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I love my old Rodinal, and I do mean OLD.

Eric Rose

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Just souped some APX 100 35mm iwith an old, ( at least 5 years) opened mostly empty, bottle of Rodinal. It was VERY black but I figured what the heck. Mixed it up at 1:50 used my normal time of 13 min's and voila, beautiful negs.

This stuff must have been given to us by aliens.
 
I assume by your post that you mean "OLD" Rodinal in every sense of the word. That is, genuine Agfa, old formulation Rodinal. Do you know if it differs in any meaningful way from the "new" Rodinal made by A&O ? Somewhere I have seen something suggesting that Foma's RO9 is actually closer to the original Agfa formulation. I have done some APX 100 in the A&O juice, and the results are very pleasing.
 
I have no idea how the new stuff compares. I stocked up on a life time supply of the AGFA Rodinal prior to it running out. I will be putting what's left in my will I suspect.
 
I want to post an attached thumbnail in this thread, but can't find requirements for size for such an attachment. I have an image of a Rodinal bottle that I would like identified.

Thanks,
Lyn Arnold
 
My understanding is that at some stage in fairly recent times, Agfa changed the fomulation of Rodinal and this is the product being continued by A & O. Foma's Fomadon RO9 is supposed to be the original Agfa formula, but I've never personally used it. There was/is another firm making the old formulatio too, but I can't recall who it was.
 
It's many years since the formula was changed, the last and only major change was when Agfa & Orwo finally realised re-uniting was no longer possible Agfa (West Germany) paid Agfa Wolfen (Orwo) to stop using the Agfa name, and also brand names as well. This was around the time Agfa and Gevaert merged, and the two companies rationalised their chemistry production. There may have been a minor change in 1972.

Ian
 
I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I've always wanted to know - how in the heck do you pronounce "Gevaert"?

Dave
 
Dave,

You can pronounce it : 'Gave' 'Art', which is quite true, literally ...

Marc
 
werra said:
Well, my current bottle of Rodinal looks like this. I have no idea, how old it is or how has it been stored. But it's going strong.
Click to expand...

Well, Werra, that hardly looks old as bottleing goes. I have been using Rodinal since it came in brown glass bottles with a rubber stopper underneath a bakelite or plastic screw cap--supposedly so the stock could be removed with a hypodermic needle without actually opening the bottle.
 
There was/is another firm making the old formulatio too, but I can't recall who it was.
Click to expand...
Adox APH 09 is supposedly the same. I dont know if thats true or not but I really like the results I get with it and EFKE 25 & 50 films.
 
I've realised that the other manufacturer I was thinking of, was/is Calbe in Germany, which is logical because they continued the chemical side of the old ORWO business in the former East Germany. Adox APH 09 is also probably the old formula Rodinal, but it is probably made for them by Calbe or Foma.
 
The first bottle I used was amber brown glass with plastic screw lid-I'm guessing 1970s. The bottle Werra posted looks like the opaque white plastic bottles from the 90's my current stock is A&O.
I think all the different types of Rodinal are confusing, I seem to remember the Foma/Calbe stuff was a slightly different dilution, but have only used Agfa branded. Now that they no longer make it I wonder what will come with my next order from Silverprint....
 
Old is the stuff that came in a glass bottle with a rubber stopper suitable for drawing developer with a hypodermic syringe. Yours is not old.

R09 is black as new and works beautifully. It is said you be closer to the original Rodinal formula.

I have some new Rodinal I transfered to a brown bottle in 1998 ( I marked it on the bottle ). It works as new.

Like most things photographic, the EPA has screwed things up. Nice warm tone papers are not to be had.
Cadnium has been removed from the emulsions and the emulsion colors have gone to pot. Maybe it is a good thing we don`t pollute ourselves off the planet. But if that is the case, why don`t they do something about jet aircraft pollution and coal fired power plants which are far more serious. They get after mercury batteries for cameras, but coal burning releases hundreds of tons of mercury into the atmosphere.

I live inside a big dirty donut called Chicago. When airlines were grounded for 30 days following 9/11, the sky cleared and was a beautiful azure blue horizon to horizon. Never saw anything like it except in Hawaii.
It took 2/3days to clear. As soon as the planes started flying again, the big dirty donut formed around Chicago and has not gone away. I guess nothing serious happened when people could not get to New York in 90 min or California in 3 hours. All about clout and who you know.
 
What I want to know is... How come you've not used up your Rodinal?? I've only been using it as my only film developer for the last 3-4 years and I've gone through many, many 500ml bottles. There's no way any of it is going to sit around for more than 3 months here in my hands.
 
Dave in Kansas said:
I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I've always wanted to know - how in the heck do you pronounce "Gevaert"?

Dave
Click to expand...

I pronounce it Geh-fart. The v == to an f.

Mostly I just call it Agfa.

tim in san jose (reporting remote from Aachen Germany)
 
werra said:
Well, my current bottle of Rodinal looks like this. I have no idea, how old it is or how has it been stored. But it's going strong.
Click to expand...

Your bottle of Rodinal shows the old West-German four-digit postal code “5090” for Leverkusen. After the German reunification in 1990, the postal codes in Germany changed to five-digits on July 1st 1993. So the latest possible production date of your Rodinal should be in early 1993.
 
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Old is the stuff that came in glass bottles with the rubber stopper I puctutured with a hyoidermic needle. Been gone for 30 years at least.

I wish I was smart enough to have saved a few bottles. The last one I tossed had an Altman Camera, Chicago , Ill. label. 89 cents I think

That was a camera store. Three stories in the middle of Chicago, Wabash and Randolph. First was camera sales. Second was darkroom and they had a small darkroom in the store, third was lighting and other pro gear . Might I forgotten some details, but Ralph closed up 30 years ago. His sales people wanted to unionize.
 
k_jupiter said:
I pronounce it Geh-fart. The v == to an f.

Mostly I just call it Agfa.

tim in san jose (reporting remote from Aachen Germany)
Click to expand...

no, "ae", or a with umlaut, is pronounced like the german "e", as the e of "then" in english..
 
Antonio Banfi said:
no, "ae", or a with umlaut, is pronounced like the german "e", as the e of "then" in english..
Click to expand...

Can't argue with that. As my GF says... "You don't even speak English so well"

I can butcher almost anything in about 4 languages.

tim in san hos eh
 
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