Response to Shelf Life of T-Max and Rodinal Developers

I agree with Mr. Vanson, but as far as I can tell, Rodinal lasts forever. I've had this stuff turn the color of an eggplant and work as well as the day I'd opened it, some 3-5 years before! Xtol will go south about 3-6 months after mixing, but it's so cheap, I just keep new packs around for whenever I need them. PMK will last forever in brown glass bottles. In fact, I 'age' my 'A' solution by mixing up 3 litres and placing it in a brown glass jug with a natrual cork stopper. I take 1/2 litre at a time from the big jug for daily use, and mix up two more litres when I've taken that much out. This way I always have 'aged' PMK available. This increases the stain with such films as TMX. Gordon Hutchings' latest Book of Pyro describes this little trick. I run a custom B&W lab and go through 500g of dry pyro at least once a year.

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