ECN-1 processing with VISION3 stocks

[Owen A. Davies]

More traditional forms of tampering with ones negative in the processing stage include over or under-developing your film, doing a bleach-bypass, or having the film cross processed. Cross processing refers to using a different form of chemical solution and/or pipeline to develop one specific kind of film. I have recently been researching different ways to manipulate the resulting negative in the processing stage, and one idea that had never crossed my mind until now was using the ECN-1 method of development on ECN-2 film. From what I have read, both methods use the exact same chemicals with the same general workflow, only differing in the length of time and temperature used in part A of the process. Wikipedia says that ECN-1...

"...involved development at approximately 25 °C for around 7–9 minutes".

Firstly, has anyone here ever tried developing ECN-2 film with the ECN-1 processing method? And if so, to what results? Secondly, would anyone be able to gage what this temperature and development time difference would have on the resulting film in terms of resolution, density, dynamic range, contrast, grain, and color? Would ECN-2 film's emulsion even come off with this method, or would that be another potential problem introduced by this workflow?Would the result even be predictable, or is this method so old and unexplored with the new VISION3 stocks that results will end up without a clear pattern of cause and effect?

If most people on this page advise me against developing ECN-2 film with the ECN-1 solution then I probably won't take this experiment much further. But I would love to hear your favorite method of cross processing ECN-2 film and what kind of results it ends up having on each VISION3 stock as I am interested in learning more about it. Thank you! 

Edited August 18 by Owen A. Davies
Phrasing

[Robin Phillips]

can you even get the ECN-1 chemical mix anymore?

[Owen A. Davies]

As I said, I don't believe the chemical mix differed in the ECN-1 process to the ECN-2 process. What changed was the temperature and length of time was used in part A of the development phase. 

[Tyler Purcell]

4 hours ago, Owen A. Davies said:

As I said, I don't believe the chemical mix differed in the ECN-1 process to the ECN-2 process. What changed was the temperature and length of time was used in part A of the development phase. 

No, the formulation was very toxic. ECN-2 was developed as an entirely different formulation, which was less toxic and faster to process for labs. It was not just a temperature change, according to the Eastman ECN documentation in the history of film development I have. They only list the Kodak chemical part numbers as well, never what is in them. So you can't cross reference and formulate your own. Kodak did sell the chemicals in powder forum, but I doubt it would even work on modern film stock properly. It would probably perform horribly. If you've processed film before, it's a very fine line between success and shit. 

Another important aspect, coming from a motion picture group; who is going to setup their machine to run chemicals that don't exist anymore? ECN 1 machines aren't the same as ECN 2. Not compatible. So someone would need to change the layout of their processor to even attempt what you're asking for, which will never happen of course. Gotta focus on things you CAN change, not things that are impossible to change. 

[Robert Houllahan]

You could try it in a Lomo tank but as Tyler said the ECN-1 Developer Part A and B are totally different as was the Bleach and Fix I believe.

I can ask Bob Hum who worked at Cinelab and was running film in the early 1970's he would know more specifics but I think Kodak ECN-1 was being phased out by about 1970-71 with the transition to ECN2 happening fully by the mid 1970's

The Kodak ECN-2 formulas are readily available and it is a CD-3 based developer you can search the reddit r/darkroom forums for people mixing from powder. I am not sure where to find the ECN-1 formulas they do not seem to be out online anywhere.

ECN-1 was lower temp because the emulsion was less stable at higher temps and those stocks would turn back to jello at the 106F temp ECN-2 runs thus ECN-1 having more than twice the development time.