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ECN-1 processing steps


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I've been looking for some time to find any more detailed information on how ECN-1 film was developed.

And yes, I am actually talking about ECN-1, not the current ECN-2.

 

The only reference I found being mentioned so far was

"Hanson, Wesley T. Jr. "Color Negative and Color Positive Film for Motion Picture Use." Journal of the SMPTE, March 1952, Volume 58, pages 223–238."

 

Unfortunately my existing IEEE access does not include this paper and I cannot find this paper elsewhere nor any other one with any more details than what Wikipedia and similar sites say, like "develop at approximately 25°C for around 7–9 minutes", that's it, no other steps are mentioned. Aren't there any public notes on this, for ECN-2 for example all steps are available in written form to everyone?

 

Does anyone have any notes on the actual process, steps, temperatures and times?

This would be very interesting for me to read!

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I will ask Brad today he will know.

Great, thanks a lot!

I did find a few more details in the meantime, but they are kind of contradicting each other:

The paper says developing 24-27 min at 21° / 70F vs for example only 7-9 min at 25° as stated in Wikipedia.

I can't image that a few degrees difference would shorten the time by that much, can it?

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According to Brad (who was there) ECN-1 and ECN-2 are the same steps and he thinks the Part-A was different but that you can run ECN-1 film in ECN-2 chemistry.

 

ECN is highly sensitive to temperature so yes a few degrees make a big difference.

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Yes that is probably the big difference and probably why the part A is different.

 

I asked Brad quickly today and he was busy with a bunch of stuff and it has been a while.... I was a baby the last time ECN-1 was used...;-)

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I wasn't even born back then ;)

 

I got hold of an Eastman Color Negative 7254 ECN-1 100 feet reel recently and started to experiment with it.

If I shot it in my Krasnogorsk, after 2 mins 47s the fun would be over and you cannot really find any more anywhere.

So I build a 35mm spool adapter and can load 16mm film in my 35mm still camera now. This will give me like 18 rolls of 36 frames or more, so much more chances to experiment.

 

I shot the first such 36 frames film on the weekend and will develop it in the next days.

I will try some B&W chemistry first, to see if the film is totally dead already or not.

If I get some results I might buy a cheap 16mm stills SLR camera too.

 

But now I need to find some ideas, which developing times to use as a start point for further runs, if anyone has suggestions, I'd be happy to take them :)

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Yes, the remjet, that's no issue usually.

 

Have already been working in the past with both brand new Vision 3 as well as very old Agfa, Fuji and Kodak stocks of 8, 16 and 35mm with remjet on them.

Some I removed at the start with a specific Kodak rem jet removal, some with washing soda mix and some stayed on through all of the baths and I removed it at the end with a very soft cloth and washing soda solution.

 

I was lucky so far, it never messed up my baths nor did I scratch the emulsion noticeably or got any remjet residue on it either.

Only the developing reels got a bit dirty at times.

 

For the first try I will be using one-shot B&W chemistry, so even if it gets dirty, I won't care much. If I do get any useable images, I might even try color chemistry later on, maybe C-41 at much lower temperature first, to see what happens and later ECN-2 at lower temperature too. And maybe at the end shoot a short piece with the Krasnogorsk, if any film is left still...

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I successfully developed the Eastman Color Negative 7254 in Rodinal yesterday!

 

First I prepared two short snippets, each holding a few test frames only, in two separate tanks.

I developed the first one for 10 mins at 22° / 71F in Rodinal and used 10 mins of fixing afterwards.

It produce images, which was the first great success of the evening, especially for a film that expired in the early 70s, but the negative was very dense.

 

Next I developed the second snippet for only 5 mins, which gave quite nice images, so that's the time I chose for the actual film then too.

To get rid of the remjet I used lots of washing soda in some destilled water, filled that in the tank and shook it like crazy for 1 min, then let it rest for anther min before I poured it away.

After the fixing I removed the rest with a soft cloth, came off quite fast, much easier than on modern Vision 3 stock.

 

I had taken still images through red, green and blue filters and after scanning I realigned the negs today and got some nice color images.

The negs are quite grainy, but I did cross-process then (and even in Rodinal). After looking for some time, I could find the edge marking with the date code symbols.

This film is from 1973, so 45 years old, who would have guessed it is still good?

 

The next step will be to try another short piece of the film in C-41, maybe later in ECN-2 and then finally to shoot th rest of it in the Kransnogorsk.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I loaded some feet of the Eastman Color Negative 7254 16mm film into a 110 cartridge and shot it in a Pentax 110 still camera. Last weekend I used that as a first test to see if I can also develop that film into color (black and white worked out fine last time).

 

See below two examples developed in normal Tetenal C-41 chemistry.

I went for 22°C/71F instead of 38°C/100F and 12 mins/12mins for CD and BLIX instead of 3:15min/4:00min.

 

post-71621-0-79090400-1523716811_thumb.jpg

 

I really like the results. Edge markings show that this roll of film is from 1973! I have already shot much more in the meantime, however with an adapter in a 35mm Canon SLR with better lenses.

If you want to see the images in full quality (here the upload size is limited) go to http://photography.filmcurl.com/

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