Colour film in B&W developer?

[yaniv waissa]

I red about it in Filmwasters.com and wish to check it with overdate plates that I got... someone could help me with tips about this process
Thanks
Yaniv

p.s
the link to filmwasters
http://filmwasters.com/forum/index.php?topic=1729.0

[Don Dudenbostel]

I've seen it done but have never personally don this. In my work I've run many thousand sheets of color transparency and negative film. In transparency processing (E-6 etc.) the first developer is nothing more then a B&W developer. The next step is a chemical or light fog and color development then a bleach fix for the silver and excess dye. I would suggest a test using a single sheet and rate it at roughly the recommended ISO Try processing in your favorite developer at a time close to some film of the same ISO as your color film. Fix normally and see what happens. Evaluate exposure and contrast and then adjust per results I wouldn't expect fantastic results but it could be interesting. No loss trying.

[Ed Brock]

I've done this many times. My background is motion picture animation and before the digital days it provided a quick check to determine exposure when bi-pack printing (contact printing) motion picture film in animation cameras. I used D-76 and the same time/temperature for a similar ISO B&W film. Fix and wash as usual. The density will be fairly accurate.

[Helen Bach]

What sort of film do you have?

Colloidal silver has been/is used for the yellow filter layer in some colour films, but most seem to use yellow dye these days. I can't be definitive about that, I'm afraid. Silver is also used in the anti-halation layer of many C-41 and E-6 films (but not motion picture negative films which use a removable carbon-based anti-static/antihalation layer, so it wouldn't be a problem for Ed if that is what he is referring to). This silver, and the masks from the two dyed colour couplers in C-41 film, adds density to the negative that would either not be present in the final colour image (because it had been bleached out) or would be useful (the colour masks). This isn't usually a big problem, but simply leads to negs with a high or very high base density. You could bleach out the dye masks, I'm sure - but not with silver bleach of course.

Best,
Helen