D76 Gone Bad?

[jonw]

I thought I was developing 10 sheets of 4x5 Arista film in my JOBO. I used FS D76 which was mixed 3/08 and had not been used since then. Since the D76 mixture was 5 months old on the shelf I decided to use it at FS and for 8:00 minutes. I used fresh fixer and permawash with a prewash at the start of the batch. When I took the film out, all of the sheets were clear....no images at all. Could old developer do this, i.e., result in not developing the images and thus get blank sheets of film? I appreciate your assistance. Jon

 

[Photo Engineer]

Jon;

Take a small sample of 35mm film and place it in the developer in the light. If the film darkens, then the developer is probably not bad. Usually, bad developer is dark in color.

PE

 

[Jon Shiu]

Hi, D76 does not go completely bad in a few months (in fact with dark old D76 I have gotten more active development, overdevelopment, in the past). So, I would look into your processing procedures, ie film was fixed, but not developed first.

Jon

 

[jonw]

Thank you for your responses. I don't have any of the old D76 left to test against. I did run another batch of film through the JOBO with some fresh Ilford developer. I may have gotten the D76 mixed up with fixer first and thus, no images. Frustrating, but just another reminder about how I must do the processing by the numbers..... Jon

 

[dancqu]

Litmus Paper

Mixed them up? The more blue the litmus
the more likely the developer. I keep litmus
paper handy. I've been known to ....

Paper can also be used to test a film developer's
level of activity. Dan

 

[Martin Aislabie]

My D76 does progressively darker as it ages.

Almost colourless when new and will turn chocolate brown if left for long enough

I won't use it when it is darker than straw coloured - I know it works OK at this point but don't want to push my luck too much

I always mix the chemicals or prepare them in the process order to avoid mix-ups and chemical carry-over issues and lay them out in the order to be used (left to right for me).

My Fixer smells (old fashioned darkroom smell) very different to D76 - which is always a quick & easy check if I ever am unsure of the contents

Martin

 

[Stew]

The D-76 should be ok. Maybe there was a mix up.

I mark on the graduates or containers I'm using: DEVELOPER,STOP, FIX and double check that I'm putting the right chemical in the right container.