RA4 Chemicals and B&W Film

[Mike Wilde]

I am in a somewaht similar boat; I picked up a whack of E-6 first dev, and E-6 bleach at the hazardous waste depot.

I am about to use the E6 Bleach to replace my ferricyanide bleach step for the C-41 processing I do.

The first developer I am thinking of converting to use as a black and white print developer. My thoughts are to check out the pH, boost it if necessary with some sodium or potassium carbonate, and probably add some more hydroquinone, since it is likely a bit low. Does this sound at all feasilbe?

Are there any other chemicals, such as the thiocyanates and iodides that are likely to screw the b&w print up in the long term?

[Photo Engineer]

There are thiocyanates and iodides. Read the formula posted elsewhere. It does not use HQ. It uses an analog.

It is a very energetic and foggy developer intended for reversal processing only. But try it, who knows.

PE

[Mike Wilde]

>It is a very energetic and foggy developer intended for reversal processing only. But try it, who knows.

I'll let you know when I find the time to try this out. Right now I am busy putting a lot of fresh at the market fruits up for winter. Blueberries are de-stemmed and in the freezer, concord grapes seeded, cooked with skins, and canned to make jam later, plums seeded, diced and frozen for more sauce making later. Tonight there are peaches to skin, pit,and can, and pears to cook down an food mill to a pear sauce. A lot of work, but I love this time of year. Plus, when it is all done, most of my share of winters dinners are already cooked and canned or frozen. On my dinner preparation nights, this means the meal is warmed, eaten and dishes put away promptly, meaning more darkroom time after work.

[Neal]

Dear Mike,

Take this as an opportunity to do some color printing. Search the forum using the keywords RA-4 and Tray.

Neal Wydra

[Mike Wilde]

sorry , I couldn't resist the play on words.

I did RA, and actually before that, EP/2 for many years. This past year I made the leap to a tabletop roller transport. I have onlt ran it once so far on RA, but I have also ran it to process B&W a few times. It is the cats meow. I let the requests for 'another print of this, another few more of that' pile up, then when there are a backlog of films needing contact sheets, a few pictures that I am inspired to want to try something special with, and the more mundane reprints I fire the thing up, and am away to the races.

My wife, once home from a full day at work, is also currently off rehearsing a play three nights a week after we finish dinner, so running the household with kids to bed, prep for the next day, stay on top of the laundry etc. in addition to putting fresh food up for winter has me little free time for the darkroom. After Christmas is when I usually spend most of my time there. I usually get in for a Sunday evening, and then 2-4 parts of nights during the wrking week.

[Discpad]

I am in a somewaht similar boat; I picked up a whack of E-6 first dev, and E-6 bleach at the hazardous waste depot.

I am about to use the E6 Bleach to replace my ferricyanide bleach step for the C-41 processing I do.

The E-6 bleach will work just fine for C-41. However, you should extend the bleach time to 8-9 minutes.

Why not buy inexpensive reversal bath, color dev & pre-bleach solutions and go all the way with E-6? It's a lot of fun!