Topic: Fujifilm Super F-Series F-500T Remjet

[jharr]

So I wanted to buy some cine film, but I didn't feel like paying the Cinestill price. So I found not-too-long (160') respool of Fuji 8572  on the auction site from a vendor who was willing to come down to a reasonable price (¢25/ft incl shipping). I loaded a short test roll and another, I reeled up and decided to try the 'premoval' of the remjet. I have read that with Fujifilm, remjet removal can be done very simply after normal processing, but if you are sending it off to a lab, you must remove the remjet first. I am sending some rolls off to Indofunk, so I want to get the remjet off first to save him the hassle. So here is what I used. 2Tbs Borax in ~550mL of 90F tap water. I let that dissolve and poured it into the dev tank with the film. Let stand 15min (that is probably about 13min longer than necessary). Swirl, shake, agitate with vigor, etc. What came out was a disappointingly weak green liquid. Rinse well with tap, finishing with distilled water and find a dark place to let it dry. I left in on the spool in a dark closet over night. This pic shows the premoved leader on the left and the untreated leader on the right. I will post samples to this thread when I get them shot and developed.

[Indofunk]

YES! Can't wait to see the results

[Hungry Mike]

I'm curious to see the results as well. I think I owe you a couple rolls by the way!

[jharr]

So the results are in, and they are not what I expected to see!! (note: these are shots just to test the method, not to create art)

Both rolls were shot at iso 400 in a Nikon N2020 with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8. I am using Unicolor C-41 chemistry that is well beyond the manufacturer's recommended roll count (and still going strong - I dev'd 2 rolls of 120 Portra 160 after these). Scans were done with Epson Scan set on auto color control.

First, the roll that I treated with borax for 15min. I did not do any 'mechanical' removal of remjet, just a vigorous agitation, literally shaking the tank. The film looks damaged and fogged. The fogging I can attribute to the fact that I don't have a good dark place to dry it, but I could construct a drying cabinet without too much trouble. The damage might be chemical damage to the emulsion, so it might be worth trying a different agent (baking soda, washing soda, etc). I probably won't do any of that testing. See the 'normal' shots below. Click through to Flickr to see more examples.


Fujifilm 8572 Premoval by James Harr's Photos, on Flickr


Fujifilm 8572 Premoval by James Harr's Photos, on Flickr

This is the roll that did not get any special treatment. I rolled it, shot it and developed it (in the same tank as the premoval roll) just like any other roll of color neg film. I did not do any photoshopping on any of the examples. The scanner was set to auto color-correct. If people are interested, I can post uncorrected examples, but I scan and don't really wet print, so those wouldn't be relevant to me. There was no sign of remjet on the developed film. I kept having to look at the images to tell which was which. I will filter my chemicals to see if there is any chunky black stuff, but judging by what came out of the premoval process, I doubt I will see anything.


Fujifilm 8572 by James Harr's Photos, on Flickr


Fujifilm 8572 by James Harr's Photos, on Flickr

The grain is pronounced, but not unpleasant (to me). Obviously, this film is expired, but I don't know when. I will be interested to see how well this will push to 800 or 1600. The color is not perfectly accurate, but not wacky either. I didn't shoot any under tungsten light because frankly, I don't have any tungsten light bulbs left in my house. I'm not sure how this compares to Cinestill. Probably would have to be in a different 'class' of 500T since it is older expired film from a different vendor. Anyway, I am up for trades if people are interested in trying some of this out.


Fujifilm 8572 by James Harr's Photos, on Flickr

[Indofunk]

Wow! So the remjet came right off in normal C41 processing, and it didn't gunk up/screw up your dev for future rolls? That sounds like a dream come true!

[jharr]

There is a possibility that this is pre-remjet Fujifilm. Fuji did not always put remjet on their MP films (started in the mid-80's). However, this is (if the can is to be trusted) Super F-Series which is said to be backed with remjet. I guess the proof of the pudding is in the eating though and the non-premoval/non-postmoval sample looks fine and scanned fine without any special treatment. If I filter my C-41 dev tonight and don't find anything unusual, I will call this experiment complete and just shoot and process this stuff like normal color neg film. The premoval process is fraught with hazards and not worth doing if there is no clear benefit. Pending the condition of my dev, I will roll up some rolls for you Satish and send them off. I will make a short roll and label it "TEST" so you can try it with your process at low risk. The rest will be as we discussed.

[Indofunk]

That sounds like a good assumption, and would explain the lack of remjet. I'm curious to see how it looks pushed. Isn't the remjet (and lack thereof) the supposed reason that Cinestill rates their 500T film at 800?

[Indofunk]

Here are my Cinestill shots. I always shot outdoors at night or indoors under questionable lighting specifically for the colorshift.


Your stereotypical Soho at night in the rain car commercial by Indofunk Satish, on Flickr


Waiting by Indofunk Satish, on Flickr


Waiting for the train by Indofunk Satish, on Flickr


"Please stand back from the platform edge" by Indofunk Satish, on Flickr


Barrel aged by Indofunk Satish, on Flickr

[jharr]

The grain on the pushed Cinestill looks about the same as my Fuji. Hard to make a judgement on the color since your shots are under that magical combination of sodium vapor and fluorescents.  I will definitely try pushing for some night shots on my next roll.

[Francois]

I'm wondering if Fuji hasn't developed a better remjet while Kodak still relies on their old faithful formula?

[jharr]

I'm wondering if Fuji hasn't developed a better remjet while Kodak still relies on their old faithful formula?

It could be Francois. I have pretty consistently read that Fuji remjet is easier to remove than Kodak by an order of magnitude (no mechanical process needed). Maybe this stuff is just dissolving.

[Adam Doe]

Here are my Cinestill shots. I always shot outdoors at night or indoors under questionable lighting specifically for the colorshift.
...

Nice shots! The colors on those top two make me want to shoot some Cinestill myself.

[Francois]

I didn't shoot any under tungsten light because frankly, I don't have any tungsten light bulbs left in my house.

For some odd reason I was thinking about that at 4:00 AM (don't ask why I was awake at that time...) and something struck me: having tungsten bulbs in the house wouldn't have changed a thing!

Tungsten films are primarily made for tungsten studio lights which burn in the 3200-3400°K range. Household tungsten lights burn at a much lower temperature, usually around 2700°K. This means that even with a tungsten balanced film, the light inside the house would still look somewhat warm.

[jharr]

Yes, and these days even CFL and LED lights come in quite a few different colors. I have a mix of different lights in my living room, so it might be interesting to take some color photos and see how the 'unbiased' eye would see it. Even then it's hard to say since I usually have color correction turned on in Epson Scan.

[jharr]

Ok, I filtered my chemicals, but I'm not sure about the significance of the results. The developer left a little bit of black powdery residue on the filter (first pic). The blix had a much heavier load of white powder (second pic). Now neither of these are 'fresh' by any stretch of the imagination and they have never been filtered before, so I can't really say if the sediment came from this film or not, but my gut is saying 'not'. Even if the black stuff did come from this film, it didn't deposit or effect the subsequent development in any visible way.

[Indofunk]

I've found that blix (Tetenal, anyways) tends to develop a white precipitate over time, so that might be what you're seeing there (the Tetenal kit even says to redissolve this precipitate over moderate heat). I'd imagine the majority of the remjet (if there is any) would come off in the developer anyways. The observation that it doesn't affect subsequent development is the key though! I say you're good to go!

[Francois]

I must admit that I'm impressed. And considering how little remjet there actually is on the film, it very well could be all of it on the first filter.

[Indofunk]

Ok, so I shot and dev'd my first roll of 500T. I shot it at 800 because that's what Cinestill rates their 500T at, and I was curious how that would change James' results. I scan on an Epson V500 without any color correction (so color film always come out blueish because of the orange mask) and then color correct in Lightroom by selecting the darkest pixel with the white balance dropper. Usually works quite well with CN films. You'll see the slight blue-green colorshift below, pretty much on par with what I've seen with Cinestill @800.

The real weird part was during development though. When I poured back the dev, it was its normal dark orange color (ok, maybe in retrospect a little *TOO* dark), and when I poured the blix back in, it was as purple as always (it's impossible to tell any colorshift in the blix because it's so damn dark). BUT, on the very first wash after the blix, the water came out BLACK. Subsequent washes got lighter and lighter, and I could tell that the blackening agent was definitely a black powder, which I assume was remjet. I went through repeated wash cycles with heavy agitation until the water ran clear, probably took about 7-8 changes of water. The film seemed totally normal when I pulled it out, and in fact I souped the 500T along with a roll of Ektar, which came out marvelously. So ... yay?

Anyways, here are some results. You can see all 7 keepers here, but here are just a couple of examples in different lighting conditions.

Daylight


Dusk


Nighttime


And for comparison, here's a Cinestill nighttime shot (@800):

[jharr]

Dude! You rocked that film! (sorry that was So. Cal enthusiasm) Those shots look great. I'll bet 1200 (maybe 1600) would be doable based on these results.

Maybe throw a dash of baking soda or washing soda into the first wash (after blix) and that might get the remjet off easier.

[gsgary]

I love the green/blue tint to them

[Francois]

And I love remjet that doesn't put up a fight!

[Indofunk]

More anecdotes!

Today I processed a roll of James' 500T (shot at 400) in C41 bleach bypass (because I had another roll that I wanted to bleach bypass, and I prefer processing 2 rolls of C41 at once, because C41 is a PITA, at least compared to most B&W development). Well, technically, "partial" bleach bypass, because I blix'd it for a minute. So here was my flow:

C41 dev (100F): 3:15
C41 blix (100F): 1min
Ilford Rapidfix (RT): 5min
wash (cold tap water): 5min
C41 stab (RT): 1min
wash (cold tap water): 5min

And what happened when I pulled the 500T out at the end of all of this? Remjet was still 100% ON the film! I had to scrub it off with my fingers! This leads me to believe that my last experience, where the remjet came off in the final rinses, was because the 7:15 in 100F solutions dissolved the remjet out, and this time, since I only kept it at 100F for 4:15, the remjet never dissolved.

This also brings up the question of whether the remjet interfered with developing or blixing (/slash/fixing). The remjet is on the emulsion side, so technically it could interfere with the solutions getting to the emulsion. My last experience, of course, suggested otherwise, but I am curious now. Unfortunately, this round of development can't be a real test, because I changed 2 variables (shot at 400 and bleach bypassed). Normally I only change 1 variable at a time, which is why I shot it at 400 with the intention of processing standard C41, but hey, I'm fickle, ok?

Photos to follow tomorrow or whenever I scan them.

[jharr]

<snip> The remjet is on the emulsion side, so technically it could interfere with the solutions getting to the emulsion.

Nope, the remjet is on the back like a super thick anti-halation layer. It shouldn't have any effect on chemistry getting to the emulsion.

[Indofunk]

I have a LOT of trouble with the whole emulsion side/gelatin side thing, so I'm sure you're right and I'm wrong. But I definitely rubbed the remjet off of the concave side of the film (I think. maybe not "definitely").

I just checked the still-drying negs and there is still a little remjet on there that I didn't get off. Hmm, ok, let's see how it scans. I can probably re-wet it and scrub the remjet off again, right?

[Indofunk]

Actually, no, there was WAY too much remjet still on the film. So I tossed the whole roll into the sink, filled it with some hot water, and scrubbed the ever-loving s**t out of it for like 10 minutes. I think it's salvageable now (though I did scrub a little of the emulsion off as well )

Results tomorrow. I hope.

[Bryan]

These quotes from the "Filmshooting" forum (Cine film) may be useful for your remjet removal.  It comes up in a lot of discussions over there.

in my experience, while borax on its own does work, the kodak ecn prebath formula works more efficiently.

Borax 20g
Sodium Sulfate 100g
Sodium Hydroxide 1g

per litre of solution

For remjet removal, I suggest you load the lomo spiral (assuming that is how you are processing). Then immerse the film in your remjet softening solution. The kodak ECN prebath is what I use, but use whatever you can get, and if that is just Borax, use that. Let it soften in the prebath for maybe a minute, then in the dark take the spiral out of the prebath and run it under running water for about 2 minutes. This should get rid of much of the remjet. When I process kodachrome using normal ecn prebath, 95 percent of the remjet comes off at this stage.
Then develop as normal.
Then, after processing, take the film off the spiral and put it in a bucket of water. Have another bucket of water there. slowly pass the film from the first bucket to the second bucket. As it goes through your hands, wipe the back of the film with a chamois (skin cloth) with your thumb. Running water landing on the film at this point is useful. Once I have the film in the second bucket, I then pull the film back through the chamois cloth into the first bucket again, then reload it on the lomo, photoflo it, then hang to dry.

I've had mixed results with remjet removal. I've tried using Borax which worked great with my dwindling stash of Fuji stocks but its been unsuccessful with Kodak Vision stocks (which have been old Vision2 short ends in my fridge). Submerging the film in Borax & water and the remjet floated off in about a minute.

http://www.filmshooting.com/scripts/forum/index.php

[Indofunk]

So it turns out that most of the exposures had way too much remjet on them (showed up as thousands of tiny white specks), rendering all but one useable. Luckily, that one was my absolute favorite on the roll, and it will go into the weekend thread soon But here's an example of one that wasn't quite so bad, but still pretty unuseable:



Lessons learned:
1. Do not bleach bypass this particular film
2. Wash thoroughly in hot water after blixing
3. Go in there after the final rinse and scrub that remjet off!

I hope not to have to go the route of borax. But if I do, I can do that at the very end, right? Most people suggest doing it as a first step, but I don't have a completely light-tight room, so I'd prefer to do it at the end, when I can scrub the film in the light.