Agitate › E-6 timer
Slide film at home
E-6 Timer for Developing Slide Film at Home
Six E-6 kits are built into Agitate, three of them Kodak's own with three different first developer times. Every bath is written out, and the app knows that in E-6 only the first developer moves.
- First developer
- Wash
- Reversal
- Color developer
- Pre-bleach
- Bleach
- Fixer
- Wash
- Stabilizer
Kodak publishes three different first developer times
This is the part that catches people out. Kodak's own E-6 literature does not carry one number: publication Z-119 gives a 6:00 first developer and a 7:00 variant with a different color developer and a three stage wash, and publication J-83 gives 6:30. They are three different processes, not three opinions about one. Agitate carries all three as separate templates rather than picking a favorite and calling it Kodak.
| Kit | First developer | Temperature | Baths |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kodak, Z-119, 6:00 variant | 6:00 | 38.0 °C | 9 |
| Kodak, J-83 | 6:30 | 38.0 °C | 9 |
| Kodak, Z-119, 7:00 variant | 7:00 | 38.0 °C | 11 |
| Tetenal Magic Box | 6:15 | 38.0 °C | 8 |
| Bellini | 6:30 | 38.0 °C | 12 |
| Fujichrome CR-56 | 6:00 | 38.0 °C | 10 |
The six E-6 templates in the app. Every one names the manufacturer document it was transcribed from.
The bath counts are not padding. The Bellini template runs to twelve steps because it separates its washes and finishes at room temperature, the Tetenal Magic Box gets to eight by using a blix instead of a separate bleach and fix. Choose the kit and the sequence follows, including which of the last baths are published at 20 degrees rather than at process temperature.
Only the first developer moves
Push and pull in E-6 happen entirely in the first developer, and they are film independent: every other bath keeps the time the kit published. Agitate encodes that rule rather than scaling the whole run, so a two stop push does not quietly stretch your bleach as well. How the push time itself is worked out.
The same rule governs re-used chemistry. Adding ten percent of the time for each film already put through the bottle is a black and white convention. Applied to a first developer it moves a bath that is meant to run to a defined point, and color kits publish a capacity ladder instead of a percentage. Until such a ladder is in the database, Agitate leaves a color time exactly as its maker published it. The expiry and capacity warnings still fire.
38 degrees, with a tolerance of three tenths
All six templates publish their first developer at 38.0 degrees. Agitate holds you to 0.3 degrees around it and says so before you pour, which is looser than the 0.15 it uses for C-41 and tighter than the 0.5 it allows in black and white.
What it will not do is convert an E-6 time to a different temperature. There is no published rule of that form for a reversal process, and a deviation there produces crossover rather than a density change, which no amount of extra time repairs. If your bath has drifted, the honest answer is to bring it back, not to recalculate. Where the conversion does apply.
Nine baths, in the dark, at 38 degrees
An E-6 run is long, hot and unforgiving of a distraction. Agitate shows the chain of baths across the top so you always know which one you are in, calls the drain ten seconds before each bath ends, and puts the countdown on the lock screen and in the Dynamic Island in the same red on black as the app, so checking it does not light up the room.
Because the app stores the moment each bath ends rather than counting seconds down, a call, a reboot or a phone that ran flat cannot lose your place. Come back and it works out where you are from the clock.
E-6 without guessing which Kodak sheet you are following
Six kits, every bath written out, the push in the first developer only. C-41 and black and white are in the same app.
Agitate for iPhone and iPad
Free, and every chemistry warning is in the free version.