Making
up this kit is a delight. I only made up 300m1 of working solutions as (I
thought) I had 3 films to process. I have filled up the air space with
marbles as per Instructions, and am keeping the concentrates. As ever when
using a new kit, I put a possibly dodgy film through first.
(I’ve always done this since I had a 3M CR50 kit which turned out
to contain no colour developing agent), and I was right - I had
underexposed the film by about 2 stops. The second film was brilliant,
then I discovered that I still had a roll of Barfen as well as one of 100
asa Ektachrome.
A
Dodge - If you have a. metal tank, or certain plastic tanks (e.g. Jobo),
it is possible to load two films Back-to-back in one spiral. Hint it helps
if you sellotape the leading ends together before attempting to load the
spiral.
Another
Dodge. Process times are
determined by the temperature and the activity of the solution at the
start of processing.
As
my solutions were only about 1½ hours old, and had been made from fresh
content. - rates, I decided to risk it. I went ahead and loaded the films
back-to-back, and processed the films as for a third film in 300mls. It
was a little alarming when the first developer (which had that
characteristic ‘pea soup’ look of used E6 first developer) came out
looking like a half of best (good colour and head), but I persisted.
The
results.
With
300m1 of fresh solutions I had processed four 36 exposure films. One was
useless as a result of my error when setting the camera. Two were full of
brilliant, colourful, well exposed shots. The other one was mixed - but
had been mainly shot into the sun, and the other exposures were taken
under 100% cloud cover, on a cold drizzly day. So it was a difficult film
to make comparisons with.
However,
overall I was, pleased with the results and most favourably impressed by
the Paterson kit. The results with both Barf en CRXI00 and; the Kodak EN
were excellent - although the films show totally different overall
balances, This is definitely a kit to buy, particularly if like me, you
tend to leave things on a shelf for a long time.
Thanks
to Bob for letting us into the knowledge of using one of. these
‘Newfangled’ 3 bath kits. It would seem that many of us have had
doubts about the 3 bath system after years of 6 and 7 bath
methods. However when you stop and think about it, since CR50 days we have
(most of us) used a kit, with either BLIX (Bleach & Fixer in one) or a
Colour developer with a, chemical reversal included together. So is it
really a mystery that along came a four bath kit and now just 3 simple
baths.
In
his latest Local Newsletter, Roy Salmons (He of PhotoWorid) and Leader of
Area 3 and our Overseas group) gives an explanation about his new 3
bath kit. In response to Ron Knowles’ comments in the April N/L. I
feel that in this article, not only does Roy give a good exercise in kit
formulation, but fights some ‘Boggles,’ of the old and the established
working methods hanging on in spite of the latest films and kits being
‘ery high in quality and cutting out much of the time wasting of earlier
kits.
This
exercise may well prove of interest! To “Home Brew” workers, who on
the main - are the ones finding processing problems. My experience with E6
started with the same reluctance. It seemed too fast, and those high
temperatures, how would we overcome them ?
Well,
you have all followed my venture into E6 through these pages and I
couldn’t be more pleased with the results and once you see how simple it
is, you wonder why it took so long to bring the E6 formulae onto the
market. I know I have been lucky in that I got a heating unit cheaply
through Bob Lewis and the kindness of UNO products, But once you have
covered the intitial expense of a heating unit, you wont look back.
The
Latest Barfen CRX Lab doesn’t even require a heater, working on good
insulation and using the latest 3 or 4 bath kit, you couldn’t
find anything more simple. And you can
even buy a “Ready Mixed” kit, No measuring required and the kit made
up in under an hour. Yes, it’s expensive, but you always have had to pay
for progress.