Kodak to exit bankruptcy

[Drew Wiley]

Stephen - just don't confuse the Arista mono "room temp" product with the Arista commercial version, which appears to be identical to Kodak RA/RT. I too lucked
out a finally managed to bag a second CPI in very good shape for less than the cost of a replacement gearmotor and control for my older one, which doesn't need
any repair yet after all these years, but I didn't want to get hung out to dry if it did. Ektar is both finer grained than Portra and actually more accurate in terms of
color, provided it is correctly color-balanced to begin with. But it's a little more fussy than Portra in exposure. Don't believe all the web nonsense that the geeks say
about color issues with this film - most of that is an unfortunate accident of all their scanning and digi printing variables that they mess around with when they've
probably incorrectly exposed it to begin with. With CAII paper, either RC or supergloss, it's a marriage made in heaven, and the masking protocol is very similar
to 160VC.

[Stephen Willard]

Drew,

Can you still get parts for the CPI? If so where?

I just purchased three rolls of 40"x160' of CAII, and I really like the paper. It does not crease as easily as the older paper and the images appear to be much crisper. I think I will actually try shooting Ektar 100 to see what it feels like.

[Drew Wiley]

CPI has long been out of business, Stephen, but none of the electrical components were exotic. You can easily get gearmotors and speed controls from some place like Grainger, and any serious electronics hobbyist could probably repair the control panel. The reversible feature is probably not even essential to RA4, though I personally use it; and RA4 isn't anywhere near as fussy about RPM as Ciba was. I'm doing a fair amount of goofing off still, just to see where the comfort zone of these various combinations of new products best resides. Ektar can be over the top sometimes. The high-gloss polyester base version of CAII also has more snap in the extremes than the RC version. I did a 4X enlargement the other nite of a slightly soft 160VC neg with an added weak (.15 Dmax) contrast increase mask, and it sure did resemble a Ciba, esp compared to the older print on the pre-II polyester CA medium. An Ektar neg would have done that directly, without the mask; and some direct sunlight masks seem to need mild contrast reduction masks. But in terms of color accuracy, I have put in a LOT of preliminary
practice, with many thrown out test prints in the learning curve. Some of them ended up as large commercial decor, but not keepers for me. Now all that work is
starting to pay off, at least qualitatively. I'm still a long ways from rebuilding an adequate inventory of 30x40 prints, and am still mostly in the more timid, less
expensive stage of printing 20x24's. I have on hand all three types of CAII paper - the RC glossy, RC matte, and Fujiflex Supergloss - want the right shoe for the
foot, or the anticipated lighting conditions. But that Supergloss.... it's really somethin'