RA4 re use chemistry

markd514 · Feb 1, 2015

2nd post attempt! First one vanished. I am going to keep it short this time. The first one was ultra detailed, and since it said it was awaiting moderator approval (none of my posts said that btw), then I never saw it, I assumed it vanished.

Did a test with RA kodak chemicals 10L mix. I used trays, jobo, and a beseler 8x10 drum on a motor base. I actually think the beseler drum and base are the least hassle, and give me great prints. I tested all of them, and could not see any difference. Jobo at 100 degrees, and trays, and beseler drum at room temp 72 ish with a 2 minute dev time.

The beseler drum takes 60ml dev and blix. I used a 180ml prerinse of water. Ran 7 trials with SAME chems....of course water prerinse was new. By the 7th run, the developer was twice the volume even though i was careful to drain all i could..well that was expected. The blix did not double in volume.
Anyway, I started with a decent print. It has some error in color balance, but otherwise ok. I am showing you print 2, and print 7. I omitted print 1 since i botched exposure and it was 2 seconds more (tad too dark). Surprisingly they are all pretty good. I could have kept on printing away. There is a color shift though, but the prints did not look too bad at all. Kodak says 16 prints per L with a max upwards of 40 if noncritical. I can go to 112 easily! I wont though...not that cheap. I was just wondering where the edge was for terrible quality. Right now i decided to stick to use the chems twice. I doubt any shift was apparent between print 1 and 2.

markd514 · Feb 1, 2015

There is dust on here from my lousy scanner. Also, this is why i love analog and film! They look SO much better in real life. The digital scans are terrible. But what is happening with color at reuse 7 is pretty realistic.

bvy · Feb 1, 2015

Well, congrats are in order. They look pretty good to me. I agree about scanning prints; they never compare to viewing the original up close, in person.

I'm glad drums are working out for you. I use the chemistry one shot (sort of). I have 60ml glass bottles that I buy from Specialty Bottle. I fill these to the top with developer and seal them with their polyseal caps. These heat up to 95F quickly and easily in a water bath. For 8x10 in a drum, 60ml is exactly what's called for -- but I usually run a couple 4x5's in the drum to determine the exposure and filtration. So as far as reuse, I can run up to four 4x5 test prints and then the final 8x10 print with one 60ml bottle of developer. After that I dump it.

markd514 · Feb 1, 2015

bvy said:
Well, congrats are in order. They look pretty good to me. I agree about scanning prints; they never compare to viewing the original up close, in person.

I'm glad drums are working out for you. I use the chemistry one shot (sort of). I have 60ml glass bottles that I buy from Specialty Bottle. I fill these to the top with developer and seal them with their polyseal caps. These heat up to 95F quickly and easily in a water bath. For 8x10 in a drum, 60ml is exactly what's called for -- but I usually run a couple 4x5's in the drum to determine the exposure and filtration. So as far as reuse, I can run up to four 4x5 test prints and then the final 8x10 print with one 60ml bottle of developer. After that I dump it.

Yep! Sounds like a great idea. I have a jobo that I bought when i got back into this, but there are too many steps of washing, and it is wet...i dont have the lift. Trays.....I dont like sitting in the dark for a few minutes with 1 nitril glove on...lol. The beseler, or unicolor tanks work great! Plus, I do NOT dry them like everyone says you have to. I have not had any spotting or streaking. I just run a paper towel over the inside to get the majority of water drops out, and thats it.

bvy · Feb 1, 2015

That drums have to be bone dry is blown way out of proportion. I fill them with 100F water before I load them -- halfway for 4x5, all the way for 8x10. It brings the drum to temperature and serves as a pre-rinse at the same time. Dump, and you're ready to go!

markd514 · Feb 1, 2015

bvy said:
That drums have to be bone dry is blown way out of proportion. I fill them with 100F water before I load them -- halfway for 4x5, all the way for 8x10. It brings the drum to temperature and serves as a pre-rinse at the same time. Dump, and you're ready to go!

Interesting. Have you ever compared your 95 degree photos to room temp at 2 minutes? There is a very slight color shift, and very slight exposure compensation. I corrected it, and made identical prints that I could not tell apart. Why the extra bother then? I stay at 72 degrees.

Mick Fagan · Feb 2, 2015

markd514 said:
2nd post attempt! First one vanished. I am going to keep it short this time. The first one was ultra detailed, and since it said it was awaiting moderator approval (none of my posts said that btw), then I never saw it, I assumed it vanished.

Did a test with RA kodak chemicals 10L mix. I used trays, jobo, and a beseler 8x10 drum on a motor base. I actually think the beseler drum and base are the least hassle, and give me great prints. I tested all of them, and could not see any difference. Jobo at 100 degrees, and trays, and beseler drum at room temp 72 ish with a 2 minute dev time.

The beseler drum takes 60ml dev and blix. I used a 180ml prerinse of water. Ran 7 trials with SAME chems....of course water prerinse was new. By the 7th run, the developer was twice the volume even though i was careful to drain all i could..well that was expected. The blix did not double in volume.
Anyway, I started with a decent print. It has some error in color balance, but otherwise ok. I am showing you print 2, and print 7. I omitted print 1 since i botched exposure and it was 2 seconds more (tad too dark). Surprisingly they are all pretty good. I could have kept on printing away. There is a color shift though, but the prints did not look too bad at all. Kodak says 16 prints per L with a max upwards of 40 if noncritical. I can go to 112 easily! I wont though...not that cheap. I was just wondering where the edge was for terrible quality. Right now i decided to stick to use the chems twice. I doubt any shift was apparent between print 1 and 2.

I would think your colour change is due to the chemicals starting to exhaust. Usually when RA4 chemistry is starting to run out, one often starts to see blue blacks. Not exactly that but that is pretty much the best description.

If you look at your good print, the sunlit road looks nice and warm from the sunlight,. The part of the road in open shade is showing a slight blue tinge, this is normal. The insides of the building are still normal looking, even though they are in shade.

The abnormal print, check out the sunlit part of the road, it's looking blue, the open shade part of the road is quite blue, the interior of the building is also a shade of blue, suggesting colour developer exhaustion.

There may be other factors, and with colour printing there are many factors, but temperature, if kept constant, usually makes only a little difference, if at all, generally. I would think your different developing chemistry temperatures may be a very slight factor only, but I would suggest that you find one temperature you can maintain and keep at that temperature. This should help you to keep variables you do have, to a minimum. If you find you can easily keep to say 22ºC do that, if 30ºC or 37ºC are easily achievable use whichever one is easiest for you to maintain, but I would suggest you stay at your chosen temperature.

My experience with colour printing using a Durst Printo tells me that Kodak, who suggest sixteen 8x10" prints per litre, are on the money. I think that is pretty close to 1 square metre of paper per litre.

Mick.

markd514 · Feb 2, 2015

Mick Fagan said:
I would think your colour change is due to the chemicals starting to exhaust. Usually when RA4 chemistry is starting to run out, one often starts to see blue blacks. Not exactly that but that is pretty much the best description.

If you look at your good print, the sunlit road looks nice and warm from the sunlight,. The part of the road in open shade is showing a slight blue tinge, this is normal. The insides of the building are still normal looking, even though they are in shade.

The abnormal print, check out the sunlit part of the road, it's looking blue, the open shade part of the road is quite blue, the interior of the building is also a shade of blue, suggesting colour developer exhaustion.

There may be other factors, and with colour printing there are many factors, but temperature, if kept constant, usually makes only a little difference, if at all, generally. I would think your different developing chemistry temperatures may be a very slight factor only, but I would suggest that you find one temperature you can maintain and keep at that temperature. This should help you to keep variables you do have, to a minimum. If you find you can easily keep to say 22ºC do that, if 30ºC or 37ºC are easily achievable use whichever one is easiest for you to maintain, but I would suggest you stay at your chosen temperature.

My experience with colour printing using a Durst Printo tells me that Kodak, who suggest sixteen 8x10" prints per litre, are on the money. I think that is pretty close to 1 square metre of paper per litre.

Mick.

The process is right on. The color shift is def due to the chemicals exhausted. It was just a test to see how far you can go. I thought it would totally fall apart by the 3rd attempt, but it did not.....which is good! I found that 1 reuse is fine, then throw it out.

hka · Feb 2, 2015

Throw away 30ml and fill with 30ml fresh and go on.
That's how I did it in making prints in drums.

DREW WILEY · Feb 2, 2015

RA4 chem is so cheap, and the volumes most of us use is so modest, that trying to replenish from a drum is hardly worth it. I always use the chem one-shot. Pretty difficult otherwise unless you have some automatic replenishment system like in a high-volume roller-transport processor. Not all drums totally clear every drop of chem between steps, so contamination is possible afterwards. If you don't want to totally rinse and dry the drums and caps between each print, you can always add a GENEROUS (per volume) brief plain water rinse between steps, as well and afterwards, prior to tray washing.

DREW WILEY · Feb 2, 2015

... Oh, and I gave up on "room temp" chem a long time ago. It never worked reliably for me. I always use a highly standarized time and temp. Otherwise, you might get results, but it will be very difficult to fine-tune your color balance repeatably.

bvy · Feb 2, 2015

markd514 said:
Interesting. Have you ever compared your 95 degree photos to room temp at 2 minutes? There is a very slight color shift, and very slight exposure compensation. I corrected it, and made identical prints that I could not tell apart. Why the extra bother then? I stay at 72 degrees.

I haven't done RA4 at room temperature. First, it's very easy (for me) to bring the chemicals up to temperature; I just drop the aforementioned glass bottles in a water bath, and they're ready when I'm ready. Second, room temperature swings crazily where I work (the basement). Also, I like sticking with the standardized times, if only because things go faster. This is helpful if I'm running a lot of 4x5 test prints. But that's just me...

markd514 · Feb 2, 2015

DREW WILEY said:
RA4 chem is so cheap, and the volumes most of us use is so modest, that trying to replenish from a drum is hardly worth it. I always use the chem one-shot. Pretty difficult otherwise unless you have some automatic replenishment system like in a high-volume roller-transport processor. Not all drums totally clear every drop of chem between steps, so contamination is possible afterwards. If you don't want to totally rinse and dry the drums and caps between each print, you can always add a GENEROUS (per volume) brief plain water rinse between steps, as well and afterwards, prior to tray washing.

agree!

RPC · Feb 3, 2015

I use trays, which I vastly prefer over drums, at room temperature (68-72F) for two minutes and never have problems with repeatability. I found that at high temperatures, (95-100F) there was much less headroom time-wise than at room temps and a greater potential for inconsistency.

markd514 · Feb 3, 2015

RPC said:
I use trays, which I vastly prefer over drums, at room temperature (68-72F) for two minutes and never have problems with repeatability. I found that at high temperatures, (95-100F) there was much less headroom time-wise than at room temps and a greater potential for inconsistency.

I agree with the headroom time-wise. It is a matter of choice. I don't mind loading the drum and turning the lights on. I prefer that to sitting in the dark for a few minutes with my "tongue" hand wearing a nitril glove...lol.
I like testing things. I ran 3 minutes at room temp, and 2 minutes. Side by side they where not noticeabley different. At 100 degrees they are.
I wish I knew this back in 1980 when I used to use that stupid nomograph from beseler 2 step chemistry to take room temp and chemical temp bath then interpolate with a ruler to find development time. It didn't matter! 2 minutes at room temp prob would have worked...maybe.

RPC · Feb 3, 2015

The official process back then was EP-2, which IIRC was more than three minutes at 95 degrees, so it would have taken a lot more than two minutes at room temperature!

mklw1954 · Feb 4, 2015

The Kodak RT Developer and bleach/fix to make 10 liters costs $30 (Unique Photo). At 60ml per 8x10 print, that's about 160 prints, or $0.19 per print with one-shot use. Add $0.40 per sheet of Fuji Crystal Archive paper and $0.60 per print is very economical, even when you have to sometimes make 2 or 3 to get a final print. To me, it's not worth reusing chemicals and risking color shifts.

It's easy to process in a drum at the Kodak-recommended 83F for 2 minutes using hot and cool water baths, the chemicals in an 8 oz. plastic spring water bottle, and a digital thermometer with a wire probe in the bottle (calibrated to a color thermometer).

RA4 re use chemistry

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