salvatore
31-Dec-2014, 04:25
I have recently reactivated my dark room and I would like to perform some analog photography.
I found in my shelter some material, films, papers, developers and fixers propably more than 30 years old, kept under the normal temperature conditions of a basement.
Before throwing everything away, I made some tests to evaluate the conditions of the materials.
I cut a small piece of a Kodalyth film and exposed half of it to ambient light, while protecting the rest.
I developed it by the proper developer and it appears to be ok, absolute black in the exposed part, completely clear (with some pink reflexes) in the protected area.
I am going to test the rest, but I would like to know your experience with old developer, not only with high contrast film like Kodalyth, but also on other orthochromatic film.
In particular, since I would like to use X-ray film, I have to decide if It is convenient to buy new and proper developer and fixer, or try the old ones.
I understand that this is a limiting case, but at least a trend will be useful.
Just a word on storage time of another material. I bought about 20 years ago a kit for the producttion of printed circuit boards, based on a photosensitive material (negative resist) said by the producer to have a storage time of one year. After 20 yeras, some days ago, I used the resist with perfect results.
THis gives me some hope to save at least part of my chemicals.
I found in my shelter some material, films, papers, developers and fixers propably more than 30 years old, kept under the normal temperature conditions of a basement.
Before throwing everything away, I made some tests to evaluate the conditions of the materials.
I cut a small piece of a Kodalyth film and exposed half of it to ambient light, while protecting the rest.
I developed it by the proper developer and it appears to be ok, absolute black in the exposed part, completely clear (with some pink reflexes) in the protected area.
I am going to test the rest, but I would like to know your experience with old developer, not only with high contrast film like Kodalyth, but also on other orthochromatic film.
In particular, since I would like to use X-ray film, I have to decide if It is convenient to buy new and proper developer and fixer, or try the old ones.
I understand that this is a limiting case, but at least a trend will be useful.
Just a word on storage time of another material. I bought about 20 years ago a kit for the producttion of printed circuit boards, based on a photosensitive material (negative resist) said by the producer to have a storage time of one year. After 20 yeras, some days ago, I used the resist with perfect results.
THis gives me some hope to save at least part of my chemicals.