an interesting experiment. One that I doubt I will repeat.

Processing C41 Colour film in Black and White Chemicals.

home processing, , , , , , , ,

My local Pound store has started selling the Geek 10 exposure colour film for £2 a roll.

Though it is only £2, the 10 exposures, then paying for development means it doesn’t actually end up being very economical as Kosmofoto points out. But what if you could develop it as a black and white film? Would that make it a cheap film to test cameras? At the very least, it would make a good experiment.

So, a little more about the film, in case you want to use it as a regular colour film. The ten exposures is literally that. I managed to get 9 out of mine once I had loaded it. To get ten you would have to be very careful while loading, or load in the dark. The cassette feels very cheap, a plastic affair that is tricky to open in order to process the film. I had to rip mine apart. The naff cassette also seemed to hinder the movement of the film through the camera and initially thought I had misloaded it. I found using a film picker impossible, hence the ripping apart option. The actual film inside is rebranded Fujifilm C200, here is another great blog with details about that.

I did some research about cross processing colour film as black and white and there are a few articles online. On the whole I didn’t find anything really substantial about using the developing chemicals I had. I have recently been using Kodak D-76 after switching from ilfosol 3. I did find one chat thread that way down said try a development time of 8 minutes at 20 degrees. But most things I read said don’t do it or it was a waste of time.

So ignoring all the naysayers I went for these development details.

Chemicals used: Kodak d-76 at full strength 1:0
Temperature: 21 degrees
Development Time: 8 minutes (with stop=30 secs, fixer=5 minutes)

Of course the emulsion is on a very orangy base that will affect scanning, but was there an actual image to scan after developing? YES!

The film was quite dark due to the plastic film base, but it scanned quite well considering. The initial scans were quite flat, but I processed all 9 exposures through the Snapseed phone app. To be fair, recently the weather has been rainy and dark so even a “real” film would have struggled.

Some of the shots came out quite well, others were underexposed. Overall, they weren’t so bad. What if I took the film out on a bright day and overexposed the film? The next test? Once the weather changes I will try that and update the post. Either way it was not a complete loss, at £2 a roll it is another option.