[Wheatfield]

Just use soda bottles and squeeze the air out...

i have used the 1L press kits since 2013 with no problems. I do keep them in the dark, at room temp. I was developing rolls 19 & 20 after 11-13 months.... you just have to extend the dev time.

Keep good records and then you know what you can get away with for the next press kit...

Soda bottles breath oxygen, They will keep developer fresh in the fashion you recommend for a few weeks, nothing more.

---------- Post added 01-10-17 at 09:13 PM ----------

I've developed a few films... mostly B/W, and I'd like to see a tutorial that shows clear differences between poorly shot and poorly developed frames. How do I know I need to extend dev time versus I just screwed up the shot?

The edge writing of the film is a dead giveaway for poor development.

---------- Post added 01-10-17 at 09:17 PM ----------

Whats everyone's consensus on when to "start the clock" when developing C41 at home? I developed 4 rolls at once in a tall steel cylinder - and boy did it fill slowly - the film at the bottom vs the film at the top were off by a good 20-30 sec. Almost a 20% difference in the solutions.

Fill the tank with developer, and then drop the reels in. Include the drain time in your development time.

[Jamey777]

Soda bottles breath oxygen, They will keep developer fresh in the fashion you recommend for a few weeks, nothing more.

Works great :-) I wasn't posting my opinions, I was posting what happened.

[Digitalis]

Fill the tank with developer, and then drop the reels in. Include the drain time in your development time.

You can rinse between developer and bleach, with large batches of film being developed I'd recommend a 30s water rinse with light agitation. I would also suggest having a separate tank of the bleach ready for the film to be dropped in. Rinsing can increase the longevity of the bleach: but bleach doesn't last indefinitely, without replenishment and restoration of PH, bleach can become exhausted*.

A rinse between bleach won't hurt. Note that C41 fixer needs to have a PH of 6.5, or the colours can shift . The cyan layer of old c41 films and even modern emulsions are known for being affected by fixer P.H

* Developer carry over from film developing can severely affect the longevity of bleach as its efficacy is diminished by lowering PH and even if this is maintained later on, the loss of ferric ions, bromide ions, and sulfite ions will become problematic. Kodak used to provide a bleach replenishment kit...I remember the smell of that stuff vividly.

[cobbu2]

I've used the Arista C-41 kits from freestylephoto.biz with good results. And with the forthcoming Ektachrome re-introduction later this year, I plan to use their E-6 kits as well.

[Wheatfield]

Works great :-) I wasn't posting my opinions, I was posting what happened.

So was I.

[tuco]

How much of a pain is it to develop color PRINTS?

That probably depends on how much gear you get and the person. I use to do some color prints at home. It was very time consuming for me and full of trial and error if you only have the CMY correction viewers to analyze your color balance as seen in this picture.

You have two variables to work on. Just like BW prints you need to get the print density right but now you also need to get the color balanced too. It could take you 4 or 5+ attempts per print. You also need to let the print to dry before attempting guess at a new CMY setting which makes it a slow process as well. And that is after you learn to use those CMY correction filters. They're tricky and takes a good eye and judgment which I didn't have. I'd spend hours in darkroom just to come out with a few prints. I didn't find it fun at all. But YMMV.

Then I got that color analyzer you see in the picture. That helped increase output a lot. But it took a day of making prints to calibrate it. And when I had to replace the enlarger light bulb, I had to go through the calibration process all over again. A more expensive color analyzer most likely would have been a better thing to get.

[Digitalis]

Out of curiosity Tuco, have you ever done Dye transfer printing?

[tuco]

Nope.