Anyone wants to share some E6 chemicals?

[losheng]

Hey, guys, sorry about that - I was about to post that you guys don't have to reschedule the outing just over this - you guys are welcome to pop by my office during office hours to pick up the chemicals. Just that this Thursday I plan to stay behind to test the processor, so if it is more convenient for you guys to come to town after working hours, this thursday will be a good time. If any of you need to come at other times, just drop me a note will do! BTW - please bring along 1 x 2.5 litre and 1 x 0.5 litre container for those that are getting one portion (5 litres) - it's the way the chemicals are packed, we need to split 2 of the chemicals separately.

Since this will be the first time I'll be developing with the processor, I don't know how it goes - bring your not-too-precious shots first!

Let us move the outing to Wednesday night to have Slides for processing.

[Nikkornos]

Looks like tomorrow's mass shoot will be on. You will have a few slides to try out......


By the way, do you have any MSDS for the Fuji hunt. Also, are they needed to be stored in Fridge (food compartment?)

[losheng]

Well, we might not be able to process everything on Thursday night, so please don't feel disappointed if some of the slides have to be left behind!

MSDS for the Fujihunt C6R can be found here. Much of the nasty stuffs in the older E-6 process have been eliminated over the years due to stricter regulations. What's left now is nothing too lethal, but skin irritation is real. In the longer run, it's still a good practice to have a proper disposal means. After all, what we dump into the sewage will end up in our cups in no time :-) You don't need to keep these chemicals in the fridge, but surely it will extend its lifetime if you do!

Looks like tomorrow's mass shoot will be on. You will have a few slides to try out......

By the way, do you have any MSDS for the Fuji hunt. Also, are they needed to be stored in Fridge (food compartment?)

[wootsk]

Well, we might not be able to process everything on Thursday night, so please don't feel disappointed if some of the slides have to be left behind!

MSDS for the Fujihunt CR-56R can be found here. Much of the nasty stuffs in the older E-6 process have been eliminated over the years due to stricter regulations. What's left now is nothing too lethal, but skin irritation is real. In the longer run, it's still a good practice to have a proper disposal means. After all, what we dump into the sewage will end up in our cups in no time :-) You don't need to keep these chemicals in the fridge, but surely it will extend its lifetime if you do!

Something small to add-on. When you defrost any chemical from the fridge, do check if any crystallization occurs. It happened to my re-mixed D-76 once and I need to heat it up a bit and stir the bottle again for the last bit to dissolve. Though it never happened on my E-6, it is a precaution. Pre-mixed chemical can be store for quite a long time in room temperature with no issue. Certain mixed chemical especially color developer (fully-mixed) has short shelf life if not frozen.

Lastly, please label your chemical as someone might mistake it for a nice chilled drink on a hot day.

[losheng]

Lastly, please label your chemical as someone might mistake it for a nice chilled drink on a hot day.

That would really suck! Just what kind of bad day is it when halfway through the development process you find that someone has drank one of your chemicals? We are talking about wasted pieces of art here!

[Nikkornos]

Lastly, please label your chemical as someone might mistake it for a nice chilled drink on a hot day.

Ha ha ha that exactly happened to me.

When my mother was pregnant with my twin brothers, she opened the fridge to have a drink because she was very thirsty.
She did not see the Big Skeleton Sign and POISON marking on the bottle.

It was the Made in China mixer mainly Hyposulfite.... something like NaSo34 (?)....

She got a shock when she saw the bottle and my dad called the ambulance. The doctor also fainted when they saw the bottle.
Then.... she was declared OK. Police also came. She was fine and discharged the next day.

Needless to say, I had a good taste of Rotan. I was about 13 or 14 that time.

The good thing is, my brothers are now bery bery FAIR and nice with good skin, must be the FIXER. !

[losheng]

Hey, guys, amazing as it sounds, two batches of E6 Fujihunt chemicals have all been taken up! Putting things in perspective, that's about 200 litres of concentrates! Fully diluted, they will make up almost 1.6 tonnes of processing chemicals!

I really appreciate everyone that stepped forward to help absorb the cost for sharing each batch of chemicals. It makes my hair stand to say this - but your enthusiasm moved me. Because the way the batch is packaged into cartons, it means not all the chemicals in each batch will run out at the same time. There were quite a few of you that told me that even though you are unlikely to finish all the chemicals, you are willing to help foot the bill just to keep the E6 process alive. Singaporeans are not known for being idealistic, so either the rest of the world was wrong about us or you guys are just a bunch of weirdos :-)

If anyone of you would like to have E6 chemicals, drop me a note. As soon as we have 4 orders I am very happy to coordinate the purchase of another batch.

On the other hand, I'm working on the numbers to see if it is viable to rebottle the chemicals into 5 litre kits - i.e., each set will come with chemicals that will each dilute to a 5 litre working solution. This way all the chemicals can be expanded at the same rate. Due to the small volume, this rebottling effort cannot be economically automated (or I have no idea how to do that), and the cost per bottle is surprisingly expensive at the sub-100 MOQ level. In addition, I have no idea where to house these 100s of bottles at the moment. If you are in the business of knowing how to make this work cheaply - let me know!

Otherwise, in the mean time, I'm very happy to continue to help coordinate the purchase of a batch of chemicals for every 4 buyers.

[knight84]

Thanks to you lo sheng for taking the effort in helping to coordinate this.

Hey, guys, amazing as it sounds, two batches of E6 Fujihunt chemicals have all been taken up! Putting things in perspective, that's about 200 litres of concentrates! Fully diluted, they will make up almost 1.6 tonnes of processing chemicals!

I really appreciate everyone that stepped forward to help absorb the cost for sharing each batch of chemicals. It makes my hair stand to say this - but your enthusiasm moved me. Because the way the batch is packaged into cartons, it means not all the chemicals in each batch will run out at the same time. There were quite a few of you that told me that even though you are unlikely to finish all the chemicals, you are willing to help foot the bill just to keep the E6 process alive. Singaporeans are not known for being idealistic, so either the rest of the world was wrong about us or you guys are just a bunch of weirdos :-)

If anyone of you would like to have E6 chemicals, drop me a note. As soon as we have 4 orders I am very happy to coordinate the purchase of another batch.

On the other hand, I'm working on the numbers to see if it is viable to rebottle the chemicals into 5 litre kits - i.e., each set will come with chemicals that will each dilute to a 5 litre working solution. This way all the chemicals can be expanded at the same rate. Due to the small volume, this rebottling effort cannot be economically automated (or I have no idea how to do that), and the cost per bottle is surprisingly expensive at the sub-100 MOQ level. In addition, I have no idea where to house these 100s of bottles at the moment. If you are in the business of knowing how to make this work cheaply - let me know!

Otherwise, in the mean time, I'm very happy to continue to help coordinate the purchase of a batch of chemicals for every 4 buyers.

[losheng]

Hey, ok, I think I've got it! The chemical works - just need to order lots of slides now! :-)

[kgston]

Hey, ok, I think I've got it! The chemical works - just need to order lots of slides now! :-)

Nice.. the colour looks pretty good!!

[Shadowleong]

Nice.. the colour looks pretty good!!

Oh my! Thats something I wanna see for myself! I have not shot slides E6 processed before, Now I know what I'm missing out on

[lkkang]

congrats

Hey, ok, I think I've got it! The chemical works - just need to order lots of slides now! :-)

[losheng]

Ok, for those that are using the Fujihunt chemicals, you may want to mix the color developers A and B first before every development - the reason is that it takes about 5-10 minutes for the mixture to get to the working condition. When they are first mixed, you'll get a cobalt blue solution - really nice. But you don't want to use it until the solution turns purplish, a process that takes about 5-10 minutes, with some swirling in-between.

Some of you might know that I've made a mistake in an early attempt that rendered the slides bluish, totally destroyed the only roll of Velvia I shot in my last trip to Korea. I now fully understand the reason - I mixed the solution just moments before it was being sucked into the heating tray, which heat the solution to 38 degree within 2 minutes, and had it pumped into the film drum. There wasn't enough time for the chemicals to settle to the correct working condition.

The mixing instruction is very specific on this - add Part A to water, stir for 5 minutes, add Part B, stir for 5 minutes, and then top up to working volume, and stir for another 5 minutes. The color developer needs time to get to the correct working condition!

Just don't make the same mistake as I have!

[GimpX]

Thanks for sharing Losheng.

[losheng]

Ok, did another roll just to be doubly sure that I've got the entire process nailed. The digital shot clipped off a lot of the highlight details - the trans is beautiful!



Anyone else wants some E6 chemicals to do this at home? :-)

[mamypoko]

Ok, for those that are using the Fujihunt chemicals, you may want to mix the color developers A and B first before every development - the reason is that it takes about 5-10 minutes for the mixture to get to the working condition. When they are first mixed, you'll get a cobalt blue solution - really nice. But you don't want to use it until the solution turns purplish, a process that takes about 5-10 minutes, with some swirling in-between.

Some of you might know that I've made a mistake in an early attempt that rendered the slides bluish, totally destroyed the only roll of Velvia I shot in my last trip to Korea. I now fully understand the reason - I mixed the solution just moments before it was being sucked into the heating tray, which heat the solution to 38 degree within 2 minutes, and had it pumped into the film drum. There wasn't enough time for the chemicals to settle to the correct working condition.

The mixing instruction is very specific on this - add Part A to water, stir for 5 minutes, add Part B, stir for 5 minutes, and then top up to working volume, and stir for another 5 minutes. The color developer needs time to get to the correct working condition!

Just don't make the same mistake as I have!

Hey Losheng,

I also noticed this, after a few hours the Color Developer solution will turn a light yellow, used it to great effect.

Have you tried re-using the bleach / color developer? From my calculations the bleach will run out first followed by the color developer.

[losheng]

I also noticed this, after a few hours the Color Developer solution will turn a light yellow, used it to great effect.

Have you tried re-using the bleach / color developer? From my calculations the bleach will run out first followed by the color developer.

Thanks for the info - I have never stood the color developer for so long, so I didn't know that it will turn yellow. The only way to be absolutely sure of the optimal working condition is to check if its pH value. To do that, one need a pH meter of accuracy down to 0.02, which exceeds the capabilities of most cheap pH meters. Perhaps we can trouble Patrick to use his lab equipment to plot a time graph of the pH change to see how long it takes to reach the recommended level.

Every chemical can be reused - you may need to check the datasheet for the replenishing rate. Since bleach is the most expensive chemical of all, it certainly warrants reuse. I'm currently using it with 70% replenishment rate - ie. 70% fresh stock with 30% old stock. It's way conservative - I'm going to work out the optimal replenishment rate to verify that it is workable with 50% replenishment rate. BTW - you may want to note that the working solution for the bleach calls for 1+1 dilution, so there's no need to use it stock, especially for one-shot.

Since bleach gets to be expanded at the fastest rate, we will have to place order for a carton of bleach in due course. I think it's about $160+ for a carton of 4 x 5 litres. Watch out for the 'Anyone wants to share a carton of E6 Bleach?" thread :-)

[losheng]

Oh, and one more thing about environmental friendliness - used bleach and fixers can be recycled for silver recovery. So don't dump them into the sewage - instead, take them to your friendly neighbourhood mini-labs that still use wet printers. They will have guys coming round to pick up these chemicals for $10 per 10 litres. For us, due to the small volume, its unlikely the neighbourhood printers will be willing to pay us a dime - but at least we know that the chemicals will be properly treated, and we've played a small role helping our neighhood printers to keep their businesses alive :-)

[mamypoko]

Thanks losheng,

I mixed the chemicals to do developing but had to go out at the last minute so I kept it away, when I came back it was light yellow.

Will keep that in mind, I am mixing according to the PDF guideline.

Right now I'm using a minimum of 33ml of working solution for each sheet of 4x5 film. Will re-use the bleach and color developer on my next try with some expired film.

[sweat100]

Thanks for the info - I have never stood the color developer for so long, so I didn't know that it will turn yellow. The only way to be absolutely sure of the optimal working condition is to check if its pH value. To do that, one need a pH meter of accuracy down to 0.02, which exceeds the capabilities of most cheap pH meters. Perhaps we can trouble Patrick to use his lab equipment to plot a time graph of the pH change to see how long it takes to reach the recommended level.

Every chemical can be reused - you may need to check the datasheet for the replenishing rate. Since bleach is the most expensive chemical of all, it certainly warrants reuse. I'm currently using it with 70% replenishment rate - ie. 70% fresh stock with 30% old stock. It's way conservative - I'm going to work out the optimal replenishment rate to verify that it is workable with 50% replenishment rate. BTW - you may want to note that the working solution for the bleach calls for 1+1 dilution, so there's no need to use it stock, especially for one-shot.

Since bleach gets to be expanded at the fastest rate, we will have to place order for a carton of bleach in due course. I think it's about $160+ for a carton of 4 x 5 litres. Watch out for the 'Anyone wants to share a carton of E6 Bleach?" thread :-)

I will try to borrow the ph meter for 1 of the weekend. He guy is on leave mow. Will keep you guys updated. The problem is we need to gather the critical film amount to accurate plot the figures.