I just wanted to share my experience. Maybe someone finds it useful.
I used a Meopta Opemus 5 with a color head. I don't have any drums, and I couldn't find any for cheap, so I used a 5-reel Paterson tank with a 3D printed paper holder.
The RA-4 chemical kit was from Adox, and I heated the chemistry with a Cinestill unit. I put a film tank over it, and that thankfully blocked all the light from the screen.
The paper I used was the Kodak Royal Digital paper that I mentioned in another post. I cut the roll using a paper cutter. I put down some tape as a guide, but all the papers came out crooked, so I'm gonna need to make some sort of holder for the roll. The paper was old stock, so it was unopened, but it had a manufacturing date from 2019. I heard that old RA-4 paper loses it's whitness with age. and was the case here but it's not that noticable. It looks sort of yellow when you put it against some printer paper, but when you look at it on its own, it's not that apparent.
Since the tiles in the darkroom are glossy, the light from the enlarger was bouncing around, and it hit the paper. My photos were very yellow at first, so I increased the yellow setting on the enlarger, which didn't help much. Then I realised that it could be the stray light, and that fixed it.
My biggest worry with the Paterson tank was that I would get uneven development because the chemistry would gather at the bottom as I was pouring it in. Luckily, I didn't find that to be the case.
Still, I imagine it's much easier with a real drum that pours the chemistry only when it's horizontal.
I cut the paper to 15x10 cm, but in hindsight, that was probably a bad idea because it was hard to see how the photo was positioned and if it was in focus. I didn't realize how dim color enlargers are compared to a regular bw enlarger (at least this one is).
If anyone has some tips or thoughts, I'd love to hear them!
I used a Meopta Opemus 5 with a color head. I don't have any drums, and I couldn't find any for cheap, so I used a 5-reel Paterson tank with a 3D printed paper holder.
The RA-4 chemical kit was from Adox, and I heated the chemistry with a Cinestill unit. I put a film tank over it, and that thankfully blocked all the light from the screen.
The paper I used was the Kodak Royal Digital paper that I mentioned in another post. I cut the roll using a paper cutter. I put down some tape as a guide, but all the papers came out crooked, so I'm gonna need to make some sort of holder for the roll. The paper was old stock, so it was unopened, but it had a manufacturing date from 2019. I heard that old RA-4 paper loses it's whitness with age. and was the case here but it's not that noticable. It looks sort of yellow when you put it against some printer paper, but when you look at it on its own, it's not that apparent.
Since the tiles in the darkroom are glossy, the light from the enlarger was bouncing around, and it hit the paper. My photos were very yellow at first, so I increased the yellow setting on the enlarger, which didn't help much. Then I realised that it could be the stray light, and that fixed it.
My biggest worry with the Paterson tank was that I would get uneven development because the chemistry would gather at the bottom as I was pouring it in. Luckily, I didn't find that to be the case.
Still, I imagine it's much easier with a real drum that pours the chemistry only when it's horizontal.
I cut the paper to 15x10 cm, but in hindsight, that was probably a bad idea because it was hard to see how the photo was positioned and if it was in focus. I didn't realize how dim color enlargers are compared to a regular bw enlarger (at least this one is).
If anyone has some tips or thoughts, I'd love to hear them!
