Camera Obscura

Dupont 4-R problems

During the re-development I noticed some stains and irregularities in the negatives. They look like the streaks that I obtained with the old mirror toning by Tetenal when the bath wasn’t shacked correctly.

As I didn’t know if they came from the development or the reducer, I tried to pre-humidify the negatives before the reduction and the situation lightly ameliorated. Shaking continuously and energetically during the re-development seems eliminating the problem.

I noticed other types of stains, completely different from the firsts. Some marked right lines, maybe some problems of Adox films.

In each case, defects are visible in uniform zones, making the negatives poor of details unusable.

Results of negative reduction

The reducer seems working out. It reduces strong densities and intensifies the weak. I must admit I couldn’t believe it until I saw it with my own two eyes.

The majority of reduced films turned into decent cyanotype prints. There’s an augmentation of the shoulder of the negative curve and in many occasions lights, even if they become printable in a reasonable time, are flat and dirty. In some other cases anyway, negatives gives more than acceptable prints.

I printed with a friend of mine a series of cyanotypes of the last fragments of the Berlin wall. Unprintable negatives, with high washed lights even after 40’ of UV, after reducing, gave best results in 12’. The final print of one of my portrait instead is barely acceptable, with high, dirty and flat lights.

Conclusions on Dupont 4-R, Eder’s harmonizing reducer

The few experiments I made with Dupont 4-R, Eder’s harmonizing reducer surely surpassed all my expectations. This reducer saves unusable negatives even if it can’t work magic, and sometime results are mediocre. It depends on the image and its negative; talking about the Wall’s series, the result has been more than satisfying and the reducer allowed me to save otherwise unprintable negatives.

Its only problem is related to the stains obtained during the re-development. Even if an important shook seems to eliminate all the little streaks from the film, there are some clear and unpleasant lines that remain and turn the print of images with huge uniform zones impossible.

I only need to verify if those problems are due to Adox films defects, to the re-development product used (Perceptol) or to the particular formulation of the reducer. In fact the use of a higher quantity of hydrochloric acid gives a reducer that nears the formula described in “The darkroom cookbook”, and could maybe remove the problem.

In any case the experience demonstrates the saying that all the printer of antique techniques knows: “do not throw anything away, one day you’ll find a way to use your waste”! In this case, some unprintable negative has been reduced in a gratifying manner, giving prints far from any expectations.

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