Bill Williams CD4 Color Film Developer

Published in May 21, 2008 by Bill Williams at APUG, here is his recipe:

«Water 500ml @ approx 112 degrees
Sodium Sulfite (A) .5 grams (approx 1/8 tsp)
CD4 .35 grams (approx 1/8 tsp)
Potassium Iodide 1.8 milligrams
Potassium Bromide .25 grams
Potassium Carbonate (A) 4 grams (approx 2/3 tsp)»

The recipe is very minimal and precise about the amounts in grams and apparently  not accurate with fractions of tsp. But reading above the recipe, one can understand what he means. He used graduated inox recipients to measure exact solutions of Potassium Carbonate, Sodium Sulfite and Potassium Bromide. I only don't understand how he measured Potassium Iodide from a 1% solution.

I prepared following separate 500 ml each solutions:

• 50 grams CD4 and 1,5 grams Sulfite as preservative only
• 50 grams Sodium Sulfite
• 50 grams Potassium Bromide
• 50 grams Potassium Carbonate

I already had a 2% solution of Potassium Iodide. So I took 5 ml (that contains 100 mg) and add water to make 100 ml, so I ended with a 0,1% solution. To use 1.8 mg, I need 1,8 ml of this solution.

With a 5 ml syringe, I measure following amounts to prepare 500 ml of this developer:

• 5 ml Sulfite 10% solution
• 3.5 ml CD4 10% solution
• 1.8 ml of Iodide 0,1% solution
• 2,5 ml Bromide 10% solution
• 40 ml Carbonate 10% solution

One of the last results

One shot C-41. Is it a good idea?

I have been using Dignan NFC-41 developer for quite a long time, but there are some negative points that I couldn't resolve until yet: the first bath doesn't last that long, after the tenth development in a weekly basis, you already see thin negatives; the color shift to green in negative (magenta in positive) is possible to fix but somehow annoying. Another opinion that may be right is that modern films have thin layers and cannot hold enough CD4 to the second bath. I have tried to extend the times for both A e B baths or to put a few ml of bath A in bath B.

The great expected advantages of Dignan method for amateurs are: no need of temperature and cost reduction by using only small amount of CD4 each time. The first advantage, if you want to get better colors, will disappear because maybe you need to use temperature. The second advantage did not prove because the first bath goes bad within some time. Unless you develop every day, you will not save much money with the developer.

I already though about just using a mixed developer (A+B) in a one shot developer using temperature. But the problem of the shelf life of bath A would still exist.

Further searchs at internet, lead me to this very clever suggestion of Bill Williams at APUG.

I already have results of using it. Unfortunately, I made a small mistake, using more carbonate than proposed. Nevertheless, the pictures showed great potential. Maybe next time will be even better.