1 year old developer

[stevebrot]

Just hung up a roll of Rollei Retro 100 developed in the last ounce from my 1 quart bottle of FG-7. It looked pretty nasty, but I said to myself, "What the hey? Here is an opportunity to see if nasty looking FG-7 performs as bad as it looks." Short story...Even with a 10% increase in development time the negatives are thin, thin, thin.

Lesson learned. Pity...there were some nice photos on that roll...


Steve

(Replacement developer is on the way. Ditto for a supply of glass bottles to aliquot it off into.)

 

[AJRoss47]

Hi all. I stumbled on this because I was searching to as what 1 year old ID-11 or D-76 would look like. While reading this I realized they're 22 months old. Mixed 1-11-15 after a friend's wedding. Anywho. I mixed up the ID-11 and poured it into my 1qt developer container and even though it has a slight grey tint from the silvers in it (i has used it for about 4 or 5 rolls of Delta 400) after a minute or so the silvers started to settle and the liquid was still clear and had almost no smell, just that very very faint smell of developer.

I store them in 1qt Amber glass bottles with some marbles to displace the air out.
I've found if you by a 1qt bottle of Bud Light, even though the glass is much more thin than the chemical storage bottles you would buy from a photography supply, you save about $3 per bottle and get a quart of beer while you're at it. The only rust is any dramatic temerature change will break the glass. This happened with a batch of C-41 chemicals when I moved them from the fridge (where I used to store my developers) to the water bath the warm up. BOY was I more than a bit miffed.
I've found the plastic brown storage bottles seem to allow oxygen molecules to permeate the plastic and the chemicals to sour. Also, if you work in 1/2 gallon (2 litre) or 1 gallon (3.8L) batches check with a local liquor store or brewery for Amber glass bottles.

Being unemployed for a little over a month has caused a lot of stress and anxiety as well as financial burdens to say the least, but I still have a freeze full of film so I may see about making use of some of the time while waiting to hear back from employers.

So my chems surprisingly didn't appear or smell to have had much change at all. I did a clip test with a leader and it looks good at the standard development times, it isn't completely solid black except for the bit at the end which hangs out ALL the time and gets the most light. Though it is dim in my kitchen so perhaps it's not completely solid black because it didn't get a whole lot of light. Either way, if it works, I reckon I'll have a hard time getting any of the highlights to blow out.lol

I also tested the fixer and it cleared completely in 4 minutes. A little longer than usual if I remember correctly, but if my calculation is right 11 minutes should be fine.

I'm going to attempt to shoot a roll of Kentmere 100 (freezer stored) that's almost as old as the chems and give it a try to see what I get. I'll report back with my findings.

 

[Down Under]

Dump it. Three common sense rules apply here:-
1. Images are valuable.
2. Developer is cheap.
3. Life is short.

To elaborate on (3), best to keep it sweet, and not waste precious life time in the darkroom fidding with old developers and other chemistry. Like so much else is life, fresh is everything!

To give you a more personal perspective on all the above, I recently did a complete re-evaluation of all my darkroom processes, and madethe decision to dump a large selection of developers, notably home mixed Thornton and Leica two bath (some of you may recall that in the past I've been praising the former on this forum as literally the gods' own film nectar), old Microdol and HC-110 I've had bottled for ages and a full carton of old classic Agfa (does anyone remember Rodinal Special?) concentrated developers they ceased manufacturing in the early years of this century if not earlier. For the time being I have returned to the old tried and true D76/ID11. I fully intend to give Xtol a test in the near future, but I must admit I've been somewhat put off this developer by the conflicting advice I've read in this forum.

With respect to the case of Agfa I have five unopened bottles of Rodinal Special left and I confess to having such a nostalgic fondness for this developer, that I intend to run tests on a few older films from my freezer, some I've kept since the '90s. Agfa RodSpec gave me absolutely the best negatives I've ever shot on such films as Kodak Panatomic-X and TMax V.1 as well as the older version of Ilford Pan F.

As I see it, for me recalling the past with rose-tinted lenses is pleasant over a Cuban cigarillo and a glass of good vintage red at the end of the day, but today's photography like today'snlife is really all about the here and now. Like everyone else I have to live in the present, even in the darkroom. Using only fresh developers reduces the potential for disasters by one factor less. I like this thought.

 

[pentaxuser]

Well after more than 6 years I imagine he has dumped it. In fact he may have dumped analogue or certainly APUG. He opened the post on Sep 5 2010 and was last seen on Sep 6 2010.

Was it something we said?

pentaxuser

 

[Kodachromeguy]

Wow, this is an old conversation. In my experience, old Rodinal seems to last for years and years as long as it has been kept sealed in its original bottle. I recently developed some 120-size Panatomic-X (also long expired, needless to say), and I used some Rodinal from a bottle that I had first opened in 2010. Some of you old-timers may recall that Rodinal once came in little brown glass bottles. I should have saved some of them....