ECN-2 Process Overview

Introduction

Included in the kit I have for sale are prebath, developer and bleach. You will need to provide your own stop bath, fixer and final rinse. The cost of these are not high and I lay out the exact calculations below. If this is brand new to you, please do not deter from this, it may seem foreign or confusing but I want to reassure you that I have been processing my own negatives for years. I’ve done it in restrooms at hotels, in the back of my car on the road, in my 8’ x 10’ apartment in NYC. The key is preparing by reading beforehand and practicing safety. This is a compilation of Kodak recommendations and useful advice I found on the forums. I refer to my list of equipment in this article. If you can master this, developing in C-41 will be a breeze and B&W could probably be done with closed eyes.

Safety

I use a mask, wear gloves and an apron, and line my bathroom sink or table with a drop cloth while preparing chemicals and developing. Be careful, don’t inhale the dust , don’t get it on your skin, don’t get it in your eyes, don’t get it on your clothes, don’t mix it in your food. To avoid throwing particles everywhere I dip the bag of chemicals into the solution so chemical dust is not floating in the air. You should be familiar with the effects of these chemicals. Some of these chemicals are more hazardous than others. Please see the MSDS links below for each chemical. What I sell are intended for processing only and am not responsible for any user error or improper use of handling chemicals.

Sodium Carbonate MSDS

Sodium Bicarbonate MSDS

Sodium Sulfite MSDS

Potassium Bromide MSDS

CD-3 MSDS

Potassium Ferricyanide MSDS

Use Distilled or Filtered Water

I have measured out the chemicals assuming distilled water will be used. Distilled water is uniform and highly suggested for mixing chemicals. It has a pH of about 5.8 while the tap water I have in Los Angeles is 8.0 to 8.1. Developing is a game of pH and if you start with tap water of a pH of 8 instead of 5.8, you may run into problems achieving good results. Tap water has an inconsistent pH and will differ depending on where you live, not only that but impurities will affect the keeping properties of your solution. Tap water can be used for the washes in-between, usually having a pH between 6.5-8.5, which is considered neutral on the pH scale. Although I haven’t tested the pH of this, I have heard of peopling using a Brita for filtering water, so that might be an option as well.

Storage

There are two chemicals you’ll need to make each time you go to develop; stop bath, and a final rinse. Thankfully those are the cheapest chemicals, costing a few cents per liter. Stop bath and final rinse can arguably be reused I’ve heard. Prebath, developer, bleach and fix should be reused and stored. The best practice is to store solution in amber glass bottles. Plastic bottles can sometimes breath which is oxidizing and cuts the solution life short. Storing in a cool, dark place, like under the counter in the kitchen or in your closet is always a nice safe place for them to live. Storing over 75°F will decrease the storage life of the solutions, storing below 60°F can cause some solution constituents to precipitate.

Stop Bath

Stop bath and final rinse are typically one shot, so it would be pointless to include those in a kit. In other words, after you use it, you dump it. For stop bath I recommend Kodak Indicator Stop Bath, or LegacyPro Indicator Stop Bath. The goal is to reach a pH of 2.9 for stop bath. If you want a 600 mL (or two 35mm rolls) at-home remedy a 1:4 dilution is used: 120 mL of White Vinegar with 5% Acidity + 480 mL of filtered water, or for two 35mm rolls. I did a side-by-side test of Kodak Stop and White Vinegar I bought from the grocery store, each solution gave a pH reading of 2.9 and will stop development adequately. Stop bath brings the pH down from the highly alkaline developer, usually set around 10 pH, when the emulsion is exposed to the low pH it halts development. The active agent (and only agent) in stop bath is acetic acid. Sulfuric acid, or battery acid, was the common and environmentally unfriendly version back in the day. It has a pH of around 1, and is actually listed as a recommendation in the ECN-2 Kodak manual. Battery acid is nasty, and I don’t recommend it for the average user. After stop bath, you wash with water, I prefer the Ilford Method. The reason you wash after stop bath, and this is important, is to get the film back up to a neutral pH, it prepares it for bleach, a pH of 6.5. The pH in bleach should never dip below 6.0. If there’s cross-contamination of bleach, and stop bath is brings the bleach pH down, your negatives will scan with Prussian Blue. Washes are important not only to achieve best results, but to prolong the chemical life.

Kodak Indicator Stop Bath (16oz Bottle), $6.99:

1:63 dilution (9 mL + 591 mL distilled water)

16 ounce bottle = 473. 473 mL/9 mL = 52 uses, or 104 rolls of 35mm

$6.99/104 = $0.07 a roll.

OR

White Vinegar 5% Acidity (1 Gallon), $2.64:

1:4 dilution = (120 mL + 480 mL distilled water)

128 ounce bottle = 3780 mL / 120 mL= 31.5 uses or 62 rolls of 35mm

$2.64 / 62 = $0.04 a roll.

Note: A Paterson Super System 4 with two 35mm reels requires 600 mL of solution.

Fixer

For fixer I recommend aPhotographer’s Formulary TF-5, that specific brand, you can find it for about $13.99 at that time of this writing. This specific fixer does the job because it provides a working pH solution of 6.5, called for in the original Kodak formula. Don’t get this confused with Photographer’s Formulary TF-4, it’s different. and has a working solution of pH 8.0, I use TF-4 for my B&W and have tested it. In my experience you can use 1L for 24 rolls stored in a glass amber bottle. I do not include fixer in my kit because the amount it calls for, would increase the shipping $5 more from weight, and the active agent is a liquid making it more difficult to ship safely. There is a powder formula, but it still wouldn’t be economical to get it shipped, packed, and sent out. It’s better to buy TF-5, you can use this with ECN-2, E6, C-41 and B&W! If you are unsure if its exhausted after not using it for a certain length of time, you can test it before using. Here’s how:

Take a piece of scrap unprocessed film and place a drop of the working strength fixer on to a small part of the emulsion side. Leave it until the emulsion under the drop is a clear spot, this should take around 30 to 60 seconds. Immerse the piece of film in the fixer bath and using a stop clock time how long it takes for the rest of the film to clear. Clearing can be judged by comparing the surrounding film area with the clear central spot. The time taken for the rest of the film to clear is the clearing time. The fixing time needed is double the clearing time.

Source:

https://www.ilfordphoto.com/amfile/file/download/file/1833/product/711/

Note: Even though you may only need 600 mL of solution to fill the tank, filling a 1L bottle to the top will allow a smaller space for oxygen. You might be able squeeze more rolls out of this, this is a conservative number, all you need to do is leave the film in longer.

Photographer’s Formulary TF-5, $13.95:

1:3 dilution (250 mL + 750 mL distilled water)

33.814 ounce bottle = 1000 mL / 250 mL = 4 1L’s, or 80 rolls of 35mm

$13.95/80 = $0.17 a roll.

Final Rinse (Wetting Agent)

For final rinse I know many use Photo Flo 200 but my personal favorite is Tetenal Mirasol Antistatic Wetting Agent. Don’t skip this last step, even though it might be tempting, and use distilled or filtered water for this mix too, allowing it to dry without any deposits. This last step helps preserve your negative and the dyes. A clean negative is easier to scan and Tetenal has anti-static, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties which will help keep dust away. Kodak Photo-Flo 200 and LegacyPro Wetting Agent 200 have the same formulas, made of two ingredients, Propylene Glycol and Octylphenol Ether. LegacyPro and Arista are Freestyle Photographic Supplies brands and usually have the same ingredients as the top-selling brand but for a cheaper price. Tetenal Mirsol has a more advanced formula and I can tell when I use it. It used to be $5.99 for a bottle last year, I know because I found my receipt from 2019, as of 7/25/20 it’s $16.19 for the same size bottle. Quiet a huge price jump. LFN is even more expensive and chemical composition is a trade-secret. If you don’t have, or can’t get any final rinse chemicals, pure distilled water would be the next option, but never use hand soap or dish soap, they contain smells, dyes, other ingredients that can affect the color stability of your negatives.

All of these chemicals can be used B&W as they were intended to be, but also C-41 processing as well. If you choose to make B&W or C-41, do not use the same fixer as you’re using for ECN-2, mix a separate bottle.

Kodak Photo Flo 200, $8.99 :

1:200 dilution (3 mL + 597 mL distilled water)

16 ounce bottle = 473 mL. 473/3 = 157 uses, or 314 rolls of 35mm

$8.99/314 = $0.03 a roll.

OR

Tetenal Mirsal Antistatic, $16.19

1:400 dillution (2 mL + 598 distilled water)

250 mL bottle = 250 mL/2 mL =125 uses, or 250 rolls of 35mm

$16.19/250 = $0.07 a roll.