In search of Jimi Hendrix

Developing Kodak Infrared Ektachrome (E-4) in E-1 chemistry

Every now and then I dreamed of taking photos with Kodak’s legendary false color infrared film. Ebay prices of over 150$, and often unclear storage conditions, kept me from doing so.

In a bundle of black and white films, I was eventually able to obtain one such roll – minus the black and white films that I was able to sell on a well-known classifieds portal, I got the “Kodak Ektachrome infrared film 2236” for next to nothing. A happy twist of fate 😉

“Process E-4” was quite prominently emblazoned on the film canister, which would certainly have deterred some amateur lab technicians, but for me it reminded me of a “Kodak Ektachrome developer set, process E-1” slumbering in the depths of my chemistry cupboard. It should work with that.

Since photography with color infrared film has some pitfalls, I wanted to read as much information as possible first, so that I wouldn’t mess up 36 pictures at once.

I quickly came across “Mr. Aerochrome”, Dean Bennici, on the Internet.

When Kodak stopped producing Aerochrome, Dean bought Aerochrome directly in Rochester and cut it into 120 roll film format to make it available for “normal” photography. Here is a brief digression:

There were several iterations of Kodak Ektachrome infrared film (hereafter referred to as Kodak IE), which was offered in 35mm format. Until the end of the 1990s, this was the last remaining film to be developed using the E-4 process and only then was it converted. Further information can be found at https://www.robwalwyn.com/aerochrome in the lower part of the website “History Of Kodak Color Infrared Films”, and on Dean’s site https://www.aerochrome.shop/about

Kodak’s “Aerochrome” was a completely different emulsion that had a different color rendition as well as a higher film speed. It was never officially offered in 35mm or 120 format. The only source was (and is from time to time) www.aerochrome.shop where Dean runs his store with a lot of love and passion. Here you can also find a lot of valuable information about photography with color infrared film. I contacted Dean via Instagram, and soon I had a nice reply with helpful advice on photographing with infrared film, coupled with the hint that probably no one would develop my E-4 film for me anymore. In an aside, he remarked that he still had two historical rolls of E-4 Ektachrome IE that no one would develop for him. Without further ado, I offered to help. And this is where the real story begins.

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At the beginning of January 2024, I met with Dean in Munich to pick up the rolls of film to be developed. Dean is an incredibly warm person, and a true enthusiast when it comes to photographing with infrared film. Unfortunately, due to the limited supply, it has become a very exclusive hobby, but Dean hasn’t made any profit from it – prices only went through the roof when his stocks were exhausted.

Dean now let the cat out of the bag: the exposed but undeveloped IEs came from Karl Ferris, who shot the legendary cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Are you experienced” in 1967. So Dean and I sat together and dreamed that there might still be pictures of Hendrix or other celebrities from the 1970s on the rolls.

However, based on my experience with old latent image, I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high and told Dean that we probably wouldn’t find anything on the films. We decided to try anyway, and Dean offered me “a little bit of Aerochrome” as a reward for my efforts – an excellent deal.

I set to work the following weekend. The first task was to unpack the chemistry. After all, it was over 60 years old and I wasn’t sure whether I could expect much more from it.

Apart from the color developer, everything seemed to be in excellent condition due to being sealed in cans. Kodak’s E1 – E4 processes differed, but were relatively compatible with each other. As far as I know, the hardening of the films got better and better over time, so that higher processing temperatures with correspondingly shorter times could be used. In addition, the second exposure in the E4 process was replaced by a reversal bath, which is said to have been quite toxic.

Here are some more photos of the E1 kit:

The condition of the kit, which must date back to the 1950s, was surprisingly good. Only the color developer had suffered a little visually, which is why I wasn’t sure whether it would still do its job.

The E1 process has significantly more steps than the E-6 process (which is often also available as a shortened 3-bath process). These are in detail:

1. First Development (20°C, 10min)
2. Rinse (18-22°C, 1min)
3. Hardening (19-21°C, 5-10min)
4. Second exposure (5 sec. per side)
5. Wash (18-22°C, 5min)
6. Color Development (19-21°C, 25(!)min)
7. Wash (18-22°C, 5min)
8. Clearing Bath (19-21°C, 5min)
9. Rinse (18-22°C, 1min)
10. Bleaching (19-21°C, 10min)
11. Rinse (18-22°C, 1min)
12. Fixing (19-21°C, 5min)
13. Wash (18-22°C, 10min)
14. Wetting (18-22°C, 1min)
15. Drying

It is also worth noting that the clarifying and fixing baths are one and the same solution that is used twice

Phew… according to the times on the instructions, you’d be busy for 68 minutes at best. If you wiggle around a bit and add a little safety margin to the steps after the initial development, you can easily spend two hours handling all the chemistry.
It’s great to see how quickly we can develop color slides these days with our “modern” E-6 process

So now it was time to start experimenting.
As a first developer, I decided to use GDR paper developer, as in my “Agfa Uralt” experiment, with the addition of benzotriazole to prevent excessive base fog.

The greatest danger seemed to me that the hardening bath could no longer work and the emulsion could reticulate or even detach completely from the base layer. That’s why I decided to play it safe and develop at a low 20°C, although the E-4 film was already temperature-resistant up to approx. 30°C, unlike the E-1 process. But better not to take any risks… I cut the two films into several pieces so that if I failed at the first attempt, I would at least have the opportunity to adjust the process and thus save some of the film. Excited, I started my development series.

The very first attempt with a development time of 15 minutes produced a clearly visible negative image after the first development! I was really excited – the picture showed a young lady – but she didn’t look like Janis Joplin. I got Dean on the phone at 1 a.m. and yakked away – and then happily went to bed myself.

The next day, I set about the next steps in the process.

To test the reactivity of the color developer (the only really critical process after the first developer), I shot a test snippet of Provia 100F and was able to enjoy the amazing performance of the color developer, which had presumably been slumbering in the can for 70 years. If the two baths turned out to be spoiled, bleaching and fixing could still be done in other ways and so the Provia went into E6 bleach fixer after the color developer to save time – the result was convincing.

So the first piece of Karl Ferris’ E-4 IE went through the developer baths. The end result was an image that initially looked quite monochrome, but after the scan and a few corrections it was still quite respectable.

Since there was hope that there were historically significant images and the remaining film sections, I refrained from any major attempts at optimization and stuck with the first developer used.

Here, with the kind permission of Karl Ferris, are some of the photos.

What can I say, unfortunately there was no Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin on the films – but there were some interesting shots of a young lady, presumably from the 1980s judging by her clothes.

An exciting experiment, which will be continued by photographing the E-4 Ektachrome still slumbering in my freezer.

Many thanks to Dean Bennici for the opportunity to play “mad scientist”, and to Karl Ferris for allowing me to share some of the images here.