Developing Eastman Color 5254 from the 70s

Bernhard Kipperer · December 4, 2016

Hi everybody!

I've found a really nice and old Eastman Color 5254 in a 135 cartridge on Ebay, see the attached image.
I asked Dale Labs (which is mentioned on the catridge) and was told the lab's boss confirmed the catridge actually was prepared by them, sometime in the 1970s it seems.

Now I'd be curious if I could successfully shoot something with it in my SLR and develop it at home, but this seems to be ECN film (not ECN-2) and I won't be able to find any chemicals for this anymore.

Could I use this with modern black and white chemistry? Then I could even shoot each subject 3 times, through red, green and blue filters and in the end put it together to a color image again or at least have some B&W images.

What do you think? Could using modern black and white chemicals work? I assume this also has a remjet I need to get rid of at the start.

I only have this one single catridge and would like to get the most out of it.

Bernhard

Karim D. Ghantous · December 5, 2016

Maybe contact this American lab:

https://www.littlefilmlab.com/

They do ECN-2 films in C-41, and they accept films with Remjet (so you don't need to buy CineStill).

Bernhard Kipperer · December 5, 2016

Hi!

I have already checked with many different labs, you see the problem is that this film needs the old ECN, not ECN-2, which is not made anymore.

Besides, I wanted to try to develop the film at home by myself, therefore the question about using B&W chemicals and trichromy, as these you can still get.

Bernhard

Dominic Remane · December 16, 2016

Hi Bernhard,

You can develop ECN or ECN-2 films at home by cross processing them in C-41. Normal ECN(2) chemicals are very hard to get a hold of from Kodak and if you do manage to get them, the quantity is so large that they'll expire before you can use them. I personally shoot a lot of cinema film rolled into 24 exposure canister and develop them at home. I've documented the process on my website if you feel so inclined to try at home. You can read it here.

A thing to keep in mind is 5254 was 100ASA Tungsten film. If it was fresh you would normally shoot that at half box speed and process normally. But, worse case scenario, it's been never refrigerated, you may need to shoot this at 16ASA as the grain would be ridiculous otherwise. You could also develop this in B&W chemicals but I can't guarantee the results either.

Have a read through the developing process and let me know if you have more questions. Would be happy to help.

Thanks,

Dominic

Mark Dunn · December 17, 2016

Frankly, ask yourself how much effort it's worth putting into one roll of film. If you had a whole box,, you could clip test a few times and come up with something, but one roll? I'm not sure a 35mm. cassette is even perfectly light-tight for 40 years. Put it in a display case.

Edited December 17, 2016 by Mark Dunn