Tetenal E-6 shelf life

I am itching to process my first rolls of slide film, but only have a few. The description for Tetenal says that one-shot processing is possible. Does this mean that the chemicals have a long shelf-life if un-mixed?

I have 5L unopened kits that are several years old. I opened one from 2014 last weekend and it was like new. I opened it because the half used kit from March went bad, yellow precipitate in the BX 2 and crystals in the FD. But that is because 6 months went by after opening. use the kit withing 4-6 weeks and no problem as long as you use protectan spray to preserve the opened concentrates. .

Ariston said:

The description for Tetenal says that one-shot processing is possible. Does this mean that the chemicals have a long shelf-life if un-mixed?

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Hmm. I dont see any connection between these two sentences.. I know that Tetenal recommends to process as much film as possible per volume to yield the best resutls.

pukalo said:

I opened one from 2014

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I dont remember if Tetenal put any dates on the boxes of their E6 kits.
Personally, I buy a kit once a year and use it within two-three weeks when I have enough films to process.

iakustov said:

Hmm. I dont see any connection between these two sentences..

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Which HC110, I mix just enough to process one or two rolls and leave the rest as concentrate so it lasts longer. Is this not possible with Tetenal? I usually decant unused portions into glass bottles, filled to the brim.

I guess no one has tried to stretch the Tetenal out in that way. My problem is that I shoot B&W, color negative, and slide film all at once; so no single developer gets used very much at any given time.

I was being impatient, but I guess I'll just have to wait until I have more slide film to develop.

HC110 is designed to keep well after opening - even if you have used a bit of it.
Many other photographic chemicals are designed to be mixed up and used promptly after opening - otherwise they start to deteriorate quickly.
And there are lots of photographic chemicals that are somewhere in between.

The first digit of the production number on the box is the year, the next two are the week of production. For example 426xxxxxx = 2014, week 26

once you open a bottle of concentrate, with the help of protectan spray, you will get around 4 months of shelf life. this is my experience at least.

Ariston said:

Which HC110, I mix just enough to process one or two rolls and leave the rest as concentrate so it lasts longer. Is this not possible with Tetenal?

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Well, per my experience, I would not leave the opened Tetenal concentrates for long, a couple of months maximum. But this is just my experience based on the number of films I ruined..
I thought you were talking about unopened concentrates, sorry for misunderstanding.

pukalo said:

The first digit of the production number on the box is the year, the next two are the week of production. For example 426xxxxxx = 2014, week 26

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Nice to know, thanks!

This has been discussed many time here; a search of the archives might prove fruitful.

As a brief summary from my own experience, I normally process ten rolls per batch. This takes between six and eight weeks and there is never an issue with the chemicals when the last roll of film is developed. I believe the most done in a single batch was 12 rolls. These came out fine but the time required for the last rolls just wasn't worth the cost savings. Ten rolls per batch is 50 rolls per kit, which is well under 2 bucks per roll. That's cheap enough for me.

When I open the kit and mix the first batch, the remaining concentrates are aliquoted into 100ml bottles. I did not do this with the first kit and there was some oxidation of BLX 2 by the time the last batch was mixed. Contrary to the opinion of the "experts" here, it mixed up and worked just fine. Since starting the use of the smaller bottles there has never been any issue with the chemicals for the last batch, which would be mixed about 8 months after the kit is opened.

PET works fine for all the concentrates EXCEPT the color developer (both parts). This need to be kept in HPDE or glass.