Colordinal, a multipurpose developer, second color roll

Colordinal is the name I gave to the multipurpose developer I made, based on a parodinal recipe in my own variation. See recipe of the parodinal alone here, third alternative.
The first color roll, reported in the previous post, was developed at dilution 1:100 for 1 hour in stand development at room temperature. Because the colors needed more saturation, I used the same developer batch at 1:25 and developed a second roll in 13 minutes in semi-stand development at room temperature. More color, but still needs something else. The film has a greenish base color, what produces magenta shifted prints. To get more acceptable prints, one needs to correct this at scanning or with post-treatment or both like I did.

I developed a third roll today that looks better than this second one but it is still in water for final wash. I will scan it tomorrow. Keep tuned with this blog.

Multipurpose developer, Color and B&W

Having as background that Parodinal (or Rodinal) is a weak color developer, I had the idea of giving it a push with the right color developing agent CD4. I replaced a part of the para-acetylaminophenol, aka Paracetamol or Thylenol, in parodinal with CD4 in order to make a multipurpose developer for both color (C-41) and B&W.

The results are until now very promising. I developed a color roll in dilution 1:100 for one hour and the same with a B&W film. See pictures below:

In this dilution, 1:100 it is a good B&W developer. The C-41 film gave unsaturated colors and a shift to magenta. I will try to make it better. I didn't use temperature, I developed at room temperature, and the dilution is for color perahps too weak.

Report Parodinal as color developer

First I only intended to develop C-41 as B&W, using homebrewed Parodinal as B&W developer. The idea was to develop in a normal B&W workflow and finaly to clear the film with an incomplete bleach bath of Povidone Iodine or normal diluted EDTA bleach. I obtained pictures like Pic. 1 when scanned as color film. I started thinking that maybe Parodinal could give color. So, and because I assumed that Paracetamol was a color developer, I used as next a more concentrated solution and temperature of about 40ºC at the development. This time I had pictures like Pic. 2, where I could see clearly some real color.

If a more concentrated developer and temperature brings more color, next time I used 1:5 concentration and temperature and bleach to clear the film base, leaving some silver in order to allow scanning. In fact the amount of dye is not enough to make a complete bleach. I had this time images like Pic. 3. I could conclude that the sky was better than the more shadowed parts.

Next time I used the same film I have been using (Kodacolor 200) but I used it as a 25 ISO film to overexpose the film. And now I had pictures like Pic 4 and 5.

I think it is clear that the more concentrate and the more overexposed the better in order to push the color developed by Parodinal. But I must still leave silver on the film for better scanning. Next step is to prepare a new Parodinal, using more Acetaminophen than usual parodinal has. Insted of 20g, maybe 40g or 50.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Picture 5

Universal developer?

The name universal developer is used for developers that can be used to develop film or paper. Rodinal and its variations are universal developers in that sense.

But I intend to make a developer that can be used for B&W and color films and for B&W paper. For color paper I think it will not work, but one may try too.

I could develop a little color using only a homebrewed parodinal. This showed me that it is a base for the future universal developer I want to reach. The photo below was developed with a 1:25 solution of my parodinal and a very small amount of the color developer CD4. This amount is only 0.2g pro 500ml work solution. The only pictures I developed until now exhibit a very warm color, like this:

After this result, I am now preparing a batch of «Colordinal», a concentrate developer to be used like Rodinal, in 1:25, 1:50, 1:100 solutions and that can be used to develop B&W and color films and B&W paper. Basically I replaced a part of Paracetamol with CD4. The solution was prepared yesterday and can be used soonner next Tuesday.

Does Parodinal (or Rodinal) develop color?

The C-41 film developed as B&W with Parodinal but scanned as color makes one think it might be possible to get real colors. I started experimenting on this and now I am quite sure it will be possible to develop C-41 films with Parodinal. This is my first picture where it is clear that Parodinal is giving true colors and not a kind of random colorized picture like I've got in the first results. I am still working on this subject in order to present the full procedure that may be reproduced by everyone.

In this picture I can see that the gras is green, the roofs are red and the sky is blue. It was developed with homebrewed parodinal, a special recipe I use, made of Paracetamol, Potassium Metabisulfite and Sodium Hydroxide, nothing else. I am using Povidone Iodine as bleach and common rapid fixer for B&W.

Using C-41 films as B&W

I have been very busy, so I had no time to post. But today I discovered something I would like to share with you:

It is known that C-41 may be developed in B&W chemistry giving black and white pictures. But, because the bleach step is bypassed, the negatives are very dense because the filter masks (correct me if it is not that) are still there and they are washed out by the bleach bath.
So I thought following procedure and somebody else may already have discovered it first:
1- Develop in B&W chemicals
2 - Rinse
3- Fix
4- Wash
5- Bleach
6- Wash
7- Redevelop in B&W developer
8- final wash

Final fixing may be not necessary.

This way the bleach step can clear the film and you will get a nice negative, almost like Ilford XP2 or Kodak BW400CN.

Sorry, now I have to go outside and take some pictures with a C-41 film and develop it like B&W.

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I developed the C-41 film I used yesterday like I said above. I used a disposable Kodak camera with a 800 ISO film and I developed it as follows:

1 - Develop in homebrewed parodinal 1:100 for 1 hour in stand dev. at 23ºC
2 - Rinse 3 times
3 - Fix for 5 minutes in comon rapid fixer
4 - Wash for 10 min.
5 - Bleach in Povidone-Iodine (PVP-I) for 1 hour or until the images disappear.
6 - Wash
7 - Redevelop in homebrewed parodinal 1:10 (yes, strong like for paper) for 2 hours
8 - Final wash for 15min.

Here are some of the pictures I took, scanned as color and automatic settings for scanner and brigtness level in Photoscape. 

I think the pictures are not coloured, these tonalities are a result of several things that may be discussed further but not interesting by now.

These negatives will produce B&W pictures like these:

Follow next developments of this subject at the blog, soon! I came to the conclusion that it is possible to produce better B&W negatives using C-41 films. This will be unveilled in the next post.

Simple repair of a Minox 35 GL

For some 30 years ago, tired of heavy photo equipment, I bought the smallest available 35mm camera, still having a good image quality and it was a Minox 35 GL. I don't know what happened to the camera but since my wife got cancer, I lost the interest in photography and cameras and films were closed somewhere. Well, she died in 1998 and I still have her Nikon EM, but my Minox is lost. Now, I found out that my interest for photography is still alive and I would like to have a Minox again. At ebay they are cheap enough but they are mostly not working properly. I bought one and it had an issue with the shutter. The shutter needs the batteries to work, it has an electronic shutter with 2 coils, one opens and the other closes, quickly or slowly according to the light measured by the cells and the speed and aperture you adjusted at the camera.
But, the shutter of this camera I bought was working like this: when you wind up the film and without pressing the shutter button, the blades oppened and stayed oppen until you press the shutter button.
It is useless to oppen the camera and try to repair it inside. I learned this by doing it. But I also discovered that the camera could be repaired without the need of oppening it. The procedure is the following:

Change the batteries for new ones, attention to their correct polarity. Then press the shutter button and wind up. Repeat several times until the camera works correctly. That's all folks! If you have one of these wonderfull Minox, don't give up if they don't work like they should. I suspect that they enter the «broken state» when the batteries are weak and they need then a kind of reset to work in the «normal state» again. In this case, there must be a lot of them not working correctly and sold as broken at ebay. It is worth to have a look at ebay and see.