Michael Josefsson , Jan 31, 2012; 04:07 p.m.
Hello I hope you can help me with some guidance. Short of a year ago I bought a Tetenal C-41 kit. With that - and strict adherence to the booklet that came with the kit - a dozen or so rolls of 120-film (Ektar 100 and Portra 400 - 645, 6x6 and 6x9) have been developed.
Since the first roll the colours have been "off", to say the least, with a cast of magenta first and foremost. Other colours have been a bit everywhere.
The Tetenal kit uses three solutions: Develeoper, Blix and Stabilizer. During the time I have experimented with the times of all of them in, say 15 second increments. I imagined one or another would wear off after some use but none has, the cast and feel of the colours are the same, no matter what I do.
There also appear to be a structure or courseness in the negatives that I have not found on machine developed negatives.
Surely, I am doing something wrong. But what? After all this while and the small adjustments with developer time etc something else must be the problem.
Temperature? Perhaps but with two different thermometers I am pretty confident it has not been off by more than a degree (Celsius) or so.
My last straw here is that my tap water is the culprit. Using my own well, can calciferous water have such a tremendous effect? A new kit is in the mail and I will try that with deionised water. Perhaps that is the trick?
I am at my wits end and would really like to hear about your procedures and tips! Where do I go wrong?
PS The courseness give the photos a certain touch I have grown sort of fond of, but I would like the colours to be better…
I'll try to attach two examples of the outcome. Ah, and they were scanned on a Canoscan 9000f if that is of some help?
The grovel has never had that colour before:)
Michael Josefsson , Jan 31, 2012; 04:09 p.m.
Course and grainy skies here
John Shriver 
, Jan 31, 2012; 05:37 p.m.
Get the Kodak Z-131 manual to understand the C-41 process better. Only the development time is critical, all other steps are done "to completion".
From the lack of uniformity in the second picture, you clearly have an issue with your agitation process.
A degree Celsius is a big error in C-41 processing, You need a better thermometer. Temperature control is very important for accurate colors.
Charles Monday , Jan 31, 2012; 06:00 p.m.
Its been some time since I used a C41 kit but if memory serves me the Tetenal kit is limited to 3 processing sessions as well as the maximum of 12-16 rolls.
Temperature should be maintained within 10F during the development.
The chemicals last about 30 days once mixed. I used mine within a few days then discarded them.
Michael Axel 
, Jan 31, 2012; 10:10 p.m.
It could easily be the water. I would definitely try it with distilled water. As Charles suggests, failing to maintain a consistent temp is usually the reason behind my color processing woes. But I was wondering if your chemistry is old? You eluded to it, but I wasn't quite sure. If it is old, or has become oxidized, that could also be a problem.
James Dainis 
, Jan 31, 2012; 10:25 p.m.
Do you pre soak the film with water at 100 deg. to warm it up before putting in the developer? I learned the hard way that putting 100 deg developer in with 70 deg film quickly dropped the developer temp. Slide film I developed that way had a very magenta cast.
Charles Monday , Jan 31, 2012; 11:04 p.m.
To help clarify, maintaining the developing temperature within 10F means the temperature cannot drop or increase more than .50F or .250C (approximately) either side of the desired development temperature.
1000F=37.77780C.
99.50F=37.50C.
100.5=38.050C.
Michael Josefsson , Feb 01, 2012; 03:23 a.m.
Thanks all so far! I will get that better thermometer before next batch. My kitchen sink is filled with about 45C water with the bottles in. When the temp is just below 39C I start the presoak and go from there. At the end of the dev phase it is still between 37C and 38C. Regarding the presoak, yes, I have tried both with and without. The result was only a little bit "different" - not sure I'd call it neither better nor worse though... And the Z-131 I didn't know about, shall print and read!
On a blog I follow, the blogger has successfully (well, better than my results anyway) used the kit for more films and also during an extended period of time, certainly longer than 30 days. But I will make a note of that since the kit does not mention anything in this regard.
These youtube instructions have been a guide for me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB8qXU7dkNk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5KDDmpDagw
It is a good thing I like to experiment...
Charles Monday , Feb 01, 2012; 03:24 p.m.
A trick that works is to fill a 4 to 6 inch (10 to 15 cm) deep pan half to 2/3 full with 43°C (110°F) water then put another pan of equal size inside the first and fill half way with 38°C (100°F) water and keep the tank in it during development. Works well for manual rotary processing and can be easily adapted to inversion processing.
The temperature of the first pan can be adjusted. Fill the pans and monitor the temperature of the top pan for the time it takes for the process session with the tank and reels in the pan with water in the tank the desired processing temperature. The temperatures I listed are based on a 3 reel 2500 series Jobo on a ceramic tile counter in a 55°F (13°C) room.
Craig Shearman , Feb 01, 2012; 04:01 p.m.
Have you been using the same batch of chemicals for a year? Pretty sure they're not good for more than a few weeks once mixed, especially the blix. I would also be very suspicious of well water for film processing, especially color.
