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Julian Tanase Photography

My Minox journey continues…

Minox color film as BW

Minox color film as BW

Until a few years ago I processed my own Minox color films, C41 of course. They came out all right (ish), always having trouble with temperature and color shift. Anyways, I gave up doing this sort of thing, mainly because is too time-consuming and to be honest, I prefer to send my Minox color films to a lab abroad than to spend time and money for what I perceive to be a nuissance, for me that is.

Minocolor 100, 2003 Romania, own process & scan

Obviously, when one cuts and rolls his own Minox film, one stocks up on 35mm (usually bulk) rolls of bw and color negative. So, when stopped shooting color film, I suddenly had a good number of color films in my fridge, mainly Kodak Ektar 100, Fuji Superia Xtra, and other brands. Not hundreds of rolls, you understand, but some 20-30 in total. For a long time I was just keeping these in my fridge, when I thought why don’t I shoot color and develop it as bw negative? I did some in the past and it worked all right.

So, I run a test, involving a Minox IIIs and Agfa Color 200, processed it in Rodinal, and this is what I’ve got:

Not as bad as I would’ve thought they would come out. However, this is not the proper way of using color film, so I guess I will stick with the real BW film for now. But is always good to know that if in a pinch, I can use some color film for my Minox cameras, and why not, do the same for 35mm or even 120.

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