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  #1  
Old 31st October 2012, 06:13 PM
KeithM KeithM is offline
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Default Developer Shelf Life?

Showing my ignorance here, but is there a way (short of actually developing a film) of testing whether or not a developer still has life left in it? Last year I failed to realise that a (just over) 3-month old bottle of Ilfosol had lost all of it's powers and I ended up with 36 frames of nothing (and no, I did not get my developer and fix bottles mixed up).

One reason that I run into the situation is that I spend seven to nine weeks or so out of the country twice a year. I opened a bottle of Aculux 3 in mid-July, used it until the end of Aug and then decanted it into a squeezy bottle to try to minimise oxidisation. Returned to the UK the end of last week and am in a quandary as to whether or not the Aculux is still active. Prior to leaving the country I did email Roger Parry (Technical Manager) and was advised "Shelf life is very much dependant on the amount of air in the bottle but on average it should be OK for 3 or 4 months after opening." Hmmm, my bottle is three and a half months old, hence the question re testing.
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Old 31st October 2012, 06:52 PM
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Argentum Argentum is offline
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first off the bottle the developer comes in is likely to be NON porous to air otherwise its shelf life would be greatly reduced.
secondly using tetenal protectan inert gas to fill bottle after using some will reduce oxidation of developer in storage.
thirdly store bottle in cool dark place. In a cupboard with NO light getting to it.
fourthly buy four 250ml brown glass bottles and decant 1 litre of liquid developer into them (to the brim). Then only one is at risk at anytime of oxidation.
Do all those and you will lengthen keeping time greatly.

I would also suggest (since your development is infrequent) that you use developers that have known good keeping properties which are Rodinal or HC110 or Ilford DD-X or Tetenal Ultrafin Plus. These all come in syrup form (glycol I think except rodinal) and don't oxidise nearly as readily as some liquid developers. Don't mix stock solutions from them but carefully measure from syrup using a syringe and use above keeping recommendations too.

Then you will have at least a year of keeping an opened bottle and many years with Rodinal or HC110 (from 1 litre bottle not smaller).

oxidising developer changes colour as the air gets to it, usually going darker from a light straw colour which is OK. Working solution usually changes colour very quickly.
Rodinal is darker to start with but even when it goes really dark it still works.

Last edited by Argentum; 31st October 2012 at 07:06 PM.
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Old 31st October 2012, 07:07 PM
Mike O'Pray Mike O'Pray is offline
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I don't think that with Argentum's precautions or decanting stock solution into winebags that I have ever had any developer die in as short a time as three and half months.

Xtol isn't top of the league in terms of longevity but currently in a winebag I have 13 month old Xtol which is still OK

A test which is fairly reliable is to develop the leader in an open tray for the time needed for the actual film. If it goes as "black" as leaders do in OK developers then you can be fairly sure that it is OK.

As the leader is the equivalent of an over-exposed negative then you should know if it is working quite a while before the full dev time is up.

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Old 31st October 2012, 07:26 PM
KeithM KeithM is offline
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Thank you both for the replies and information/suggestions. With the current bottle of Aculux I will certainly use Mike's film-leader test (I used the one from today's film to test the fixer, prior to using the last of my little bottle of Rodinal) and use Argentum's ideas for the next one. Or maybe I will just stay with Rodinal...

Thanks again.
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Old 31st October 2012, 08:11 PM
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Definitely Rodinal or HC 110.
I have a three quarters empty bottle of Rodinal which must be approaching nine years old - I tried it recently and it worked fine.
HC110, get the 1 litre concentrate, decant it out into smaller glass bottles with tight lids and it will last ages. I syringe out the concentrate for each film I develop then tightly cap the bottle again and it works incredibly well.
Barry Thornton's two bath home made developer lasts an incredibly long time too.
Having been there with non-active developers I know how frustrating it can be!
Phil
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Old 1st November 2012, 01:18 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KeithM View Post
Thank you both for the replies and information/suggestions. With the current bottle of Aculux I will certainly use Mike's film-leader test (I used the one from today's film to test the fixer, prior to using the last of my little bottle of Rodinal) and use Argentum's ideas for the next one. Or maybe I will just stay with Rodinal...

Thanks again.
Actually you should be OK with the smaller bottles of Rodinal. It's the HC110 which they dilute further in the smaller than 1 litre sizes. I think the ultrafin plus only comes in one litre but could be wrong about that. Not sure about the DDX in smaller sizes.
Ifords HC developer is probably good too but I never used it so not sure.

Basically if the manufacturers mixing dilutions that come with the bottle are the same as on the larger (1 litre size) then you should be OK with the samller size. If in doubt buy the 1 litre and up size.
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