Kodak RA-4 Chemistry now stocked in Canada

[Bob-D659]

FYI, Photo Central in Winnipeg, or www.darkroomcentral.ca , a new APUG sponsor do stock the 10 litre Kodak kits of developer and blix. Excellent pricing and no cross border shipping hassles.

PS, they hide it under Color Paper

Bob, a happy customer.

 

[gerryyaum]

thanks very much I will check into it.

 

[PhotoJim]

Now for E-6...

 

[wogster]

Now for E-6...

And C-41.....

 

[Bob-D659]

Well there is contact info on the website and in the announcement message elsewhere on APUG. I'd guess if there is interest and a few commitments to order, it could happen.

 

[wogster]

Well there is contact info on the website and in the announcement message elsewhere on APUG. I'd guess if there is interest and a few commitments to order, it could happen.

The problem with all of these kits, is that they are in such large quantities, okay the RA-4 kit is 10 litres, you mix it up in a single batch and it's good for what, 48 hours at best, so for personal use, unless you spent the entire 48 hours making prints, your throwing most of the chemistries down the drain and the cost of same down the drain.

 

[Bob-D659]

The RA-4 kit can be mixed in 1 Litre amounts, and the mixed working solutions have a shelf life of 6-8 weeks. Same with the Kodak E6 kit. Now you will need some good graduated cylinders to use them, and something to fill the concentrate bottles to remove air. In a pinch, a can of butane lighter fuel will work fine, just refrain from smoking in the area.

PS you should change your sig and change the @ to a period, works better.

 

[wogster]

The RA-4 kit can be mixed in 1 Litre amounts, and the mixed working solutions have a shelf life of 6-8 weeks. Same with the Kodak E6 kit. Now you will need some good graduated cylinders to use them, and something to fill the concentrate bottles to remove air. In a pinch, a can of butane lighter fuel will work fine, just refrain from smoking in the area.

PS you should change your sig and change the @ to a period, works better.

Wonder how many concentrate bottles there are, used to be like 4 or 5 bottles for each.... Maybe it's different now, last time I printed colour prints at home was around 1980! I have one print that hasn't faded a bit.... I would be cautious around butane or propane though, we had a propane depot explosion near here in the summer and it took out an area about a city block in size, and that was without a BLEVE!

As for the sig, it's fixed.:rolleyes:

 

[Bob-D659]

RA-4 dev is three bottles, blix is two. There is more than a little difference between a large 465gm can of butane and a propane depot with a many thousands of kilos of propane. BTW, I'm pretty sure there was a BLEVE there, the photos sure showed a nice fireball.

 

[wogster]

RA-4 dev is three bottles, blix is two. There is more than a little difference between a large 465gm can of butane and a propane depot with a many thousands of kilos of propane. BTW, I'm pretty sure there was a BLEVE there, the photos sure showed a nice fireball.

From what I understand, a 454g can of butane can still do considerable damage, and if it happens to burst a bottle of blix, sending plastic shrapnel all over, I am sure you don't want to find out how toxic the contents of the bottle are. . I think glass beads are probably a better idea, especially since they are reusable, and not anywhere near as hazardous.

From what I understand, there was no BLEVE, because if there had of been, the damage area would have been considerably larger. There is a reason they evacuate everyone for a 5km radius, because that 5km radius is the typical damage area if there IS a BLEVE.

 

[Bob-D659]

First off you don't pressurize the bottle with butane, you just put a small diameter piece of tubing on the nozzle and fill the UNCAPPED bottle with butane vapour, that will displace the air.

Besides the vapour pressure of butane at 30C is about 45psi, a standard soft drink bottle can easily hold 70 psi.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I've never had any problem getting RA-4 chems from LL Lozeau in Montréal, and Photo Service has them as well. It's always been available. Too bad they don't ship!

As for E6: having worked there this summer, I've seen the stock room of LL Lozeau, and there were some parts of the E6 kits in there, but not all the necessary ones. Those were probably leftovers from who knows when. But given that they run an E6 line, they definitely have access to those chemicals. Ditto for C-41.

What I know for C-41 in Canada is that you should look for the Kodak ones if you process at home. The Fuji kits are for Frontier machines, and you won't find them in hobbyist quantities. Anything from Kodak with a CAT number can be ordered.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Also, in Montréal I can get the 1 Gal. kits of RA-4 developers and the 10L kits of blix.

What I do is that I mix the developer all at once, use as much as I can in one, or two successive sessions, and try to finish what's left in my brown stoppered bottles within three weeks. Passed that, I throw it away. Not a big waste, usually.

For blix, I just mix batches of 1L at a time. The chemicals are pretty stable in concentrated form, and the measures are easy. No need to fuss with thirds of mL as would be the case with developer.

 

[Bob-D659]

The worst thing is the way Kodak package the 10 litre kits, there are 4 kits per carton, and for the 1 gallon size of dev, there are 8 kits per carton. So an order from a distributor is one carton of dev and one of blix, a total of 40 litres of working solution.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

True, but if your store is kind enough, they will allow you to buy only one bottle, and keep the rest in their storage area. Works better with larger stores than smaller ones, though!

 

[wogster]

Also, in Montréal I can get the 1 Gal. kits of RA-4 developers and the 10L kits of blix.

What I do is that I mix the developer all at once, use as much as I can in one, or two successive sessions, and try to finish what's left in my brown stoppered bottles within three weeks. Passed that, I throw it away. Not a big waste, usually.

For blix, I just mix batches of 1L at a time. The chemicals are pretty stable in concentrated form, and the measures are easy. No need to fuss with thirds of mL as would be the case with developer.

Don't know why Kodak can't make a 1L bottle of the developer available, for smaller volume users From what I understand Blix lasts much longer in the bottle then developer does.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Don't know why Kodak can't make a 1L bottle of the developer available, for smaller volume users From what I understand Blix lasts much longer in the bottle then developer does.

And does Fuji do them?

We're actually lucky to be able to find low-volume colour chemicals at all. Analog colour darkroom printing is not in a position to be competitive. There's only one grade of paper left, and contrast controls are tedious and difficult (e.g. unsharp masking).

For all practical matters, shooting C-41 and printing analog is equivalent to shooting slides with a wider dynamic range. You can push/pull C-41 film a little bit more than with E6, but that's it. RA-4 can still be very aesthetically satisfying, but you have to be aware of its practical limitations.

Kodak doesn't sell RA-4 dev in a 1L bottle like it can do with PolymaxT because colour chemistry is not as simple as B&W. (From what I can see when I mix dev, the A, B, and C parts react together to form the developer. But I might be wrong; there's a change of colour along the way).

In the 1 Gal kits, you have three very small bottles which are then diluted with water to make 1 Gal (3.5L). I suppose that calibrating exactly the bottles for 1L total would be a pain.

At any rate, Kodak provides exact measurements if you want to make only 1L of developer:
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/j39/j39.jhtml

And when you do the maths, 1 Gal. isn't that much. I use Unicolor drums, which requires 2oz of developers per 8x10. At 128oz per gal., it's 64 sheets. Divided by three for nailing down exposure, color balance, and errors, that's about 20 different pictures, half less if you do 11x14 prints (4oz each). Well within hobbyist limits.

 

[wogster]

And does Fuji do them?

We're actually lucky to be able to find low-volume colour chemicals at all. Analog colour darkroom printing is not in a position to be competitive. There's only one grade of paper left, and contrast controls are tedious and difficult (e.g. unsharp masking).

For all practical matters, shooting C-41 and printing analog is equivalent to shooting slides with a wider dynamic range. You can push/pull C-41 film a little bit more than with E6, but that's it. RA-4 can still be very aesthetically satisfying, but you have to be aware of its practical limitations.

Kodak doesn't sell RA-4 dev in a 1L bottle like it can do with PolymaxT because colour chemistry is not as simple as B&W. (From what I can see when I mix dev, the A, B, and C parts react together to form the developer. But I might be wrong; there's a change of colour along the way).

In the 1 Gal kits, you have three very small bottles which are then diluted with water to make 1 Gal (3.5L). I suppose that calibrating exactly the bottles for 1L total would be a pain.

At any rate, Kodak provides exact measurements if you want to make only 1L of developer:
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/support/techPubs/j39/j39.jhtml

And when you do the maths, 1 Gal. isn't that much. I use Unicolor drums, which requires 2oz of developers per 8x10. At 128oz per gal., it's 64 sheets. Divided by three for nailing down exposure, color balance, and errors, that's about 20 different pictures, half less if you do 11x14 prints (4oz each). Well within hobbyist limits.

I have thought for a long time, that colour analog photography will not last anywhere near is long as B&W, but that hobbyist and artistic professional use will probably last the longest. Right now, everything is dependant on materials and chemistries required for mini-labs, which really only need one grade of paper. Not sure how long the minilabs will keep control of this, as with digital at it's heart there are other printing methods that are high volume, and consumers will not care whether a print is printed on photo paper or some other form of printing, such as medium to high speed ink printing, as long as it looks and feels similar enough to a photograph, and even home inkjet printers are pretty close. This would leave only the hobbyist and artistic professional using the materials, whether that means that theywill disappear all together or whether some company will start producing new materials especially for the analog printing market, who knows.

Don't be so fast in predicting the demise of analog colour printing, once the requirement of high speed and high volume disappears then there may be new materials and processes developed, especially for the hobbyist and artistic professional markets. Like films and papers that can be processed as colour or B&W.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Unlike B&W, colour photography requires an infrastructure that is way beyond the capabilities of any boutique manufacturer. There is a reason why only Kodak and Fuji are producing colour film, and Foma, Efke, Adox, Maco, etc do not.

 

[wogster]

Unlike B&W, colour photography requires an infrastructure that is way beyond the capabilities of any boutique manufacturer. There is a reason why only Kodak and Fuji are producing colour film, and Foma, Efke, Adox, Maco, etc do not.

Actually Maco does produce a colour film, and it's C41 process, Lucky in China also produces one, so your incorrect there, that only Kodak and Fuji produce colour film, these films are hard to get in North America, because the market is so oriented toward Kodak and Fuji. Technically Ilford's XP2 is a colour film using black instead of colour couplers, so that would be another possible future source.

Oh well, I could say more, but I need to go to work....