I’ve been reminded again that I’m not a particularly big fan of developing C41 film. It’s just that tiny bit more annoying and this is what always makes me procrastinate before mixing another batch of C41 chemicals. This was increased this time because the Fuji chemicals I ordered for my Argentina pictures are a little bit more difficult to mix up and the instructions are not quite as good as with the Tetenal kit. It also has an extra step to consider, because it has a separate bleach and fix stage instead of the combined blix in the Tetenal kit. This supposedly improves quality, but of course there is one more change of chemicals and another wash involved. In any case, today I finally took the plunge and mixed up a litre of the chemicals (I have 5L in total). I developed 5 rolls in it already and used robo, my robotic assistant for the 3 rolls that I developed in my Paterson tank. For the 3.15 min of development stage I did the agitation myself, too short a time, but with both the bleach and fix stage I let robo do the job while I used the time to clean up a bit. And in fact, it becomes just a little less stressful when I don’t have to agitate every 30sec! Definitely a useful little gadget to have. Next step is a tempering bath for the chemicals so that I don’t have to develop the C41 in the kitchen.
I’m still scanning the rolls that I have developed today, so I will show you some more recent black and white ones instead. You can expect the first Argentina street pictures very soon though!
All pictures taken with: Leica M6 + Zeiss ZM C-Biogon 35mm f/2.8.
Double-X @400 stand-developed in Caffenol-CL.