I'm still shooting and developing B&W as well. I bought a few liters of Rodinal when Agfa went under, all in 500ml bottles. From what I've read, it will last a long time. It's one of my favorite developers, so I haven't been giving it a chance to sit around in opened bottles. AFAIK, the sealed bottles will last indefinitely.
I also use HC-110, which is similarly reputed to last a very long time. I use it less frequently and have used concentrate that was almost 1 year out of date with no problems - the development times per dilution and temp were consistent with fresh concentrate. However, the oldest bottle of HC110 got a bit "chunky" towards the end - as if something was starting to precipitate out. It also turned a slightly darker color. One experience I had - when I inherited my father's photo gear, there was lots of chemistry that was decades old. I used the half bottle of rapid fixer (concentrate) and it worked fine. (Of course -with fixer, improperly fixed film may look fine for a while but it's been a few years and everything seems OK.) He had powder developer in cans and those mixed up great - indistinguishable from brand new. However, almost everything in the paper/foil packets that was over 10 years old or so had some degree of a brown tint to it. The Microdol (which usually is a little brown anyhow) and D76 worked fine. I mixed up some dektol and it was the color of cola - but worked OK as a film developer, and despite the color was consistent with the development times for D72 (which it is very similar to.) Of the chemistry I have on hand, I'm most concerned about the HC110 and the stuff in paper/foil packets (I bought a big lot of D76 off ebay a few years ago.) But odds are everything will out last me. - MCC Toralf Lund wrote: > Anyhow, I was just wondering if any of you lot have any opinions on the > *actual* shelf life of photo chemicals, notably Rodinal developer and > Agefix fixer. I mean, I know what the official white-papers and various > other resources on the web will tell you, but I suspect the figures > given are generally very pessimistic. > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mark Cassino Photography Kalamazoo, Michigan www.markcassino.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
