Help needed!!

[mark]

Hello all! I am in need of some help!

I was out last week at an ' antiques place' looking for stuff for my house when I came across a beautiful camera with case sitting forlornly on the shelf. I'm not a camera collector but enjoy photography, so after a bit of haggling I bought it for £25. The shop owner didn't seem to know much about it. So I brought it home and googled the name. A 'Weltaflex'. Your site came up and I liked the welcoming feel of it. I found on another site how it worked and this is where I would dearly love your help. Inside I found a roll of used film kodacolor-X. I took it to my local photographry shop who told me the type C-22 isn't processed anymore! It may be the film is fogged or ruined for some other reason. However I am intrigued and would like to see if I can get it developed! Can you help? I live in essex. Thanks in anticipation

Mark

[daveh]

There was a day when you could buy all the chemicals and could have re-mixed developer to suit. You will be able to develop as black and white, though it may need to be processed for a little longer than a normal film would. Let me know how toy get on as I have some C-22 film that I have been intending to process, but have never got round to.

You can, of course, always do a test strip first and adjust development of the rest depending on the results of that - if necessary doing another test strip. With a good clean cut the frame can be reassembled after scanning. Of course it depends on having a developing tank, which I presume you haven't. It might be there is someone at your local photographic society who could help.

Anyway, welcome Mark. By the way where in Britain are you?

[philbirch]

Welcome to the forum. It's a small community so days can pass before you get a reply. Congrats on the Weltaflex. A very nice camera.

The film? Develop it black and white chemicals as Tri-X. That worked for me. The negs are very dense but you can scan and get an image from them.

[Peltigera]

What happens to C22 film developed in C41 chemicals? I would have thought it would work, much as cross-processing E6 films in C41 chemicals does.

[philbirch]

May 8, 2014 4:48:29 GMT -5 Peltigera said:

What happens to C22 film developed in C41 chemicals? I would have thought it would work, much as cross-processing E6 films in C41 chemicals does.

Its a totally different process. At best you will get weak, odd colours because the colour layers are constructed differently. At worst, the C41 process has a much higher temperature which could strip the gelatine base off the film (riuning it) and contaminate the C41 chemicals and of course that will affect the other films developed in it.

There are specialist companies who will make up a batch of C22 chemicals when they have enough films to process. It is likely to be in another country and very expensive for what? possibly no pictures as the film is likely to be over 40 years old. The dyes were very unstable and there may be no latent image at all after all this time.

However...

...I have a c22 film in a camera which needs finishing. I will finish it and process it as B&W and let you know the results. If it is good, perhaps I can process the film or let you know more details on the process.
I'll report back here.

Hang fire and don't take it to the lab in a cassette salvaged from an old disposable camera. As I may have done at one time. 

[Stephen]

Try..........

www.fotostation.co.uk/page/Other_Old_Film_Processing

www.oldfilmprocessing.com/


They offer all processing except Kodachrome, I have absolutely no connection with the company, I have never used this particular service provider.......
.
C41 chemicals will work at lower temperatures in hand processing early colour film, but colour balance is somewhat unpredictable when printing. C41 was for films with toughened gelatin bases, to speed processing and fast drying.
As mentioned B/W chemicals will work with almost all colour films, including Kodachrome. Usually weak chemicals and gentle long process is best with unknown condition older films.

A group in the States has got together to process Kodachrome in colour, Kodak (US) do not support the group, although the now separate UK Kodak operation have expressed an interest in supplying the dyes required. But no working machine line now exists.
It has always been feasible to hand process Kodachrome slides, but the conditions required are very tight due to three exacting re-exposures during the development, and the specialist dye requirements.

Stephen.

[Stephen]

Tetenal still make the chemicals for the C41 process at home, and as long as the temperature is lowered from the C41 level, with an increase in time, then this could be used.

The negatives would be a bit unpredictable, but reversal in Photoshop or the Gimp should work, with a long session of colour correction on the computer....., then print from the file.

Real prints could be made, but is it worth it?, the fuss of establishing the filter pack, and tests, may not be worth the hassle,and big costs, as it can all be done at no cost on the computer.

Even if the negs are processed by the Trade, it would give better results by using Photoshop, so get the negs processed and scanned to a CD rom, to assess them before committing to real paper prints, or just jump straight to modern printing.

Stephen.

[daveh]

The problem with all attempts to develop colour anything other than "proper chemicals" is that the results will not be true. That might not matter if you call it art!


I can tell you that Ektachome slide film does not develop well in colour negative chemicals (I would think it was C41) - as I found out when one slide film was sent to a local processors, and they developed it incorrectly. I have scanned the film and played around with all sorts of options in Photoshop, but the results were pretty poor. Even converting to B&W didn't really give anything worthwhile.

[Peltigera]

The lomography crowd prefer their films processed that way!

[Stephen]

Slide film in negative processing chemicals is by far the worst combination, no orange mask colour and just a flat negative results,....which should however "process" in photoshop. But the problem is the rating of the film, it doubles the ASA or more, and shifts the colour balance.
Ektachrome in C41 would be awkward, the gelatin base and layers may separate from the film base, and in a machine processor contaminate the chemicals!..god help the next colour neg film in the reel being processed.

I use to hand process GAF high speed colour slide in C22, resulting in a colour neg at 1000ASA, but poor colour, but then what do you expect from such abuse of the slide film!

The main reason for all of this is recovery of old films, and quality is the last thing to consider in such a situation.
Old B/w film is easy, the film lasts decades after exposure, use weak Tetenal Neofin or equivalent and 30 minutes processing at 60, unless the film was grossly over exposed, the negs should be usable.

Stephen.

[daveh]

I'm not sure your fully right about "no mask resulting in a flat negative". Once masking came in colours were reproduced better, but non-masked negatives were not necessarily flat.

Is E6 film not processed at the same temperature as C41? If so why would it break up?

I have used 1600 ASA negative film which gave quite reasonable results. I have also push-processed slide film by one and two stops. One stop was okay, but at two stops the results were quite poor - in fact very poor.

[Stephen]

GAf was prior to E6 temperatures, it was similar to E4 process temp., I seem to remember. The problem with the Ektachrome is the colour couplers support in the layers are dissolved at the wrong point in the C 41 process. It works OK in a tank, but not in a process line machine. The following film gathers the couplers and alters. Some processors were willing to run cross processed film in machines, but only with dummy lead and trailing blank film after the days main processing had been done.

Stephen.

[Stephen]

On "flat" it was the term used by Kodak on courses about negative film, the orange mask moves the response to a predictable position in the graphs of sensitivity, where all three layers are about the same, similar to arranging bias in electronic circuits to get a proper response.
In practical terms the un-masked negative is biased heavily, usually towards blue. Slide film uses the layers as filters to adjust the colour response, and gave a much more accurate result than colour negative as long as the processing was correct.

Stephen.

[mark]

I was right about this forum. Many, many thanks for all the posts, lots to go through here but the main theme appears to be go for black and white developing. I live just outside London in Brentwood. I've taken up the suggestion of contacting my local camera club and await a reply. If I am successful in getting any of this developed I will post the results on this forum. I( not confident though, due to age, I mean the film not me!! n the meantime I have installed a new roll of black and white film and look forward to using this beautiful camera. Again many thanks for all your help, and I hope to contribute later on.

Kind regards to you all

Mark