Reversal RA-4 experiment thread.

bvy · Aug 27, 2015

Two to five minutes in bright sunlight seems excessive, but I think this step goes to completion, so you can't really do any harm. I just hold it under room light for about a minute.

The remaining steps can, I think, be done in room light, so maybe you can monitor the process by inspection.

From experience, I know that the process does not respond well to black and white paper developer that has been reused. The colors get muddy and shift. I use Ilford PQ, 1+9, one shot.

Are you exposing the paper in camera or under an enlarger? What are you rating the paper at, and what kind of filters are you using?

himself · Aug 27, 2015

bvy said:
Two to five minutes in bright sunlight seems excessive, but I think this step goes to completion, so you can't really do any harm. I just hold it under room light for about a minute.

The remaining steps can, I think, be done in room light, so maybe you can monitor the process by inspection.

From experience, I know that the process does not respond well to black and white paper developer that has been reused. The colors get muddy and shift. I use Ilford PQ, 1+9, one shot.

Are you exposing the paper in camera or under an enlarger? What are you rating the paper at, and what kind of filters are you using?

Thanks for the reply.

As far as I read it should go to completion.
I am reused b/w developer, but I'm not getting any colour image yet - never mind muddy or colour shifts. I'll try a one shot dev for the next attempt.

I'm shooting the paper in camera rated at asa 6 which I think is maybe a bit low, but it works ok as a starting point for paper negatives and I'm not up to the filter stage yet, just trying to get any image for the moment.

Photo Engineer · Aug 27, 2015

Well, blank white paper may mean 1 of two things or both:

1. Overexposure in the camera or on-easel
2. Overdevelopment in the first developer

I have never tried that first developer. I've used Dektol.

You cannot overexpose after first development. The negative image has formed!

Are you sure you did not use fix after the first developer instead of stop?

PE

himself · Aug 27, 2015

Photo Engineer said:
Well, blank white paper may mean 1 of two things or both:

1. Overexposure in the camera or on-easel
2. Overdevelopment in the first developer

I have never tried that first developer. I've used Dektol.

You cannot overexpose after first development. The negative image has formed!

Are you sure you did not use fix after the first developer instead of stop?

PE

PE,

So far one of the very few things I can be sure of is that I'm using stop and not fix.. in fact, I even considered that and checked

Could be overexposed, the colour paper negative I tried came out overexposed. How would underexposing affect the process?
I tried developing an unused bit of paper for shorter, but it still turned white.

Is there something specific about dektol that makes it work for this?

Photo Engineer · Aug 27, 2015

AFAIK, many people have used many developers with very good results.

Overexposure results in white (clear) prints and underexposure results in black prints.

Over development in the first developer results in white prints or weak prints. Etc....

Are you sure the paper is not fogged? Fogging will give colored or white prints if the fog is severe enough.

PE

cl3mens · Aug 27, 2015

himself said:
...

the first development is working ok, with a normal looking black and white neg.

I've only done this a few times, but my B/W neg looked weak. I think you are overdoing it, either exposure or FD.

himself · Aug 28, 2015

Photo Engineer said:
AFAIK, many people have used many developers with very good results.

Overexposure results in white (clear) prints and underexposure results in black prints.

Over development in the first developer results in white prints or weak prints. Etc....

Are you sure the paper is not fogged? Fogging will give colored or white prints if the fog is severe enough.

PE

ok, so I'll try developing for less time and exposing less and see what difference that makes.
The colour negative came out fine, no noticeable fogging.
But I'll also try making another to see how that works.

himself · Aug 28, 2015

cl3mens said:
I've only done this a few times, but my B/W neg looked weak. I think you are overdoing it, either exposure or FD.

that seems to be the consensus : )

himself · Aug 29, 2015

so a quick update...

I tried developing an unexposed piece of paper for 1 minute (b/w developer), but that still ended up white.

So I tried then developing an exposed piece of paper for 1 minute, which also ended up white.
Finally tried a first development of 20 seconds, but still ended up with a white piece of paper, except for the slivers on the edge masked by the film holder which turned a yellowish orange.

Something just ain't right...

Photo Engineer · Aug 29, 2015

Try developing a piece of exposed and a piece of unexposed paper in just color developer, 2' at 20C then blix and wash. The unexposed piece should be white and the exposed piece should be some color or black depending on exposure.

PE

himself · Aug 29, 2015

PE,

Tried that a couple days ago to test if the colour developer was working ok.
Each came out just as expected - unexposed=white, (very)exposed=black

Photo Engineer · Aug 29, 2015

I guess there is something not going right with the first developer then.

Have you (or can you) try another first developer?

PE

himself · Aug 29, 2015

PE,

I have some old Rodinal and new D76, but no other paper developer.

Any guess which could be better?

Photo Engineer · Aug 29, 2015

IDK. I know that the only developer that failed for me was D76. I got a huge speed change. Several stops. I found that it was due to the high Sulfite level. But that was with Kodak paper.

PE

himself · Aug 29, 2015

ok, so I'll make up a one shot of Rodinal and see what happens.
Other than that, I'll have to get my hands on some Dektol - which seems to be the one most people here are using successfully.

Thanks for your thoughts

himself · Aug 29, 2015

progress at last...

I've just managed to get my first faint positive image, I'm not sure it can be described as colour - more an orange-otype if such a thing is in fact a thing.

The first development was in Rodinal 1+25 for 1 minute and then just processed as before.

I haven't started using filters yet, but was surprised that it was orange. I was expecting blue.
So did I misread something in the thread?

Photo Engineer · Aug 29, 2015

You will need about 100C or more to get into the range you want. My filter pack was 100 C and 30 M IIRC. This is using an enlarger for exposure.

Daylight is something else again.

PE

himself · Aug 30, 2015

yeah? what you say makes sense, but I got the impression it was the other way around for making in camera positives.

Photo Engineer · Aug 30, 2015

himself said:
yeah? what you say makes sense, but I got the impression it was the other way around for making in camera positives.

I may be wrong on that. I can't find any of the prints here and may have to do a search, but I know that the filter pack was way way off from what you expect.

PE

himself · Aug 30, 2015

Photo Engineer said:
[...] but I know that the filter pack was way way off from what you expect.

that has pretty much summed up my experience so far!

anyway...

So filters are again on the back burner. After yesterday's tiny triumph I'm back to getting a nice bright and perfectly white sheet of paper after blixing.
As far as variables go, I'm going to mix a fresh batch of stop and hope there was a problem with the old one.

The only other thing I can then think of is that I'm not re-exposing enough, but there's no way of telling if it's enough... or is there?

Photo Engineer · Aug 30, 2015

Re exposing is NOT your problem, and the stop probably is not either.

Even with no re-exposure, room light would be enough to give you a weak image if one was there.

PE

himself · Aug 30, 2015

so I'm all ears...

something doesn't seem to be working and I've tried changing:

2 different developers(one sort of worked)
developing for shorter time
exposure
fogging
checked colour developer and blix

Is there something I'm missing?

Photo Engineer · Aug 30, 2015

Yep, Dektol (or scratch mixed D72).

When all else fails, do what others have done that worked.

Of course, if Fuji has been tinkering again with their CA paper who knows what has changed.

PE

bvy · Aug 30, 2015

I think you need to work just with unexposed paper until you get a black image. My point about the first developer being reused was that this step is finicky, and the success of the whole process seems to depend on it. Except in extreme cases, the quality of the black and white negative image is a poor indicator of anything about the process (exposure, developer efficacy, etc.). As I mentioned, I use Ilford PQ liquid concentrate and get consistent (good) results. Are you using distilled water to mix fresh developer?

My filter pack notes for in camera exposures are at home (I'm on vacation) but as you say, it's a moot point for the time being. I'll post them later.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

himself · Aug 31, 2015

PE,

I think I've got to the stage where I'm ready to just flat out copy the process of someone that's got results, so time get some dektol. Unfortunately the fuji is all I've been able to get my hands on around here (Wales), well, except maybe some expired paper. Would the process work with expired paper (that is work the sense of getting any image, not getting a accurately coloured image)?

bvy,

Ok, I understand what you're saying and all I can do for now is try different combinations of dev and time I guess.

Thanks, I'm just using normal or filtered water for the moment. The water quality round here is pretty good, so I can't imaging that's causing the problems.

Having said that I'm willing to give it a try because for moment I'm just getting the same result over and over again.

If you could post the filter notes when you get chance I'd appreciate it

Reversal RA-4 experiment thread.

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