Good news for dark room fans

I'm working on a project of wet printing 35mm negatives on 11x14" Rollei 111 fibre based variable grade paper developed in Moersch's Eco 4812. Although I now work on 6 prints only for on the walls at home, the final goal is a book based on a great deal of original AAA prints.

I bought a new liter Eco 4812 for that but tried out first a bottle from 2019 which I had poured into a brown glass bottle which I had vacuumed with Vacuvin, a device known in my country to keep wine fresh. I stored the bottle at the North side of my attic. To my surprise this developer worked as new, whereas it was 1 or 2 years beyond the expiration date defined by Moersch. So that's good news number one and a compliment for Wolfgang Moersch, who earns an elevation to nobility.

The second good news is that my negatives turned out to be very stable over the last 5 years, including different brands but mostly Delta100, Rollei Infrared and Adox 100 CHS ii. All these films were developed in times following The Massive Dev Chart, plus 15% because I use the Heiland Splitgrade head with leds which asks for rather hard negatives compared to the traditional condenser heads. With all these negatives the Splitgrade comes up with mostly the same grade and exposure times, which implies very few corrections and test strips. This is good news number two with a compliment for The Massive Dev Chart and a bit for me too .

Nice, have fun with the project! Please feel free to share the results as they materialize.

I'm kind of torn on the Vacuvin thing because it's not something that will actually build a proper vacuum. It's like 300-500mbar at best, which you could argue is about "half vacuum" or so. However, in the case of a print developer, I can see how the remaining oxygen in the bottle will be captured by the sulfite in the developer (which will be plentifully present). The Vacuvin cap/lock may just be good enough to prevent too much air from seeping in over time.

Btw, in wine enthusiast circles, I see the Vacuvin now being replaced by Coravin-type solutions, that replace the drained liquid with a similar volume of argon gas. I can imagine this works very well for photochemistry/developers as well - although it's a vastly more expensive system than vacuvin.

For long-term storage of developers, a system of just filling a glass bottle with a well-fitting cap to the rim is hard to beat in simplicity, effectiveness and cost.

I don't want to change the OP's subject, but did anyone ever come up with any real idea as to who makes Rollei 111 and 112 paper? Is it really made by Foma?

otto.f said:

the final goal is a book based on a great deal of original AAA prints

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What are "AAA prints"?

runswithsizzers said:

What are "AAA prints"?

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I believe it stands for Associated American Artists...

Do you mean 6 prints on display at a time, or 6 permanently on display?

On the Vacuvin subject, I bottle everything with a squirt of butane gas (cigarette lighter gas) on top before screwing on the cap. Dirt cheap and works 100%. I keep all my chemicals in a cupboard inside the darkroom, so in my case the main reason for using brown glass bottles is that the caps are effective!

runswithsizzers said:

What are "AAA prints"?

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Andrew O'Neill said:

I believe it stands for Associated American Artists...

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I took it to mean a completely analogue workflow.
In comparison to something like a workflow that starts on film, moves to a scanned image printed to a digital negative, and then contact printed, which would be ADA.

koraks said:

replace the drained liquid with a similar volume of argon gas.

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This does work very well. Argon is heavier than air and chemically inert. In a room with very still air, you could even get away without capping or corking the bottle because the argon will cover the liquid surface and prevent oxygen from contacting the chemistry.

Perhaps not surprisingly, butane (from lighter refill cans) also works for this, and is quite a bit cheaper than argon. Some are concerned about flammability, but unless you're switching electrics on and off or shuffling on a carpeted floor in the darkroom while storing your developers, IMO it's not a major hazard. If you get your butane at a tobacconist or head shop it won't even have the garlic-adjacent odorant (makes it harder to detect leaks, but won't stink up your chemicals).

I top off any bottles of chemistry with either nitrogen or a wine preserver. Before I cap the bottles I put a piece of Parafilm - a self sealing plastic film used in laboratories - over the mouth of the bottle just to ensure no air gets in the bottle and stop any cross contamination from the cap.

Propane works just as well too, also heavier than air. A quick squirt from an (unlit) plumbers torch works well, and the bottles are cheap. Something like this:

Andrew O'Neill said:

I believe it stands for Associated American Artists...

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Not Ansel Ansel Adams? So good they named him twice

pentaxuser

Donald Qualls said:

..... In a room with very still air, you could even get away without capping or corking the bottle because the argon will cover the liquid surface and prevent oxygen from contacting the chemistry.
......

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I don't think that would work for long. Argon is heavier than air (MW=40) whereas air is 29 but the gas would diffuse reasonably quickly I think.

AAA - either Ansel Adams with a stutter, or Alcoholics Anonymous with a stutter, or American Automobile Association (AAA Insurance) without the stutter - they do publish scenic travel photos in their official magazine, including large format stock shots.

I've never tried Superman's Kryptonite in relation to darkroom chemicals, but those argon-based wine preservative canisters make the most sense to me.