The E6 process (and my lack of understanding)

[soupdragon]

I've been processing slide film for many years and generally get good results.
Thinking about the timings for the various steps leads me to wonder if most of them are "minimum" times.

I understand the effects of over/under first development but what about the rest?

For instance, is it even possible to "Over Reverse" slide film?
Can you overdo the colour development step?
I assume that you can leave the film in the bleach for very much longer than the standard 6 minutes, and I've never heard of over fixing.

The reason I ask is that it would be a much more relaxing thing to do if the final five chemical steps were minimum times.

 

[Ian Grant]

The simple answer is with E6 is the critical stage is the first (B&W) developer, all other steps are effectively to completion. All other steps need to be fully completed, and the chemistry must be fresh enough and capacity not exceeded.

If the process uses light reversal, yes you can over exposure, so no direct sunlight, but there's still plenty of latitude before .over exposure is an issue. Colour development, you can't over develop, but then you also don't want to leave film in an oxidising developer.

Older colour reversal processes were not so simple and needed far more stringent controls particularly of the second Colour developer. Some B&W reversal processes were even worse, Pathé for instance varied the re-exposure intensity.

I first began with Ferrania reversal processing, that was awful, then E3 which was OK, E4 was too toxic for home processing, E6 is the easiest.

Ian

 

[Flack]

I use the Tetenal E6 kit and get good results with Kodachrome, I have tried the Cinestill 3 bath kit and not had good results with some old Fuji Velvia 50 4x5 sheet film {20 years out of date} so cant blame the kit.. but good results with Ektachrome with this kit.

I have 3 boxes of Velvia 50 sheet film 4x5 left, all over 20 years out of date so trying to find a process that works. I shot a couple of frames at box speed and they came out very dark, I then shot at 25 iso and they came out better but very magenta cast.
I have since re-read the Tetenal instructions and at 25 iso it says to reduce the FD for 2 mins so that's my next test. Its quite expensive now for chemicals so hopefully I can get a usable process.

 

[Joanna Carter]

they came out better but very magenta cast

A magenta cast is quite normal for Velvia 50, even fresh.

 

[RichiedD]

I use the Tetenal E6 kit and get good results with Kodachrome, I have tried the Cinestill 3 bath kit and not had good results with some old Fuji Velvia 50 4x5 sheet film {20 years out of date} so cant blame the kit.. but good results with Ektachrome with this kit.

I have 3 boxes of Velvia 50 sheet film 4x5 left, all over 20 years out of date so trying to find a process that works. I shot a couple of frames at box speed and they came out very dark, I then shot at 25 iso and they came out better but very magenta cast.
I have since re-read the Tetenal instructions and at 25 iso it says to reduce the FD for 2 mins so that's my next test. Its quite expensive now for chemicals so hopefully I can get a usable process.

If you reduce iso, ie increase exposure, and process normally you will get the lighter result you did which is what you want. If you reduce ISO and reduce FD development time, i.e. increase exposure and under develop, you are likely to get the same result or worse as your first example. The only critical stage is FD where you can adjust the times to produce a favourable result. CD and Bleach/Fix are done to completion. Aged film will often give a magenta cast. If you can get a consistent exposure speed and FD development time to produce a satisfactory brightness result then maybe you could adjust the CD pH to affect the magenta cast. I think the Tetenal instruction have a table that shows this.