Mastering Harman Phoenix #1: C-41 development

[@LauraMendes-we2np]

What an awesome study! Thanks for doing it and sharing! Really looking forward for the rest of this series!

[@mstrshkbrnnn1999]

Seconded

[@MarksPhoto]

Great job for dipping into the crazy chemistry behind color films. The decades of knowledge and science behind good color film is just insane.

[@Shaka1277]

It's absolutely insane and makes me appreciate the effort that goes into products like Phoenix, Lomo Metropolis, Lomo 92 / Wolfen NC500 etc. It's basically witchcraft from the outside, and I've barely scratched the surface.

[@petervanorsouw]

Thank you for sharing your experience. It is amazing that you are giving such a scientific application to this film.

[@Shaka1277]

It's only going to get deeper in the next couple of these videos :)

[@HealthyMaxwellRoth]

In-depths dive into chemicals and mechanics is the main reason why I love this channel. Many thanks!

[@Shaka1277]

That really means a lot, thank you!

[@marcargentique]

what an informative video! You can really tell all the hard work that went into it. Looking forward to the next episodes!

[@headwerkn]

Mad scientist!!

[@ThingOfSome]

This is amazing! Thank you!

[@pd1jdw630]

🤔 interesting! Gotta take that into consideration.

[@xavierjansen357]

As a Perth AU boy I absolutely did not expect to see my go to lab mentioned! Go SilverHalideStudios!

[@54LiNk54]

This is incredibly insightful. Thanks for sharing and helping us understand the process a bit more :)

[@vidgrod695]

Phoenix King rises once more.

[@matthewsmith5883]

Love the Minecraft visualisations! Maybe datasheets should be distributed as Minecraft worlds.

[@Shaka1277]

I was reading about the natural unit cell crystal structure of silver (cubic) and thought "cubic grain... 💡"

[@liveinaweorg]

Brilliant. Thank you.

[@DougHall65]

Thanks!

[@Shaka1277]

I sincerely appreciate this, Doug! Your donation will be going right back into the channel, as it all does.

[@DougHall65]

Exceptional video! Thank you! (The graphic representations of grain between minutes 10:00 & 12:00 (approximately) are gold!!)

[@Shaka1277]

Thank you! No Photoshop brush could do what I wanted so I honestly spent 3-4 hours just plastering those grains around my layers. I'm so glad that so many people found those graphics useful/fun.

[@b6983832]

Bellini kit seems to be actually based on C-41RA process commonly used in minilabs, not the slower "standard" C.41, with 6:30 bleaching time. Maybe this is the reason for different results.

[@Shaka1277]

I had thought about that and used some older bleach from another, slower 6:30 too. Same result. And friends along with Attic Darkroom have used a range of kits from Rollei, Tetenal, Cinestill etc. with similar results.

[@b6983832]

@@Shaka1277 I have tried to develop this film only with Fuji chemistry, which I normally use, The negative had a slight pinkish tone as in Ilford XP-2 does.

[@ChrisGower]

Irish. Winter. is a boss flash card. You also absolutely needed one for 'PHD. Chemist' as that is an equally boss statement.

[@ChrisGower]

Oh, and maybe 'Financial. Burden', too

[@DesertPunks]

Chemists that love film photography are people that I want to see more of. I would LOVE to see you do some investigation on Polaroids instant 35mm stocks (PolaGraph, PolaPan, Polachrome, PolaBlue, and PolaChrome High Contrast). I have a few boxes that I'd be open to giving some data on.

[@Shaka1277]

This was wonderful to wake up to - thank you! Diving into learning how everything ACTUALLY chemically works is fascinating to me and I'm so happy to hear others are enjoying it. I spoke to Harman about the Direct Positive Paper before and it's very complex; I don't really "get" it yet. Even Polaroids and the like are so much more complex than regular films. I would like to look at these things at some point but I have no experience with them unfortunately.

[@DesertPunks]

@@Shaka1277 Thank you so much for responding! I'm very new to film photography and this channel has given me a ton of useful info that I can put forward into taking better photos. It reminds me of how learning a manual transmission made me a better stick shift driver.

[@iBoogie426]

This mf don’t miss

[@DoctorMikeReddy]

I semi-stand C-41 as I use mainly 80+ year old cameras with 120 film; little to no control of aperture or exposure time, depending. The only option I have is what ISO is in the box and whether to take the photo or not 😅 Thanks for this. Very interesting. Most of mine are 1/30 - 1/60

[@DoctorMikeReddy]

Typically it’s done at room temperature, about 14-20 degrees depending on the day

[@bountyjedi]

I happened to pause at 17:35 and found that post in the screenshot quite interesting, but it also left me wondering: what is a DIR fragment? Edit: Ah, I see you touch a bit on it at 19:56. I still do not know what the initialism stands for though.

[@Shaka1277]

"Development inhibitor releasing" coupler!

[@allmediaguy1]

very intresting video, i also use the Belinni kit, what times did you use in the pull one stop?

[@Shaka1277]

I take 30 seconds off for a 1 stop pull, so 2:45 with a fresh kit. :)

[@allmediaguy1]

@@Shaka1277 thank you very much! it's hard to find info on pushing and pulling times for home dev.

[@Shaka1277]

Unfortunately this stuff is often buried in technical documentation. Happy to help!

[@Anorios]

I understand why you use b&w as example for your grain explanation but it's a bit confusing for me. For C41 you can't push or pull during development for significant density unlike B&W or E6. From what I understand and what I see on your examples, pull process only affect contrast, grain structure and colours. You can't compensate overexposure with that because the silver-halide crystals is only here to react with the developer for "transforming" the colour coupler into colour dyes (changing the size of the silver grain won't influence the size of the colour dye grain). I'm not a chemist so please correct me if I said something wrong. Looking forward to the other Phoneix video!

[@Shaka1277]

Some of this may rehash bits you already know but I hope somebody else may benefit if the video itself wasn't sufficiently clear for them too. The exposure generates silver(0) crystals from the silver(I) ions. These act as "seeds" for further silver(0) atoms (metallic silver) to be deposited, but you need a reducing agent to convert the nearby silver(I) to silver(0); that's the role of the developer. The colour developer (CD) reacts with silver(I) ions to make silver(0) atoms and the oxidised developer, which doesn't have a formal name but can be called CD+. This CD+ chemically combines with the dye coupler (which is why they're called couplers). C-41 processing is not "to completion"; we do not consume all of the silver in the film (which is why we need to use bleach and fixer) and do not use all of the CD (which is why it can be reused). The amount of exposure dictates how many silver "sites" are active in solution, and for a fixed development time, this directly results in greater/lower density. If I'm understanding what it is you're really asking, the the key is that the raw silver halide crystals themselves do not react* with the CD in the absence of exposure (which is why your film rebate is clear, even though it was sensitive to light). More exposure means more formation of new silver metal, which means more formation of CD+, which means more dyes are formed from the couplers, which leads to greater density. *To any significant degree, within a timeframe of a few minutes

[@burntoutelectronics]

makes sense once I found out the true speed of the film is EI123.5