Fotospeed Mono RA4? any users?

[sepiareverb]

Just saw this chemistry in the Freestyle catalog and became intrigued. It sounds too good to be true. Anyone here used this stuff? I've got a lot of color negs that I'd like to get work prints of, this could save me a bundle even after getting a colorhead. Haven't printed color in a very long time- maybe 1982? There was still fiber-based paper when I last printed color anyway. Nasty stuff in those days, temperature worries, not to mention the fumes. But I always like printing color, just never had the space or inclination for keeping a machine going (don't ask about my short job as an E6 tech )

So anyone used this stuff? How does it do?

Thanks!
-Bob

[sepiareverb]

As I suspected a suspect product?

[sepiareverb]

First prints out of the darkroom today. This stuff is as simple as simple gets. I've not had this much fun in the darkroom since that time all those Agfa belly dancers...

Well, big fun was had, let's leave it at that, and the Fotospeed RA4 is fantastic.

[sepiareverb]

Not too bad, and easy as can be. Odor is minimal, I've printed now for three days with open trays and no headache, no complaints about chemical smell on me or in the house.

[mhv]

Very interesting! You probably need to add 5 to 10CC of yellow to remove the slight colour cast, but I can see that it works. Do you have any other examples?

I'm quite interested because I'm lazy. I use drums and the Kodak Ektacolor chems, and it's a hassle to load, process, dry, and so on. A monobath might take my fear away from processing RA4 in trays.

[Bryce]

Disposal worries keep me from trying it in my home darkroom.

[Fotohuis]

Fotospeed Mono RA-4 is a product from Amaloco Photochemicals, the Netherlands.

It's very stable and has a tremendous long lifetime and can be also used in small developing machines till 27 degrees C in 2x30S (Thermaphot, Durst Printo). The only disadvantage compared to the the Rapido (33 degrees C) process is the amount of fall out of solid organics which gives more polution in the machine.
In trays it's the most simple way to get color prints processed.

http://www.amaloco.nl/pdf/overzicht.pdf

K50/K54 and in Germany sold under Dilluprint Mono RA4.


Best regards,

Robert