There is no more graded RA-4 paper on the market. All paper is probably intended for digital printing anyway. This creates problems like color crossover for optical printing. However, it is still possible to make amazing prints with an enlarger in 2025.

The lack of graded paper, however, means that contrast is not a thing you can control by simply using a paper that react differently to light.

The manipulation of contrast on the image must be done chemically.

This is the color head of my enlarger, it can be used for contrast control of black and white print too, but this is not the intended use.

These informations should match the ones for Meopta Color 4 too, they use the same exact color filters.

Filtering wheels

The head has the following subtractive filters intended for print color correction

• C: Cyan
• M: Magenta
• Y: Yellow
• D: Neutral Density

Contrast control with black and white using ILFORD Multigrade

As a guideline, ILFORD’s Technical Information Contrast Control memo for has provide as a guideline the following conversion table between Multigrade filters and Meopta color filtering values.

These are just a relatively sparse list of developers I have used for black and white film.

Rodinal (from Labo-Argentique)

High acutance, my mainly used so far, generally at 1+25 to 1+50. Reveal grain as it is.

Used 2 times to do semi-stand at 1+100, agitate 1 minute, stand 30 minutes, 4 inversions, then 30 minutes of stand again.

When developing Ilford Delta 3200, it is better to push development time one extra stop when using the time form Massive Dev chart to get a more contrasted/denser negative that is easier to scan.

After getting bad results from one development session and not being sure why, I decided that every C41 development should be logged

Film surface area

The best kit I can get for C41 color chemistry is the Bellini one. It is a kit for 16 rolls of 24 exposures as per its datasheet.

Because the lifetime of the bleach, fixer, and stabilizer is higher than the developer, you can also purchase the developer part separately on the Bellini kit to “recharge” it. Everything here is talking about one bottle of the developer specifically, and not specifically the lifetime of one kit

Those are attempts at developing film with Caffenol

First roll, Fomapan 100 from Flexaret (test) 2024-09-08

This is a roll of film that I knew was damaged by the camera (rollers for 35mm film dug into the emulsion and backing paper. I fixed it since)

Tried to develop it in Caffenol’s- main recipe

• Sodium Carbonate 54 g
• Vitamin C 16g
• Instant coffee (Belle France, store brand) 40g
• tap water to 1L

I think temperature was around 24 degrees, but I proceeded as if it was 20 degrees.

I love shooting color slides. But slide film is expensive today. Development is also expensive at most labs (Though, I do develop my E-6 film myself using this kit from Bellini Foto. You can find this kit for a bit less than 45€ at most photography online stores in Europe, and it has a capacity of 9 rolls of 135-36)

I like shooting slides for the sake of making slides that can be projected. Not specifically for the color rendering and contrast. Though, I am in love with Fuji Velvia 100, a film that I really hope they will continue to make.

I scan all my film myself using a DSLR. I am currently waiting on a Copy stand. used contraption I 3d printed in the past, but recently got an Essential Film Holder.

I attempt to expose the histogram to the right to get the most information possible in the shadows.

I align the camera with the film by looking at a mirror though the camera and trying to have the center of the lens in the center of the

Easel

L P L 21 x 26 cm

Max paper size usable on this thing is 20x25 (8"x10"), there is a screws on the back to set the offset of the top left corner for the margins.

TOG (French brand) 30 x 40cm

It’s a 30x40 cm 2 bladed easel. It’s settings for margin are strange. It otherwise is adequate to do these bigger prints. I only actually used it for making one photograph of this size. But it works well.

These numbers are in the Meopta filter scale. The meopta color 3 user manual has a conversion table to other filters in case you want to cross reference my numbers.

There are acceptable starting filtration from one sample from what we batch of film I bought, onto whatever RA-4 paper I was able to buy. All RA-4 processing has been done at 35°C, in a kit from Bellini.

Because of where most of those results tend to hover, and because the “it looks alright most of the time” value with usual, good quality film tend to be. I will always use C0 M90 Y90 as the staring value for my Meopta Color 3. This may be due to the combo of paper manufacturer and chemistry I use (Fuji and Bellini). I do not know. But it works for me.

I use the Bellini RA-4 kit.

The Bellini kit is for 5L. though I prepared only what was needed for 1L of each (beside the stabilizer)

I store all chemicals in collapsible bottles so they do not contain air, to limit oxidation.

I am developing using a 8x10 drum for cibachrome, on top of an old french made “Rotocuve” motorized base.

I use to roll the drum back and forth on a table, so you know, that does not really matter.

My scanning setup works better on full, uncut rolls of film.

I currently use the Essential Film Holder on top of a CineStill CsLight. It does not fit supper well but works okay.

I have a old Durst enlarger colum that was converted into a copy stand.

I use a Canon DSLR, and a 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro. This lens is awesome

• Cut a piece of the leader at a slant for easier insertion
• Put in Essential Film Holder
• Turn on light source
  • Cool light for color negs
  • Medium light for black and white (does not matter to much)
  • Warm light for color slide (at least for Ektachrome)
• Plug DSLR to PC or Mac
  • EOS Utility is probably running, if not start it
• Camera in Av mode at f/5.6
• Set white balance to correspond to the configured light
• Attach camera to the Durst enlarger column
• Align film holder on top of light
• Fill the frame with the negative, and focus on the grain using the zoom in live view, or use autofocus if the camera is able to see the grain.
• Set camera to 100 ISO
• Expose with EV comp to push histogram to the right
• Take the first frame of the shot
  • This creates a folder in C:\User\<logon name>\Pictures\<today's date>
• Open Filmomat SmartConvert
• In preferences, change the hot folder to the one found above
• You should see that picture, adjust settings for density, contrast, color…….
• Each time you take a picture of the next frame, check exposure to see if all the dynamic range is well available at the top of the histogram, then adjust frame by frame in SmartConvert
• Once you are done, export the TIFF files
• Open those for furher editing (I do not crop them in Filmomat, I do that in DarkTable for example)

Slide film is something amazing. The colors and contrast is like nothing else. We can be happy that products like Ektachrome, Velvia, and Provia still exist today (and I surely hope that fujifilm will continue producing Velvia).

The result is obviously intended for projection. Although it was possible to make paper prints of slides.

Note the past tense. Because in 2026 you cannot use a well defined process do an analog optical print of a picture shot on slide film into a piece of paper in a darkroom.

Stabilizer

The kit comes with enough stabilizer concentrate to make like 20L of the stuff. The Stabilizer is used as preservative for the dyes, and should be the last thing to hit your film. I would advise

• Mix it with deionized or demineralized water (whatever you put in a clothes iron should be fine)
• Add a wetting agent to the stabilizer I personally use Agepon because my lab stock BERGGER producs very well. Photo-Flo or the Ilford one, it does not matter. Add the recommended concentration on the packaging to your stabilizer when you mix it (Agepon is 1:500)
• After fixing, wash using the ILFORD method of doing 5, then 10, then 20 inversion with running water. But do it with water temperture in the range for the stabilizer (between 32C and 38C)
• Stabilizer should be used one shot (only use fresh one). Do the 3 minute continuous agitation. Because of the added wetting agent it may get very foamy in the top of the tank. Let the film stand in the wetting agent for like a minute then pull the reels out and shake them out to remove excess. squeegee the film with your gloves between two fingers wet with the stabilizer solution.