I wanted to try my hand at developing ECN-2 at home.  ECN is Kodak cinema film and can be shot in still cameras.  You can even buy it from Kodak in 400 ft rolls and cut it down to 4 x 100 ft rolls for bulk loading.  The reason to do this is that it is inexpensive compared to buying standard C41 film which has become quite expensive as of late.  Usually over $10 a roll.  Whereas ECN is about $8 a roll.  There is also the fact that when properly developed the film is amazing - think of it - it’s film for movies so it has to be good.  

The problem is developing it.  One side of the film has what’s called a Remjet layer which is black and basically allows the film to move thru movie cameras quickly and without resistance.  It also serves as an anti-halation layer so points of light don’t have halos. Once this layer is off you can develop the film in either C41 chemicals or ECN-2 specific chemistry.  So for example the Cinestill line of 35 mm color film has 400D which is basically  Kodak ECN-2 250D.  When the remjet layer is removed you get a more sensitive emulsion making it ISO 400.  You also get a major bump in cost to $16 per roll.  Kodak 500T which is tungsten balance film becomes Cinestill 800 with similar cost.

I’ve watched all the YouTube about removing remjet but my one attempt failed, plus the film takes a longer to dry as compared to C41 stock.  I think this is because the emulsion sits on a thicker plastic.  So this leads to more dust on the negatives in my back bathroom.

As readers of my blog know I am not shy about sharing my disasters.  I only got one poorly color corrected image on the roll of 24 that was usable

So what to do?  I had a 2nd roll of 250D - Do I try my hand again or do I send it to the professionals.  This roll was shot in Kansas and has images that I really want to turn out.  In the final analysis I decided to bite the bullet and pay the professionals.  I may not continue my ECN experiment.  I am going to continue doing my own C41 development as that I have had some success.