Developer test

[ats]

Hi All,

I'm new to this place, and new to B&W photography too.. Have started using it for a few months now..

I had made a stock sollution of D76 and have stored them in amber bottle (2.5liters in 3 liter bottle) in out institute dark room. But haven't developed a roll for about 2 months or so.

I have a few rolls to be developed and also have half of the D76 contents with me to make a stock again.. I just wanted to know any procedure for testing the developer, if it is useable or not.. Any tips?

Things I have learnt...
1. Mark the date of mixing stock sollution
2. BUY small bottles for storing 100 or 150 ml of stock sollution


Aravind

 

[JBrunner]

There are a few different ways, but I always have cut up a sheet of each kind of paper that I have, and keep the strips stored with the full sheets of paper.
When I start printing I start exposing and developing with the test strips, and make sure everything is dialed in before I go to making prints. Saves paper, and that saves money.

Edit, gads sorry I see your talking about film, not printing. Take a scrap of film and place it in your developer,at temp, it should turn black in a minute or two...

 

[srs5694]

A couple more comments:

• D-76 tends to go off-color when it goes bad, so if it looks significantly darker than when you mixed it, it's suspect. (It'll still work up to a point, so this is a conservative test.)
• This is unrelated to your main question, but it sounds as if you mixed half of your bag of powdered D-76 and kept the other half unmixed. This is a risky procedure because the powdered mix tends to separate, so you can end up with proportions of the various chemicals that are a bit off in each of your batches. The end result is batch-to-batch variability in how the developer works. In the future, you should mix the whole bag at once. If you don't shoot enough film to use a whole bag before it goes bad, you can write off some of it as unavoidable waste, buy smaller bags, switch to another developer that lasts longer (such as Rodinal or HC-110), or learn to mix your developers from scratch in whatever quantities you prefer.

 

[ats]

if you mixed half of your bag of powdered D-76 and kept the other half unmixed.

Thanks for the reply,

Actually, we get two packets of Part A and two packets of Part B. I have mixed one of each to form the stock sollution.

I will try the leader test recommended and see.

Aravind

 

[fschifano]

...we get two packets of Part A and two packets of Part B.

Huh? AFIK D-76 is not sold in a two part package. Kodak may do that in some markets, but not in the US. Ilford's ID-11 is in a two part package and is essentially the same developer.