Yep, Cinestill lasts forever! I think I got about 50 rolls once! Towards the end, there were some obvious colour shifts, but it was still going. I only threw it out (kept using the blix) as I got a 5l Fujihunt kit. I've been using it for almost a year!
50 rolls is wild! i took your advice and really stretched the chems for a minute. it was time to replenish 😊. i need too look into the fujihunt kit -- i see it keeps coming up
@@davidwalls1212 Hey I just got the kit. Could you please help me out? Over what period of time did you develop those 50 rolls? A few months or more than a year? Also, how long did you develop for for the earlier rolls? 3.5 minutes? Thanks.
I had forgotten how forgiving is Cs41. Film is scarce, expensive as only Sheiks can afford so I hadn't shot color in months. To give an idea, Amazon in Mexico is asking Mx$1600 (about 78€) for a 3 pack of Portra 135 --although today I found Fuji C200 at US$12.50 in 5 packs, in MexCity, so I stocked enough for the following months. I stopped shooting color film too when the 1 liter kits disappeared from the market, returning to color film only after CineStill came up with the powdered 1 lit kit. *Liquids are banned in my country to private importers,* requiring a customs agent to do it, so basically it is a wholesale only proposition, and the local lab is a *dump* that always delivered scratched and ill processed film, with fingerprints and _traces of enchilada all over,_ thriving through digi-printer quiosks in his shops and processing film once or twice a month so I retreated into digital for color and left film to B&W. However, with Cs41 I have discovered how ridicously forgiving and easy process it that as long as I put all my liquids to 42ºC Dev, Blix and water for the wash before starting and take care to presoak the tank at 40 and start developing when the developer hits that temp too, I shall be cool, even if the temp drops along to 38 or 37. I don't have a thermo bath but results are just right. After film dries and the camera does its job, I know Grain to Pixel will do my batch of frames pretty close to perfection (better than a minilab ever did when I sent my rolls to them) and Adobe Camera Raw the rest on the keepers of the roll. All that almost unattended through some Photoshop actions. As of today, I have no reason not to enjoy my hybrid ex-darkroom for color. Ther's a couple rills hung up to dry waithing to be digitized tomorrow in a few minutes. Good channel man!
Simple tip to arrest oxidation: *_Use glass marbles._* Get a huge bag of them --in my country they're sold at stationery shops in 50 or 100 piece nets. Fill your PET bottles to the brim and cap tight. Use a plastic strainer and a funnel to pour the solutions into the measuring vases. BTW, for storage I use the 500ml bottles where the distilled water I use for mixing the powder is sold (can be had also in 1 liter bottles but I prefer keeping the fresh solution separate from the used lot; since I'm processing 2 roll batches at most (usually single rolls in a 240 ml Jobo) so I use the 500ml bottles for the developer, the 1 liter for the blix. The bottles of distilled water I'm getting have a wide mouth and are graduated on the side. Made of thick hospital grade PET. Don't forget to wash the marbles extremely well before using... Use a masking tape label and a marker to keep count of use. *Hopefully this works for you too.*
I used one of these kits for 13 months. I was using it for large format so I didn't put that much volume through it but it certainly lasts a long time if you squeeze the air out. I threw it away after 13 months because I got scared lol, not because it quit working.
Got a few key tips: the time for Blix never changes even after lots of use, always 8 min. If you are using glass, keep in mind that when your chess go from 39c to room temp they loos volume and air gets into the bottles. You can top them up with a bit of water once they are cool to keep the air out again.
I am in the USA, so I opted to order directly from Cinestill since they are only about 500km from me, and I will get it delivered in two days. I mixed the chemicals several months ago so I do not know if I waited too long but will start with the chemicals that I did not mix. I found a roll of film that was left in a camera that I purchased last year as a sample. I have developed black and white at home for a while but have been apprehensive to do color. Now I have about twenty rolls of color film and do not want to spend $$$ to have them developed. If it does not go well, I will wait until summer where the day time temperature is over 40 degrees and I do not have to warm the chemicals.
*One caveat:* definitely do not use the Cs41 beyond the 6 mo mark. The new instructions by CineStill is that the kit keeps from *_TWO TO SIX WEEKS_* in completely filled bottles. I'm not sure if I might have accidentally contaminated my kit but one roll came completely blank at 7 months, not even the leader showed black. The capacity was still under 24 rolls. I would like to hear your experiences with real shelf life for the CineStill Cs41 kits.
Have used both the liquid and the powdered kits; honestly, they rank higher than the Tetenal (first soirée into developing) in my book. I do enjoy the liquid for ease of mixing, but the powdered is definitely a smaller form factor when shipping (I've also bought the kit from Bristol Cameras). It does indeed last sometime when stored with as little oxygen as possible (wine stoppers for the glass bottles, people!) however I've only used it up until roughly 28 rolls as you've mentioned with the volume loss overtime.
Nice! Here is the info from cinestil regarding stabilizer: "If you are shooting modern color negative film, a "stabilizer bath" is not necessary. Up until the mid 90's, the final rinse bath in the C-41 process was called a "stabilizer bath," since it contained Formaldehyde or Formalin. Modern color film emulsions were designed so that one-hour photo labs wouldn't need haz-mat training for formaldehyde and have built-in dye stabilizers and hardeners that are released through our simplified 2-bath process." I am personally more of a slide film person but if I would shoot c41 rolls I would get the cinestil powdered c41 kit!
@@thecurioussquirrelreviews I would say if you have a roll that expired in 1995 it would appreciate some stabilizer, my rolls expired between 1990-2006 so I use stabilizer as a extra security.
An endothermic reaction is one where the mixture of chemicals cools during reaction. I’ve just been trying the Rollei 1 litre liquid kit which was very easy to mix. The liquids are ready proportioned and just need diluting to make the 3 baths. Firstcall Photographic sell it for just over £29 in the UK.
Thats not true, endothermic reactions consume energy from the suroundings into the system in other words the mixture and increases the mixtures heat. So the surounding enviroment decreases in temprature not the mixture. Then a exothermic reaction is basically the oposite and gives off energy to the surounding enviroment cooling the mixture.
I use air duster in a can to get the air out of my bottles, Chems last for ages then. Kind of given up doing colour dev/ scanning at home since labs seem to be so much more consistent.
@@ribsy Labs are a literal rip off. Buy a 4 roll tank and some developer, after developing 4 rolls, you already paid off the next two kits! And you spent what...15 minutes of your life? at an hourly rate of $50 an hour, you lost a grand total of maybe 14 bucks. Which after your 3rd developed roll, paid itself off yet again. I've seen people scan on epson perfection v600's and print them up to respectable sizes.
Used it to develop my first couple of color rolls over the summer. Sadly couldn't squeeze the air out of my container so it exhausted a lot quicker. Also love that the kit includes directions for developing at lower temps (even if I'm too afraid to try them).
you can't use photo flo instead of stabilizer. photo flo is a wetting agent and stabilizer has bacteriocide in it to preserve the gelatin in the emulsion from bacteria and fungi. the stabilizer also has a wetting agent in it, but photo flo does not have bacteriocide. you can add formalin solution in the photo flo to make stabilizer (for older film emulsions) or you can add Kodak proprietary bacteriostat (for newer emulsions).
The cheapest temperature control bath will be an acrylic or PET box and a $100 (or less) _sousvide._ Use glass jars that transmit heat faster than plastic. Do not miss the preheat 1 minute bath. To save on chemicals, roll the tank inside the tempering bath (Jobos only), just invert direction every 15". Fill your storage bottles with glass marbles to take out the air.
Oh bugger... Can't find it anywhere in stock and Bristol doesn't ship outside of Britain. Looks like a great kit to use, since I do not shoot that many rolls a month. Thanks for sharing, I'll keep searching.
I’ve been using the stuff for three years now and can emphatically conclude that past 12 weeks once mixed it’s no good regardless how many rolls you developed. This happened to me several times. my last chems i mixed in Sep. dev’d 8 35mm rolls and 2 120 rolls. I get a snip test a few days ago, it was dead. this is the 4th batch that did not last. so now i just wait till i’m ready to dev no less than 10 rolls before mixing a batch. I’ve had some people tell me theirs lasted six months others have said it’s lasted a year. But none of that was recent within the last few years so maybe cinestill is cheaping out on the powder somehow. so you have to buy more. and it doesn’t surprise me that they might do that the way they went after those other small companies for using the 800T on their brands.
I've just mixed my second kit, after I developed around 25 rolls with the previous one. It really exceeded my expectations, as it is really simple to use. The last two or so rolls had a slight decline in image quality (a magenta hue), and the last roll I developed with the previous solution was pretty bad. I started developing myself out of necessity (I wanted to shoot vision 3) but I'm really liking it so far. The only annoyance is how leaky Patterson tanks are!
@@ribsy And probably cheaper than my lab expenses for color film, As I use mainly expired film, I am used to accept uncertainty too...do you think that lack of stabilizer might be an issue for expired film ? It makes me think it could be useful to develop exotic format like 127 and (no that exotic) 110....Last question , is it very sensitve to temperature ? how precise do you have to be with respect to temperature ? thanks !
@@ribsy That's what attracts me to color processing. I read so much about how it's this personal journey to discover which B/W chems and processes to use for a given film, and then do it all some other way if you push or pull, and I'm like ... OK but all that research and experimentation starts to delete the fun, to say nothing of all the test rolls I'd have to do for any chance of a meaningful test? I ain't gonna live that long to discover what I like and why.
I just ordered a couple of these direct from Cinestill and they arrived yesterday (before I watched this video) . It's good to know it has a good shelf life, because I am really liking what I am getting using homemade ECN-2 on C41 film, so I might not be using this for a while.
Saw that someone makes collapsable plastic bottles, like accordions. Of course I was too cheap to buy them. I should try the marbles idea like someone below suggested.
I used to use those but they weren't air tight. Used plumbers tape which helped for a while but they eventually will leak air again. I have moved to glass 500ml bottles plus marbles and for my next batch I will split the Cinestill powder to make 500ml batches. I rarely develop two rolls at a time so 500ml is fine.
This was very informative and helpful, thanks. A (newb) question - I understand the concept of chemical strength deterioration and increasing developing times, but how do you know when you need to do that? Does one have to ruin a roll or two to see the developer strength has lessened?
If you’re shooting a lot I would recommend looking at the digibase kit or fujihunt. Excellent chemicals (you’ll get better colours than cinestill) and also a separate bleach and fix which is much better than blix :)
Great timing, I was just considering trying to do color dev at home. And I don’t know what camera and lens you’re using to film yourself, but it is razor sharp amazing. Nice job.
What will affect the most the developer shelf life: the number of rolls developed or the time the chemicals have been stored? The reason I ask is because I might develop 6-8 films but store the chemicals until perhaps next spring. Would the chemicals still be useful by then?
Hello, thanks for review, may I ask - how did you maintain right temperature? do i need to be precise with keeping the specific temperature of chemicals? thank you
2:22 I am not sure but I believe that an endothermic reaction is a chemical reaction which gets colder as it is going on, it basically absorbs heat from the air to happen. Kind of like an ice cube melting. In this case I believe that the point of pouring it like that is to give it a lot of contact with the air so it can absorb the heat from the air properly. The opposite of that would be an exothermic reaction which releases heat as it happens. Like for example combustion of fuel.
Nearly: the heat is exchanged with whatever the ambient environment is, not necessarily air. Endothermic reactions absorb heat, while exothermic reactions release heat.
I had great results for 9 rolls of 120 and then suddenly it just stopped. 2 rolls came out blank even though I'd extended the time. I moved onto Tetenal next but i dropped my plastic bottle with the developer and it split so need a new one again. Think based on what you've said I'll give Cinestill another go
@@ribsy *Contamination* for certain. The slightest drop of *PhotoFlo or Ilfotol* will kill the developer. Sometimes even using a reel (spiral) that wasn't properly washed will get you a blank roll; happened to me once. Ever since, I developed a paranoia towards chem contamination. Will do exhaustive washing on tanks, reels, vases, and everything involved in the process. Old timer tip: use your exhausted developer as a _"neutralizer"_ for your vases, tanks and spirals, then rinse at least five times, forcibly. Remember: the critical step is the developer. Don't dump your DEV bath, return it to the vase and reuse it as a _neutralizer._
After i developed about 12 films c41 and about 1 week after i mixed the chemistry, i develop 2 vision 3 films without removing the remjet and come out totally blank, if this chemistry last for up to 50 films what made the films blank? The remjet?
If you find one let me know. About all you can get is a Gold 200 or 400 (“ultramax”), which I would call noisy rather than grainy. It’s color noise, and not pretty. Portra is grainless even at 800, it’s a tabular grain film. I’m in the minority I don’t like it. I wish whatever Fan Ho shot with was still available.
@@ribsy this is the best example I can find: mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Fan-Ho-Moms-Second-Kitchen%E5%AA%BD%E5%AA%BD%E6%88%91%E9%A4%93%E4%BA%86-Hong-Kong-1950s-and-60s-courtesy-of-Blue-Lotus-Gallery.jpg I wish I knew how he achieved that look.
I believe endothermic means in generates heat from the chemicals themselves mixing. Exothermic would be generating heat from the chemicals mixing with the air.
Man oh man! I love this kit. It definitely lasts for ages in my experience too, I pushed about 20 rolls through my last lot. Only changed chems out of precaution, and I think I noticed a slight shift to magenta? Could’ve been a temperature thing though. Also towards the end I was developing for about 4:20 instead of 3:30. After reading some of the comments here and hearing your experience I’m keen to push the chemicals even more next time! Such fun experimenting.
You said at times you develop two rolls at once.....are you adding to the development time after 8 rolls whether or not you have developed two together? Also, much thanks for the video, great information.
What's your dev process bro? Agitate for 10 secs then every 30? How many agitations do you do and are they gentle or firm? The 10 second add-on is a great tip- I'll start that for sure as I get about 20 rolls put of these kits and then the dev is bad.
I just ordered this pack to learn color negative development at home. It says "up to 24 rolls". I thought that I might stop using this after 20 rolls so I will not mess up the development, but now when I read these comments then is it so that when this is going "bad", you still get photos but colors are not as accurate anymore? I thought that I will stop using these after 20 rolls or so because I fear that I have something important on film roll and when these are gone bad I will get only blank film? Is that realistic option at all, or is the worst case scenario get photos with wrong colors or something like that if I do not fail otherwise (eg. give light leaks to film, forgot to do fixing, washing or whatever)?
Do you mix it all to make one litre? Or batch it 50/50 to make 500ml? How long is the shelf life when mixed? Do you start adding 5-10sec after 8 rolls? Thanks!
@@ribsy the how to mix chemicals page it says, for the beach fix, combining an endothermic reaction -5 min . Pour solution back and forth between the pitcher and bottle, what does -5 minutes means?
Yep, Cinestill lasts forever! I think I got about 50 rolls once! Towards the end, there were some obvious colour shifts, but it was still going. I only threw it out (kept using the blix) as I got a 5l Fujihunt kit. I've been using it for almost a year!
50 rolls is wild! i took your advice and really stretched the chems for a minute. it was time to replenish 😊. i need too look into the fujihunt kit -- i see it keeps coming up
Yes, I confirmed this. I delevop 50 rolls, and all OK. But, I use 5 o 6 minutes for Last rolls
@@davidwalls1212 Hey I just got the kit. Could you please help me out? Over what period of time did you develop those 50 rolls? A few months or more than a year?
Also, how long did you develop for for the earlier rolls? 3.5 minutes?
Thanks.
@@davidwalls1212 What's your process mate?
I’m so glad you did this vid. I’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on this kit. Sounds like I shouldn’t wait any longer. Thanks!
Yea no need to wait! 😃
I had forgotten how forgiving is Cs41.
Film is scarce, expensive as only Sheiks can afford so I hadn't shot color in months. To give an idea, Amazon in Mexico is asking Mx$1600 (about 78€) for a 3 pack of Portra 135 --although today I found Fuji C200 at US$12.50 in 5 packs, in MexCity, so I stocked enough for the following months.
I stopped shooting color film too when the 1 liter kits disappeared from the market, returning to color film only after CineStill came up with the powdered 1 lit kit.
*Liquids are banned in my country to private importers,* requiring a customs agent to do it, so basically it is a wholesale only proposition, and the local lab is a *dump* that always delivered scratched and ill processed film, with fingerprints and _traces of enchilada all over,_ thriving through digi-printer quiosks in his shops and processing film once or twice a month so I retreated into digital for color and left film to B&W.
However, with Cs41 I have discovered how ridicously forgiving and easy process it that as long as I put all my liquids to 42ºC Dev, Blix and water for the wash before starting and take care to presoak the tank at 40 and start developing when the developer hits that temp too, I shall be cool, even if the temp drops along to 38 or 37. I don't have a thermo bath but results are just right. After film dries and the camera does its job, I know Grain to Pixel will do my batch of frames pretty close to perfection (better than a minilab ever did when I sent my rolls to them) and Adobe Camera Raw the rest on the keepers of the roll. All that almost unattended through some Photoshop actions.
As of today, I have no reason not to enjoy my hybrid ex-darkroom for color. Ther's a couple rills hung up to dry waithing to be digitized tomorrow in a few minutes.
Good channel man!
Interesting info about Mexico! Those prices are wilder than US
Simple tip to arrest oxidation: *_Use glass marbles._*
Get a huge bag of them --in my country they're sold at stationery shops in 50 or 100 piece nets.
Fill your PET bottles to the brim and cap tight. Use a plastic strainer and a funnel to pour the solutions into the measuring vases.
BTW, for storage I use the 500ml bottles where the distilled water I use for mixing the powder is sold (can be had also in 1 liter bottles but I prefer keeping the fresh solution separate from the used lot; since I'm processing 2 roll batches at most (usually single rolls in a 240 ml Jobo) so I use the 500ml bottles for the developer, the 1 liter for the blix.
The bottles of distilled water I'm getting have a wide mouth and are graduated on the side. Made of thick hospital grade PET. Don't forget to wash the marbles extremely well before using...
Use a masking tape label and a marker to keep count of use.
*Hopefully this works for you too.*
Yea that’s what I hear!
I used one of these kits for 13 months. I was using it for large format so I didn't put that much volume through it but it certainly lasts a long time if you squeeze the air out. I threw it away after 13 months because I got scared lol, not because it quit working.
haha i feel you. eventually you start to get worried even tough its working! 😂
Got a few key tips: the time for Blix never changes even after lots of use, always 8 min. If you are using glass, keep in mind that when your chess go from 39c to room temp they loos volume and air gets into the bottles. You can top them up with a bit of water once they are cool to keep the air out again.
thanks
I am in the USA, so I opted to order directly from Cinestill since they are only about 500km from me, and I will get it delivered in two days.
I mixed the chemicals several months ago so I do not know if I waited too long but will start with the chemicals that I did not mix. I found a roll of film that was left in a camera that I purchased last year as a sample. I have developed black and white at home for a while but have been apprehensive to do color. Now I have about twenty rolls of color film and do not want to spend $$$ to have them developed.
If it does not go well, I will wait until summer where the day time temperature is over 40 degrees and I do not have to warm the chemicals.
*One caveat:* definitely do not use the Cs41 beyond the 6 mo mark. The new instructions by CineStill is that the kit keeps from *_TWO TO SIX WEEKS_* in completely filled bottles. I'm not sure if I might have accidentally contaminated my kit but one roll came completely blank at 7 months, not even the leader showed black. The capacity was still under 24 rolls.
I would like to hear your experiences with real shelf life for the CineStill Cs41 kits.
Have used both the liquid and the powdered kits; honestly, they rank higher than the Tetenal (first soirée into developing) in my book. I do enjoy the liquid for ease of mixing, but the powdered is definitely a smaller form factor when shipping (I've also bought the kit from Bristol Cameras). It does indeed last sometime when stored with as little oxygen as possible (wine stoppers for the glass bottles, people!) however I've only used it up until roughly 28 rolls as you've mentioned with the volume loss overtime.
I haven’t used the liquid kit. But I bet it’s good too. I’m gonna count this time and see how many rolls I get
Nice!
Here is the info from cinestil regarding stabilizer:
"If you are shooting modern color negative film, a "stabilizer bath" is not necessary. Up until the mid 90's, the final rinse bath in the C-41 process was called a "stabilizer bath," since it contained Formaldehyde or Formalin. Modern color film emulsions were designed so that one-hour photo labs wouldn't need haz-mat training for formaldehyde and have built-in dye stabilizers and hardeners that are released through our simplified 2-bath process."
I am personally more of a slide film person but if I would shoot c41 rolls I would get the cinestil powdered c41 kit!
Thanks for the info! Makes a lot of sense now
Cinestill sells slide film processing chemicals now too with 3 “flavors”. Be cool if you do a video.
So what decade needs a stabilizer bath? Before mid nineties?
@@thecurioussquirrelreviews I would say if you have a roll that expired in 1995 it would appreciate some stabilizer, my rolls expired between 1990-2006 so I use stabilizer as a extra security.
@@SinaFarhat thank you so much for explaining this! You’re awesome 👏
An endothermic reaction is one where the mixture of chemicals cools during reaction. I’ve just been trying the Rollei 1 litre liquid kit which was very easy to mix. The liquids are ready proportioned and just need diluting to make the 3 baths. Firstcall Photographic sell it for just over £29 in the UK.
Ahh cool! Thanks for the info 😃 29 is a great price for the rollei chems
Thats not true, endothermic reactions consume energy from the suroundings into the system in other words the mixture and increases the mixtures heat. So the surounding enviroment decreases in temprature not the mixture. Then a exothermic reaction is basically the oposite and gives off energy to the surounding enviroment cooling the mixture.
I use air duster in a can to get the air out of my bottles, Chems last for ages then.
Kind of given up doing colour dev/ scanning at home since labs seem to be so much more consistent.
ah good point! i can't stop doing this at home .. i shoot too much and it would cost a fortune to use labs
@@ribsy Labs are a literal rip off. Buy a 4 roll tank and some developer, after developing 4 rolls, you already paid off the next two kits! And you spent what...15 minutes of your life? at an hourly rate of $50 an hour, you lost a grand total of maybe 14 bucks. Which after your 3rd developed roll, paid itself off yet again.
I've seen people scan on epson perfection v600's and print them up to respectable sizes.
That is the kit I bought from Freestyle to use with Ektachrome 100 regular 8mm movie film. There is a vid I found showing how to do that.
hmmm. not sure is that will work. ektachrome is slide film
@@ribsy Here it is, I found it.
czcams.com/video/Sw3cUs_eo-8/video.html
Mine is coming in this Thursday!! Can't wait! I have some portra I shot NYE I've been dying to develop.
nice! good luck with developing 😊
Used it to develop my first couple of color rolls over the summer. Sadly couldn't squeeze the air out of my container so it exhausted a lot quicker. Also love that the kit includes directions for developing at lower temps (even if I'm too afraid to try them).
If you can’t squeeze the air add some glass marbles until the liquid go on top so no more air in the bottle...
Good tip!
Yea protecting from exhaustion will help for sure 😀
Great tip!
you can't use photo flo instead of stabilizer. photo flo is a wetting agent and stabilizer has bacteriocide in it to preserve the gelatin in the emulsion from bacteria and fungi. the stabilizer also has a wetting agent in it, but photo flo does not have bacteriocide. you can add formalin solution in the photo flo to make stabilizer (for older film emulsions) or you can add Kodak proprietary bacteriostat (for newer emulsions).
thanks for the info. i didn't know the science bits. good to know 😊
The cheapest temperature control bath will be an acrylic or PET box and a $100 (or less) _sousvide._ Use glass jars that transmit heat faster than plastic. Do not miss the preheat 1 minute bath. To save on chemicals, roll the tank inside the tempering bath (Jobos only), just invert direction every 15". Fill your storage bottles with glass marbles to take out the air.
yup
Oh bugger... Can't find it anywhere in stock and Bristol doesn't ship outside of Britain. Looks like a great kit to use, since I do not shoot that many rolls a month. Thanks for sharing, I'll keep searching.
yea seems like its a tough one to find sometimes. everything cinestill moved fast
I’ve been using the stuff for three years now and can emphatically conclude that past 12 weeks once mixed it’s no good regardless how many rolls you developed. This happened to me several times. my last chems i mixed in Sep. dev’d 8 35mm rolls and 2 120 rolls. I get a snip test a few days ago, it was dead. this is the 4th batch that did not last. so now i just wait till i’m ready to dev no less than 10 rolls before mixing a batch.
I’ve had some people tell me theirs lasted six months others have said it’s lasted a year. But none of that was recent within the last few years so maybe cinestill is cheaping out on the powder somehow. so you have to buy more.
and it doesn’t surprise me that they might do that the way they went after those other small companies for using the 800T on their brands.
Not sure if anything has changed since I made the video
I've just mixed my second kit, after I developed around 25 rolls with the previous one. It really exceeded my expectations, as it is really simple to use. The last two or so rolls had a slight decline in image quality (a magenta hue), and the last roll I developed with the previous solution was pretty bad. I started developing myself out of necessity (I wanted to shoot vision 3) but I'm really liking it so far. The only annoyance is how leaky Patterson tanks are!
Yea it’s def good value
Wow you’ve answered all the questions I would have dawg Thanks 😎
cheers
I never tried developing color film, but a two bath process, I should give it a try....thanks for sharing
you should def try. its very simple and is universal regardless of what color you film you use.
@@ribsy And probably cheaper than my lab expenses for color film, As I use mainly expired film, I am used to accept uncertainty too...do you think that lack of stabilizer might be an issue for expired film ? It makes me think it could be useful to develop exotic format like 127 and (no that exotic) 110....Last question , is it very sensitve to temperature ? how precise do you have to be with respect to temperature ? thanks !
@@ribsy That's what attracts me to color processing. I read so much about how it's this personal journey to discover which B/W chems and processes to use for a given film, and then do it all some other way if you push or pull, and I'm like ... OK but all that research and experimentation starts to delete the fun, to say nothing of all the test rolls I'd have to do for any chance of a meaningful test? I ain't gonna live that long to discover what I like and why.
I just ordered a couple of these direct from Cinestill and they arrived yesterday (before I watched this video) . It's good to know it has a good shelf life, because I am really liking what I am getting using homemade ECN-2 on C41 film, so I might not be using this for a while.
haha that's a good problem to have. how does your homemade ECN2 work? hit me on IG i'd love to learn more (@ribsy__)
Didn't know you live here in the UK. I get my Cinestill chems from Bristol Camera too. But I use the liquid solution. Never tried the powder.
Yea I do! Not sure if one is better or worse but they both work!
Geat video, helped me make a decision on which developer to buy.
great! glad it helped
Saw that someone makes collapsable plastic bottles, like accordions. Of course I was too cheap to buy them. I should try the marbles idea like someone below suggested.
Yea def! Worth trying
I used to use those but they weren't air tight. Used plumbers tape which helped for a while but they eventually will leak air again. I have moved to glass 500ml bottles plus marbles and for my next batch I will split the Cinestill powder to make 500ml batches. I rarely develop two rolls at a time so 500ml is fine.
This was very informative and helpful, thanks. A (newb) question - I understand the concept of chemical strength deterioration and increasing developing times, but how do you know when you need to do that? Does one have to ruin a roll or two to see the developer strength has lessened?
Start doing it after 8 -12 full rolls. Altho check the Cinestill documents, they know better than me
@@ribsy Thank you!
If you’re shooting a lot I would recommend looking at the digibase kit or fujihunt. Excellent chemicals (you’ll get better colours than cinestill) and also a separate bleach and fix which is much better than blix :)
But they’re liquid kits so pricey!
Interesting. Never heard of them! I’ll check it out
lol let’s see how bad it is
Great timing, I was just considering trying to do color dev at home. And I don’t know what camera and lens you’re using to film yourself, but it is razor sharp amazing. Nice job.
thanks for watching! i use the canon eos r with the RF 35mm. the setup is very sharp indeed 😁 (in other videos i use my iphone 11 pro max)
I really dig the Cinestill C-41 kit, and try to snatch at least one whenever they're available. Easy and reliable are my favorite things. ha ha.
Exactly! Can’t beat quality and reliability
What will affect the most the developer shelf life: the number of rolls developed or the time the chemicals have been stored? The reason I ask is because I might develop 6-8 films but store the chemicals until perhaps next spring. Would the chemicals still be useful by then?
In the short term, it’s the number of rolls
Hello, thanks for review, may I ask - how did you maintain right temperature? do i need to be precise with keeping the specific temperature of chemicals? thank you
you can use a sous vide
Used today for first time. Really did good!!!
yea its legit
2:22 I am not sure but I believe that an endothermic reaction is a chemical reaction which gets colder as it is going on, it basically absorbs heat from the air to happen. Kind of like an ice cube melting. In this case I believe that the point of pouring it like that is to give it a lot of contact with the air so it can absorb the heat from the air properly.
The opposite of that would be an exothermic reaction which releases heat as it happens. Like for example combustion of fuel.
Ahh ok, that makes sense!
Nearly: the heat is exchanged with whatever the ambient environment is, not necessarily air. Endothermic reactions absorb heat, while exothermic reactions release heat.
I had great results for 9 rolls of 120 and then suddenly it just stopped. 2 rolls came out blank even though I'd extended the time. I moved onto Tetenal next but i dropped my plastic bottle with the developer and it split so need a new one again. Think based on what you've said I'll give Cinestill another go
ahh shit wonder what happened. yea i never had issues with it - but i was def fairly careful with it. hopefully no issues going forward either
@@ribsy *Contamination* for certain. The slightest drop of *PhotoFlo or Ilfotol* will kill the developer. Sometimes even using a reel (spiral) that wasn't properly washed will get you a blank roll; happened to me once. Ever since, I developed a paranoia towards chem contamination. Will do exhaustive washing on tanks, reels, vases, and everything involved in the process.
Old timer tip: use your exhausted developer as a _"neutralizer"_ for your vases, tanks and spirals, then rinse at least five times, forcibly. Remember: the critical step is the developer. Don't dump your DEV bath, return it to the vase and reuse it as a _neutralizer._
Read my reply to @Ribsy
5-10 seconds for each rol extra after number 8? At what temperature do you work?
I dev at 41c. I think that is what the kit instructions suggest
After i developed about 12 films c41 and about 1 week after i mixed the chemistry, i develop 2 vision 3 films without removing the remjet and come out totally blank, if this chemistry last for up to 50 films what made the films blank? The remjet?
Never messed with colour film, in fact not shot colour film for 25 yrs... maybe its time I did if I can find a grainy film.
If you find one let me know. About all you can get is a Gold 200 or 400 (“ultramax”), which I would call noisy rather than grainy. It’s color noise, and not pretty. Portra is grainless even at 800, it’s a tabular grain film. I’m in the minority I don’t like it.
I wish whatever Fan Ho shot with was still available.
hmm what do you mean by grainy? i assumed all films were at least a little grainy
very interesting point. i never thought about it the way you are describing. for me, all film appears grainy
@@ribsy this is the best example I can find:
mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Fan-Ho-Moms-Second-Kitchen%E5%AA%BD%E5%AA%BD%E6%88%91%E9%A4%93%E4%BA%86-Hong-Kong-1950s-and-60s-courtesy-of-Blue-Lotus-Gallery.jpg
I wish I knew how he achieved that look.
Interesting. That is def a beautiful photo
I believe endothermic means in generates heat from the chemicals themselves mixing. Exothermic would be generating heat from the chemicals mixing with the air.
thanks!
No: endothermic means a reaction absorbs heat from the environment; exothermic reactions release heat.
Just tried developing 2 of my films, and i got blanks 😫 my developer was a dark color so i think my developer is dead
ouch ....
I tried the liquid set. I is much cheaper than Tetenal and good as well.
yup
Greetings, today we are May 23, 2021, this CineStill powder will work for this date or it can be discarded?
I think you could use it thoroughly for 2-3 months, if we’ll stored
@@ribsy Thank you, i'm reading the specs! blessings my panther.
Thanks a lot, very helpful.
you got it!
how long does it last after you mix the chemicals?
Depends on usage and storage. After a month you should test your chems regularly
Man oh man! I love this kit. It definitely lasts for ages in my experience too, I pushed about 20 rolls through my last lot. Only changed chems out of precaution, and I think I noticed a slight shift to magenta? Could’ve been a temperature thing though. Also towards the end I was developing for about 4:20 instead of 3:30. After reading some of the comments here and hearing your experience I’m keen to push the chemicals even more next time! Such fun experimenting.
yea this kit is great! my last few rolls were deep in the 7 minute range haha, thats after like 30+ rolls
@@ribsy woo that’s intense! when you said that in the video I was like “ah man why’d I toss my chemicals so early?!” So good.
You said at times you develop two rolls at once.....are you adding to the development time after 8 rolls whether or not you have developed two together? Also, much thanks for the video, great information.
yea ill add time for both
What's your dev process bro? Agitate for 10 secs then every 30? How many agitations do you do and are they gentle or firm? The 10 second add-on is a great tip- I'll start that for sure as I get about 20 rolls put of these kits and then the dev is bad.
Yup that’s how I agitate. That gets the best results
If I only use 240ML each time, what is the best way to store the unused ones? Thanks.
i think you are supposed to mix the entire batch regardless
I just ordered this pack to learn color negative development at home. It says "up to 24 rolls". I thought that I might stop using this after 20 rolls so I will not mess up the development, but now when I read these comments then is it so that when this is going "bad", you still get photos but colors are not as accurate anymore? I thought that I will stop using these after 20 rolls or so because I fear that I have something important on film roll and when these are gone bad I will get only blank film? Is that realistic option at all, or is the worst case scenario get photos with wrong colors or something like that if I do not fail otherwise (eg. give light leaks to film, forgot to do fixing, washing or whatever)?
It is up to you about what tolerance you have for any color shifts
@@ribsy Yeah! In the learning process with test rolls quite high 😃 When skills develop surely I aim for good and excellent results 👍
Do you mix it all to make one litre? Or batch it 50/50 to make 500ml? How long is the shelf life when mixed? Do you start adding 5-10sec after 8 rolls? Thanks!
Yea I mix a full batch. I’ve kept it for over 3 months
For glass bottles, throw marbles in to bring the liquid to the top.
Good point!
you said add 5-10 seconds per roll....did you choose 5 or 10 most often or just wing it?
its a rough estimate. so i just loosely track
how I wish this was available here in Brazil...
Ahh yes. Bummer!
Somebody clever would open a chemistry shop in Bath, UK
Haha cuz of the high mineral water?
@@ribsy I didn't know about the minerals! I thought it would be fitting.. Dev bath city
Great video !! This kit also exist for color film or only B/W ?
Cinestill sells a BW developer. But that’s completely different to this color kit
@@ribsy Thanks so-so much for your quick reply 👌!!
Thank you
Np 😀
How do the colours fare by the 30th roll? I find you get colour shifts and muddy colours with tetenal when it’s near full exhaustion.
Good question! I didn’t notice anything obvious anywhere. Especially with printing. But I’m also not the most detail oriented ... 😅
can you reuse the chemicals
Yes
@@ribsy thanks
How dark did your developer end up getting? I’m on roll 26, and the developer is looking pretty dark
its gets really dark the more you use it. its to you to decide when the quality is no longer there
Thanks!!! Yeah I’ve stored it pretty well and the negatives are still coming out. Hoping I can push to 40 rolls 😅
@@jman3841 Did you managed to get that 40 rolls? :)
do you think it will last for 6months ?
Once mixed, prob not
Here in Spain this kit is € 50,00 😥
Ouch!
is it safe to be used around children? :)
No clue
Blix part 1 and part 2 back and forth in for 5 minutes?
Not sure what you mean
@@ribsy the how to mix chemicals page it says, for the beach fix, combining an endothermic reaction -5 min . Pour solution back and forth between the pitcher and bottle, what does -5 minutes means?