I tried RA4 for the first time with Kodak chemicals using a Jobo CPA-2 I picked up on Friday. I printed one contact sheet which looked like the top-most image and thought I did something wrong. I retried, filling the little jobo graduates with fresh chemicals from my accordion squeeze bottles. I got the exact same results, producing the image at the top.
Then I read that the above might have been caused by exposure to "white light" so I thought maybe the light was reflecting around in the glass for the contact sheet. Kinda strange but I thought "what the hell, I'll see what it does with a negative in a carrier" and printed the second image above.
The two topmost images were done with 30 seconds pre-wash, 45 seconds developer (started dumping at 40 seconds and poured the stop bath in within 8 seconds). 30 seconds of stop. 30 seconds of rinse. 1 minute of blix (recommended by jobo). 30 seconds of rinse 3 times. Everything was done at 35 celcius +- 0.2 degrees (digital thermometer with readings down to 0.1 degrees)
Then, according to some documentation from Fuji, I learned the brownish colour could be caused by being in the blix too long. I shortened the blix to 45 seconds and it got pretty much the exact same result.
I'm at a loss as to what's causing this. My starting filter was 40 magenta and 40 yellow after reading that as the general advice for fuji CA paper on the net. I have a dichroic head. Any advice?
forgot to mention: after the contact prints I realized the non-expert jobo drums with the cogs aren't daylight tanks. so I kept the lights out until the tank was installed for the second contact print (shown above) and it got practically the same results. You can see the light leak streaking across the page in the contact print but the two enlarged prints didn't have any contact with white light.