s_p_briggs

I found this thread whilst looking for pretty much the same subject.

Depending on whereabouts in the world you are reading this, you could well be in a state of Lockdown. That leaves you with a great opportunity to get in the darkroom if you are working from home; or even more time if you are home but not working.

I have got some Kodak Ektacolor (RA-4) chemicals that started out as a 4x5L Developer Replenisher RT/LU kit. I mix them by the litre and store them in smaller bottles for use with my manual tube processing.

The problem is that I have run out of Starter. The only way to get a new bottle would be online mail order (assuming my stockist has any), for which the delivery charges would be half the cost of the bottle of Starter added on top.

I have read previously what the existence of this thread appears to confirm: it is possible to use the chemicals without the Starter. Simply mix the chemicals following the instructions but miss out adding the Starter and just put the equivalent amount of water in instead.

So that looks like no issue as I can start from scratch with a batch of chemicals mixed without Starter, develop the test strip prints, adjust the colour by analysing the test strips and then print full prints.

Ordinarily with the chemicals mixed including a Starter, they can be reused a number of times depending on the size of the prints following the guidelines on the Kodak Alaris (J39) technical notes.

So what I really need to know is whether anyone can advise about how many times the Starter-less chemicals can be reused; and how long they are likely to keep in tightly capped bottles (days or weeks). In both cases, the answer may well be that absence of the Starter makes no difference to capacity or longevity, which would be good news.

<p>As I am in the UK, Freestyle is a non-starter. Fotospeed would have been ideal but they've stopped making it. Also, with Fuji only doing RA4 paper on rolls now, a switch of paper to Kodak is coming in the future.

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My drum takes 200ml, so if I mixed up one litre and used it once (five lots) that would turn out quite expensive; however, if I can reuse it three or four times before it is exhausted that would make it more viable.

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The chemicals that Nova sell are supplied to them by Tetenal. They also sell Tetenal's branded chemicals as well.

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<p>I have a feeling that somebody will almost certainly have asked this question sometime in the not-too-distant past. If that is so, point me to the answers!</p>

<p>I have not done any darkroom work in the last couple of years, so naturally I have no chemicals in stock. I decided that this winter I would get some chemicals and do some prints from the huge number of photographs that I have taken since I was last shut in a dark room with an enlarger.</p>

<p>So here is the problem: most of the vendors of colour chemicals appear to have stopped making them altogether or now only make them in bulk stock for professional labs, etc.</p>

<p>In order that I can work with the lights on, I have always used a drum for processing. In the past I used to use chemicals such as Paterson’s Photocolor that could be mixed and used on a one/two-shot basis and then thrown away. That gave the possibility of calculating cost because I knew how much solution I was going to get from a bottle of concentrate and how many prints it could process.</p>

<p>A small amount of research has led me to two possibilities for getting colour chemicals in not too colossal quantities for developing prints using RA4 paper (I have lots of Fuji Crystal Archive left).</p>

<p>The two possible chemicals that I have found that appear to be suitable for my ‘low usage’ operations are Tetenal Colortec RA4, which comes in a 5 litre kit; and Kodak Ektacolor RA4, which comes in a 4x5 litre kit.</p>

<p>I have been trying to find out about the re-usage characteristics of these two products as I cannot find any information about how they could be used on a one-shot basis. Okay, so I could use them on a one-shot basis by simply throwing them away, but I expect that would be uneconomical as well as wasteful.</p>

<p>So can anybody help me out with information about how many times a batch of developer and bleach fix of either product can be reused once mixed or with details about replenishing them? I can pour the chemicals out of the print drum into a bottle to keep them for reuse but how many times can they be reused and how long will they keep?</p>

Thanks for the replies so far; yes, you are right that the 7000i doesn't have AF-C mode.

However, fitted with a Minolta 100-300 lens or a Sigma 70-300 lens, the 7000i does track the subject, whilst it doesn't with the Sigma 135-400 lens.

A thought that I had was that I'd read somewhere that with lens above a certain focal length, the auto-focusing system didn't always work in poor contrast situations. Can anyone shed any light on that?

Does anybody know of any "issues" with the Minolta-fit Sigma 135-400

APO lens?

I have this lens but it doesn't seem to refocus properly on my 7000i,

which makes it useless for sports photography.

All my other lens work fine, both Sigma and Minolta manufactured, so

I know that the fault is not with the camera body.

If anybody has got access to the lens and the camera, could they try

it out and see whether they have a problem?

I don't want to send the lens back to the supplier if this is a

design flaw rather than a fault specific to my lens. It's not

inconceivable that Sigma have made the lens to a specification that

is not backwards-compatible as far as the 7000i.

I'd describe the problem as such:

Point the camera at something moving towards you; e.g. stand beside

the road and point it at approaching traffic and press the camera

button halfway. As the subject approaches, follow it and the camera

should continually refocus.

What happens with mine is that it focuses when I press the camera

button, but then it continues to show the "in focus" green symbol

whilst the subject gets nearer and nearer and doesn't refocus. Net

result: one focused image and a load of unfocused images when using

the multiple frame function.

I would try it on my 600si, but I can't get the current lens off it!

Jason,

I'd get the Dynax 7000i (Maxxum 7000i). I've had one for over 15 years and I recently picked up another for next to nothing, virtually mint, off Ebay. My old one is worn out but I've never had any trouble with it. If the one I bought recently only lasted a couple of years it would be cheap and cost me a little more than a couple of disposable cameras!!

Conversely, I bought a 600si Classic new a few years back and it's not a patch on my old workhorse. The bodywork on the more recent camera is flimsy plastic and I've had to have the motherboard replaced and several of the mechanical controls don't work properly.

I've not been sufficiently impressed by any of the current Minolta range to shell out for them.

Only the top end of the range models after the 7000i have the features that the 7000i has got. The 7000i has 3fps motorwind, the 600si is only 2fps, etc.

I don't know what you are photographing, but the 7000i isn't as quiet as recent models, so if you're shooting nature, that might be a negative.