From: Ken Paul Rosenthal (email suppressed)
Date: Fri Jan 09 2004 - 11:02:03 PST
Developing Ektachrome w/Tetenol Kit
I've easily processed over 200 rolls or Ektachrome with the Tetenol E6 kit,
mostly Super 8mm, but some 16mm as well. I've had great success using a
variety of tank methods. This kit uses only 4, 1-liter solutions, mixed from
concentrates and water as easily as one would make pancake batter, albiet
less tasty with syrup.
I'd be happy to email anyone a copy of my short, hp manifesto/hp guide. I
also have a hard copy, 62-page hp reader that's evolved considerably over
the course of 10 years. If you'd like a copy of that, I'm afraid I'll need
$5 for copying, postage and handling. I won't be making a penny. There's a
bit of copywrited material in there, but it's from very old books (pretty
much, anyway...).
In the meantime, keep in mind that super 8 and 16mm Ektachrome are the same
stock, just slit to their relative gauge width. E6/VNF are essentially the
same process. While the Tetenol kit is intended for E6 processing, my
students have 'successfully' developed Vision stocks using this chemistry,
'successful' meaning they got an image. But it turned out very 'psychedelic'
for lack of a better word. This will also exhaust the chemistry's capacity
very quickly.
The Tetenol kit is designed for 35mm Ektachrome slide film, which is
equivalent to one 50-foot roll of super 8 in terms of surface area. The
kit's instruction's claim that only 9 rolls can be processed before the
chemistry is exhausted, but developing over 15 rolls has yielded acceptable
results for me, 'acceptable' being relative, of course. In fact, the older
the chemistry, the MORE acceptable the results (or beginnings be as it
may...).
Lastly (and all this is in the electronic version of my manifesto/hp guide),
the kits are intended for the home consumer. Certain steps are combined for
expediency, thereby short-circuiting certain affects, such as skip bleach,
and color neg (greenish) or black and white developement (more like sepia).
For example, if you skip from the first developer straight to the fix,
you'll get a b & w negative as the first step in color developement is a b &
w image.
On the other hand, the mighty 35-liter Fujichrome E6 kit (7, 5-liter
solutions!!!) seperates each step so you have more flexibility in producing
certain effects, such as those mentioned above. I haven't seen this kit
available commercially here in the States, but I'm sure it can be
found/ordered. Only cost about $45 in Singapore, where my students regularly
processed 100-foot loads of 16mm Ektachrome at a time. Keep in mind: all E6
kits, whether it's Tetenol, Fuji, or Kodachrome (their home processing kit
is discontinued, but the excellent instructions from that kit are included
in my hard-copy reader), etc, work the similarly on any Ektachrome stocks
that are E6/VNF process.
What makes those instructions particularly useful are that the time charts
for the first 2 steps, First Developer and Color Developer, give you the
time/temps for processing the film anywhere from 70 to 110 degrees. Other
kit's instructions tell you to process at 100 degrees without any other
options. Again, same chemistry, same process--just different instructions.
My far too long delayed website should be up in about a week and a half;
kenpaulrosenthal.com. It will have some hp goodies and lots of sweet images.
I envision it developing over the years into something of an hp
resource/school although the absurdity of employing an electronic medium to
instruct the hands is not lost on me. My site (and reader) for the time
being (great gunver nelson film by the way, 'time being'), are notably short
on processing b & w as i've most done such developement on the Phil
Hoffman's film farm in canada where everything was pretty much set up for
me.
While I've never mixed b & w chemistry myself, Kodak makes a b &w slide
reveral kit. And unlike the color Tetanol kit, this one allows you to make a
negative. But you've really gotta nail your temps/times, otherwise the
emulsion will slide right off the base (images of the waiter entering
groucho's cabin with a tipsy trayful of food in 'night at the opera' come to
mind...).
But throughout the spring I'll be processing like b & w like a demon for my
first (experimental) narrative that I'll be shooting in (yikes!) just under
2 weeks. So I'll have plenty of info to pass on later. In the meantime,
there are dozens and dozens of frameworkers out there who are very
experienced with b & w developement.
These are exciting times for hand-made film--the reel digital revolution is
at hand's end!!! Onward comrades!!!
Ken Seminal Alchemical Rosenthal
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