RA-4 Developer and Blix formula wanted

Stew

Member

Joined

Nov 11, 2005

Messages

88

Location

New Brunswic

Format

Multi Format

• Jan 25, 2006

• #1

Would anyone have a good formula for RA-4 Developer and Bleach/Fix that they would like to share.

Thanks
Rob.

 

Nick Zentena

Member

Joined

Nov 21, 2004

Messages

4,666

Location

Italia

Format

Multi Format

• Jan 25, 2006

• #2

There are the ones on this website:

http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/photo/c41_ra4_chemicals.htm

I think PE doesn't like them-)

I'm not sure it makes sense to make your own. The kits from Fotochem aren't that expensive. Or the bulk chemicals from people like Fuji or Kodak aren't that bad either. Blix will keep. In my expierence even the developer keeps fairly well.

 

OP

OP

Stew

Member

Joined

Nov 11, 2005

Messages

88

Location

New Brunswic

Format

Multi Format

• Jan 25, 2006

• #3

Nick,
I bought one of the fotochem kits a few weeks ago but I was kind of worried about using it because all the bottles of chemicals I got were labeled C-41!!

 

pentaxuser

Member

Joined

May 9, 2005

Messages

19,966

Location

Daventry, No

Format

35mm

• Jan 25, 2006

• #4

This may be where the big pond divides us as far as chems are concerned but I have used Tetenal and then Paterson. This is based on U.K. prices and availability but I found Paterson to be considerably cheaper but equally as good.

Pentaxuser

 

Photo Engineer

Subscriber

Joined

Apr 19, 2005

Messages

29,018

Location

Rochester, NY

Format

Multi Format

• Jan 25, 2006

• #5

There was a URL to a new RA developer posted on PN about a month ago. It looked pretty good. All of the previous errors I saw in it were fixed. It is almost like the real thing!

Not all kits out there are good. Never use a CD4 based kit or formula for paper.

PE

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 25, 2006

Nick Zentena

Member

Joined

Nov 21, 2004

Messages

4,666

Location

Italia

Format

Multi Format

• Jan 25, 2006

• #6

Stew said:

Nick,
I bought one of the fotochem kits a few weeks ago but I was kind of worried about using it because all the bottles of chemicals I got were labeled C-41!!

Click to expand...

Did you complain? IIRC the RA-4 kit is five bottles. I think three for the developer and two for the blix.

 

srs5694

Member

Joined

May 18, 2005

Messages

2,718

Location

Woonsocket,

Format

35mm

• Jan 28, 2006

• #7

I've used the one linked to by Nick with (to my subjective eye) good results, using Kodak and Fuji papers. I can't speak to archival qualities, though. Another one is described here:

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~keirst/technical.html

This might be the one to which PE referred, but I'm not positive of that. I've not yet tried it, since it contains some chemicals I haven't tracked down. (I've not tried all that hard, but I'm pretty sure I checked some of the popular photochemical suppliers, such as Photographer's Formulary and Art Craft.)