Ages ago I bought some hand rolled Kodak 50D from a twitter friend and as I was also given a new kit of ECN-2 chemicals also from a different twitter friend I dug a roll out of the fridge and loaded my Nikon F100 with both the 50mm f1.4 and 24-85 VR and shot the roll over one whole week.
I really like using 250D as I find it a bit more versatile that 50D due to the poor weather we seem to get more often or not here in Wales but the week just gone has been great so using 50 iso has been pretty easy for a change.
Developing using the QWD ECN-2 kit is a breeze but I find that scanning Vision 3 films quite a pain compared to C-41 as my Epson software seems to find strange colour casts on about 50% of the frames so my scanning times are probably doubled.
That said I do like how Vision 3 films look and 50D has pretty fine grain compared to both 250D and 500T which makes sense due to the lower ISO.
Well here is the whole roll warts and all … comments most welcome
You can find my previous blog about using the QWD ECN-2 kit here if you are interested …
I have shot motion picture stock quite a bit but have always developed it in C41 chemistry which is essentially cross processing as it is meant to be processed in ECN2.
I have sent 1 roll to a lab to be processed correctly and really loved the colours so when Analogue Wonderland announced that they were going to sell ECN2 chemistry I jumped at the chance to give it a try.
The kit was by a new company to me called QWD .. Quiet We’re Dreaming who I believe are an American company that are distributing the kits via Analogue Wonderland here in the UK.
The kit is all powder based (sorry no images as I mixed the chemistry and disposed of the bags before writing this blog post).
The supplied instructions are extremely easy to follow even if you are new to developing your own film.
Before you start the things that you need is 5 bottles that hold 1 litre of fluid for the chemistry and preferably a Sous Vide heater with which to keep the temperature stable.
For the Stop Bath part that is in the instructions I just used standard ilford Stop that I use for B&W developing and not the White Vinegar mix.
The best thing about this kit is that the only critical process is the actual developer which has to be at 41 degrees C while all the other processes can be done with a larger tolerance (see the card number 5) which makes the whole process so much easier.
I filled my container with hot water from the tap which ended up about 43 degrees C and I switched on the heater and put all the chemicals in jugs and placed into the water to heat up while I went and loaded the film into the Dev tank.
The temp then cools down to 41 Degrees and the Sous Vide maintains it for me.
By this time all the chems are about 25 degrees so I boil the kettle and pour it into another container and place the developer jug in it to get up to 41 degrees C.
By the time the developer has reached 41 degrees the other chems are about 34 degrees in the big container which is well within the tolerances so I take them out of the water and proceed to follow the instruction with the Pre Bath first then all the steps in the sequence on card 5.
While developing after each inversion cycle I put the tank back into the 41 degree C water to keep it at the same temperature for the 3 minutes.
I don’t bother with the other baths as the temperature is within the tolerance.
My rinsing is done with filtered water that I store in 1 litre bottles and are warmed up a bit in another plastic container.
I have hard water here so I don’t like rinsing with straight tap water so I use a standard Brita water filter jug to fill a few bottles ready for when I develop.
Once done which is pretty quick all things considered I take the film out of the dev tank and put it in the container with the Sous Vide (now switched off) and a few drops of Photo Flo and gently wipe all over the film with my fingers to remove all the traces of any Remjet that may still remain.
On my 1st roll there was a little bit of Remjet on a few frames which I missed so on the 2nd and 3rd rolls I spent a bit of time on this final step before hanging up to dry.
As I said earlier this whole process is very easy and the results that I got were very pleasing.
According to everything I have read you can get at least 16 rolls out of this and unlike C41 you don’t have to extend the times the more film that you develop either.
I shot Fuji Reala 500D, Kodak Vision 3 50D and Kodak Vision 3 250D and here is a few similar images that you can compare colourwise.
250DReala 500D50D250DReala 500D50D
As you can see the Fuji Reala is a bit cooler than both the Kodak stocks.
The 3 rolls were all shot on different days but the lighting was very similar being very overcast an a bit wet.
Obviously this is not a scientific test just me shooting the 3 daylight motion picture stocks that I have just as a test for myself so don’t take these images as a final definitive look as it depends on the lighting.
I have done other blog posts where I shot in good light and developed in C41 if you are interested to compare.
tim dobbs photography 