Developer shelf life

[Little Prince]

Can someone recommend me a general purpose developer (ie., not speed increasing or acutance or anything that compromises one parameter for another) with a long shelf life?

I've been using the D76 I can find in my school darkroom, but it's quality is inconsistent and sometimes I think it is not fresh. So I stored some of my own FX-39. My usage is very infrequent, so by the time I had done a few rolls, the developer had begun to go bad.

Any suggestions that I can store over a period of a few months at a time? I guess powdered versions must store better than liquids?

 

[derevaun]

HC-110 is probably the archetypal answer to your question. Rodinal keeps indefinitely too, but on closer reading of your question it might be classified as an accutance developer.

 

[Little Prince]

Great. I've read some good things about HC-110. Is it available powdered?

(for a while there, I'd begun to think I was on the ignore list of most people...)

 

[peter_n]

Anand I bought my first developer today and ease of use and long shelf life were among my criteria.

I invested in a bottle of HC-110 and we'll see how it goes... 😉 I think GeneW here uses it quite a bit.

Kodak HC-110 Developer - An Unofficial Resource Page

 

[peter_n]

Oops I didn't see that someone else had got in ahead of me... 🙄 It comes in bottles BTW.

 

[FPjohn]

Rodinol

Rodinol

Hello:

HC110 and Rodinol as concentrates last a very long time. Rodinol is also cheap.

yours
Frank

 

[RayPA]

...
I've been using the D76 I can find in my school darkroom, but it's quality is inconsistent and sometimes I think it is not fresh...

Is your school darkroom replenishing the developer? That was the case when I was in school. I hated it, for the same reasons you state. I find it's best to use D76 as a one-shot developer, and for better consistency, diluted 1:1 (although I use it straight too).

.

 

[kaiyen]

First off, it's almost impossible to find a developer that doesn't have a "compromise" of acutance or its alternative, grain solvency. Probably the closest would be D76 1+1, which is just enough water to dilute the sulfite, but not so much that you introduce acutance.

D76 will easily keep for 6 months in tight bottles. Repleneshing does, indeed, mess things up. If you want a powder, then D76 it is. Try to keep your own supply if you have to - pour it into smaller bottles (1L?) which would be carryable to the darkroom.

I think HC-110 is an acutance developer, BTW.

allan

 

[Little Prince]

I understand that there is a compromise and that nothing might be considered 'standard'. But such as it is, I would prefer to use what are thought to be standard developers for now since I am not trying for a particular look. What I mean is, I don't want to go to any of the extremes.

I don't know what they do with the developer in the darkroom. These things are often managed by some students who do part-time at the facility. I don't think they know much about the stuff. They're probably just following generic instructions.

Anyway, I'd rather store my own stuff so I know what's going on. Let me see what I can get as powders so that I may mix it up in small quantities as and when I need it. Is this a good idea? Is there any reason to believe that powders won't oxidize as easily as liquids (if that is what they do)?

Was it normal for the FX-39 (liquid) to go bad in a couple of months? I didn't take any special measures like using an inert gas to top off the bottle after pouring out. It was stored in its own bottle, tightly closed and in a locker in the darkroom.

 

[kaiyen]

FX-39 has a notoriously short shelf life. A couple of months is about right.

Generally, people mix up the entire pack of powder at once. They are usually in 2 packs, so it's almost impossible to mix up 1/2 of pack A and 1/2 of pack B.

If you want to store you own dev and just use up exactly the amount you need, then go with a liquid developer.

There really isn't a liquid equivalent to D76, in terms of its flexibility as both solvent and acutance developer. You could try something like DDX, which gives good speed, plus sharpness without too much grain.

allan

 

[RayPA]

A good general rule of thumb for developer shelf-life would be, '6 months in a full, fully sealed bottle, and 2 months in a half-full fully sealed bottle.' That's why it's a really good idea to have several 500ml bottles around (and smaller sizes too). I use both 1-liter and 500ml brown glass bottles.

You can buy D76 in packs (dry) that create 1-liter of solution. Mix that up and get some 500ml or 250ml bottles to store it, and you're good for 6-months. Once you've mixed the powder developer into stock solutions, it's really no different (storage-wise) from buying the equivalent developer in liquid form.

As others have stated here, however, concentrates (e.g., HC110, Rodinal, etc.) last considerably longer, but require measuring out smaller quantities to create a working solution. For instance, typical Rodinal dilutions are 1:50, 1:100. I have a really small graduate and a eye-dropper for mixing.

Diafine lasts a long time too.

I just mixed up some PMK. It supposedly has a shelf life measured in years.


.

 

[peter_n]

When I bought the HC-110 syrup yesterday from Calumet, I also dropped in to my local pharmacy and bought an oral syringe that measures out very small quantities of liquid. Cost was $2.39.

 

[StuartR]

Rodinal is great because you can fit the bottle in your pocket, you can just put it in your fridge and you are good for months. I would try to replace the bottle every 6 months just to be sure, as it is pretty cheap anyway. You did neglect to mention one thing though...what film are you using? Rodinal is phenomenal for Acros and other slower films, but it can make fairly large grain for 400 speed flims (though it looks nice in some images).

 

[StuartR]

Also, power developers are designed to be mixed all at once. You probably don't want to try to measure out the quantities as you use them. Not only is it potentially inaccurate, but the less time you muck around with it, the less chance that you are inhaling the particulates, which are not good for you at all.

And not to be contrarian, but I really did not like the results I got with HC110. The only developers I have really really liked in the long term have been D76, Xtol and Rodinol.

 

[Little Prince]

I've been reading all this stuff and absorbing your comments. I believe it's not possible to be scientific in choice of developer and film because of the amount of subjectivity involved in it. Some people like dev A with film B and some don't. I have no way of knowing if I'll like it without trying.

Of course, life is too short for me to try all combinations, so I'll make some reasonably informed decisions. For instance right now I'm not looking for speed increase and so on.

Now that I've explained some of my background philosophy 🙂, I might make more sense to all the various people who are going to read this. Trust me, I will definitely be trying Rodinal and DDX at some point of time.

Again with films, so far I have no favorites. My latest batch of film waiting to be developed includes a roll each of APX 100, Neopan 1600 and Delta 3200 in 35mm, and one of HP5+ 400, Neopan 400 and FP4+ 125 in 120 size.

So it's going to be very hard to answer Stuart 🙁. Anyway, I like the idea of small bottles. I think I'm going to try HC110 next. Let's see where I get with it.

(I can never seem to write a small post)

 

[StuartR]

Anand -- your choice of films makes it rather difficult to give advice. D76 and Xtol are probably the most versatile in this case. But the problem is that Delta 3200 and Neopan 1600 require something very different from a developer than FP4 or Apx 100. One of the most important things is to stick to just a few films and really learn then before changing anything. There are so many things that can control the performance of a given film that you need to experiment. It took me a long time before I really found the fine grained film combo that I like best -- Acros in Rodinal 1:100 for 18 minutes.