Ascorbate-developers: TCB, discussion and more pictures.

Update : see towards the end, update on the 4th film developed in this mix, with picture examples, developed 1.5 months after the mix was first mixed and used, stored in a half-empty bottle, in a worm, well lit place..... this developer shows promise!

As promised I an pressing on with what is left of my Part A, using that as the only part.

I have now developed a Fuji Nexia A200 200ISO C41 color APS film in the brew to B&W.

I will show pictures here, and will also highlight comments received from Michael that deserves to be seen and commented. Michael is my inspiration in this, and hopefully we will find a better way of doing this than my feeble effort so far.

Burnt home........

Fuji Nexia A200 C41 APS film

developed 20 min @ 20C in TCB Part A

Traditional log home, at the site of a 200 year old former mine.

Fuji Nexia A200 C41 APS film

One more, my other hobby....

This guys will hit a pinhead - and very, very quickly...

Data as above.

I have had difficulty developing Fuji C41 film at all before with caffenol, weak images, and no images at all, seemingly a hopeless proposition. I am pleased to get this at all, so far, but will need to test with one more film, my staple test vehicle Kodak Gold 200, to be able to put this in perspective.

These images where among the best on the APS film, some where hopelessly under-exposed & -developed, also uneven across the images, but that might have to do with the scanner that does not support APS film properly.

Comments :

Michael :
Looking closer at my notes I found an interesting trend that may help explain what is going on here. I found that initial tests as a one-shot developer with relatively little p-aminophenol did not work well and results were similar to what was posted here. What I found worked was to make a re-usable version with lots of p-aminophenol and it worked to process many rolls of film. To make the re-usable version I suggest the following:

TCB Part A:
Acetaminophen - 15g (30 x 500mg tablets)
Ascorbic Acid - 6g
Sodium Hydroxide - 20g
Water to make 250mL

Let stand for 72 hours, add 5g borax and water to make 1L.
(Make a note here, Michael has corrected this recipe - it's given below in full, I just want to leave this as it was, so others can follow the discussion)

TCB Part B:
Boarax - 19g
Ascorbic Acid - 6g
Water to make 1L

Use A:B 1:9 for a normal speed (8 min) developer and 1:19 for a stand or semi-stand developer. The working strength solution can be re-used many times but I didn't determine the limit.

Erik :
Question : In part A do you mix the ingredients in the order given? When I was dabbling with my SALS13, I mixed Acetamiophen by itself with Lye (sodium hydroxide) to kickstart the chemical transformation, adding other ingredients later. Since I did not put any ascorbic acid in there until 72 hours after, most likely all of the Acetamiophen was oxidized, leaving me with a neasrly non-active developer.

I was thinking more like letting the Acetamiophen and lye brew for a while, then adding Ascorbic acid.....

Michael:
Also, based on your Flickr post I assume this is the film that turned the developer green. I see that often when using Kodak Gold 200 and my home-brew developers.

Erik :
Definitely true, and intriguing and interesting, after developing Fuji in that same, once light green brew, it has now turned slightlu orange-brown!! :-)

Michael :
Sorry, correction to the first comment, TCB part A should be 500mL total volume and not 1L so it should be as follows:

TCB Part A:
Acetaminophen - 15g (30 x 500mg tablets)
Ascorbic Acid - 6g
Sodium Hydroxide - 20g
Water to make 250mL

Let stand for 72 hours, add 5g borax and water to make 500mL.

Erik :
I have made worse mistakes in my life, I leave it here as written, so people can follow this themselves, we update only correct recipes in the Recipes section!

Michael :
I learned the hard way that p-aminophenol will oxidize rapidly without any preservative. The tell-tale sign is the colour of the mix. If it turns a deep red then you most likely have too much oxidized p-aminophenol. When making parodinal the sulfite preserves so in this case you need ascorbate. 2 hours semi-stand with the above recipe gives a +1 push with regular B&W film so you should get box speed with C-41. I will try with Kodak Gold 200 when I get a chance.

Erik :
The deep red table-wine appearance was a tell tale sign when I tested this, and got as a result nearly no activity. That was my SALS13 test. My conclusion on that was that I need to mix in a different way, and add a preservative that stops or slows down the oxidation to a level when I get a result that I want. Your suggestion to use ascorbic acid for that is genous IMHO. Only thing keeping me from having at that again is that I now have Phenidone here.... :-).

************************************************

I have just finished another test film, C41 Kodak Advantix 200 ISO, very close to the 135 Kodak Gold 200 I have used all along as a test vehicle (because I have plenty!). The film, exposed in my Canon IX APS SLR is fortunate, this camera can be programmed just like my Canon EOS 50e, to take 3 exposures, 1X, +1X and -1X, making a 25 exposure roll into a 6 picture test. I will develop this in the remaining part A from my test run, and because of the exposure triplets, will be able to determine correct ISO speed and development time much better, preparing for a new mix and test run, as soon as I have finished other things that will see the day of light in this blog.

I will publish pictures from this last film (from this mix) and wrap up things here, moving on to other iteresting things, Phenidone, for instance.

(film now developed, hung to dry. Looks strong and musty, the Kodak C41 films have always behaved better than Fuji when it comes to ascorbates. All images in triplets, one over and one under-exposed. It will be interesting to see how they scan. Pictures tomorrow)

Pictures :