Question: Tray Lifespan of Rodinal

[Kevin Crisp]

Sorry, I meant UNOPENED bottle in the fridge.

[Leigh]

Your experience differs from that of innumerable folks who have used old Rodinal stock with complete success, including yours truly.

I've never stored the stock solution in the refrigerator. Perhaps extended low-temperature storage degrades it.

- Leigh

[dwross]

I guess that you already know that Evelyn Hofer used Rodinal in a tray, but in case you don't, here's my summary of her method (based on her longer description in Portrait: Theory).

She used it with Tri-X rated at 320, with a 1+50 dilution. She seems to have used it one-shot, making up just enough for the number of sheets she was going to process so that she achieved consistency. (I guess that the usual recommendation for minimum amount of concentrate per sheet would apply). She mentions counting the sheets in to the tray, emulsion side down, then cycling through them just once. After that she seems to have left them alone for five minutes, if I have interpreted her correctly, until checking with a deep green safelight for just a second to judge how much more they needed.

Good luck,
Helen

I'm reluctant to admit that I'd never heard of Evelyn Hofer. I have some appalling holes in my knowledge base. Thank you for the heads up. Inspiring woman. There was a really nice coverage of her life in the NYT. http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/parting-3/.

I still have the Rodinal I mixed up on Friday. I exposed some test film yesterday when we had a few sun breaks and I'm going to test the old stuff against new at the recommendation that Leigh posted. Curious minds and all that.
d

[Leigh]

I'm reluctant to admit that I'd never heard of Evelyn Hofer.

That's OK. I've never heard of her either. I'm not reluctant to admit it.

- Leigh

[dupont07]

@dwross and Leigh: thanks for information. I don't know that though I bought film from free style.

[mbdiesel]

I have Agfa rodinal that I bought and used in 2001. I still have 3/4 bottle stored at room temp. Works perfectly even a decade later. I compared the results with a recent bottle of Adonal from Freestyle and I can not tell the difference.