As of last week, B&H shows old discontinued versions of several developers as well as new versions of the same developers. At minimum, this is the case for Xtol, D-76, and HC-110. Does anyone know anything about this change? Do the new versions work the same way?
Recently Tetenal was out of commission for a while, so Kodak may have shifted to a new supplier.
By all means run a test if you're concerned, but I wouldn't worry about the formulas changing in any material way. There's nothing especially exotic about the Xtol, D-76 or HC-110 formula that should pose any difficulty for a new supplier.
I noticed that as well. New catalog numbers, not much information other than B&H. I bought some Dektol from Unique for 5 dollars less than B&H, free shipping etc. I think Freestyle has some "short date" Dektol for cheap as well. Could be clearing out inventory. If you can believe the pictures on B&H products are being made in USA. I panicked and bought a bunch of Tetenal made XTOL and Kodak rapid fix when Tetenal was in trouble. Tetenal's quality is better than "old Kodak" in terms of XTOL, no brown insoluble granules to contend with.
Like Oren has stated, best to check out any supplier changes. Hopefully no hiccups, I've got enough XTOL for the next 5 years
The answer is simple: ILFORD.
” Never attribute to inspiration that which can be adequately explained by delusion”.
IsIs that an American company? HowardOriginally Posted by Willie
Is Kodak Alaris an American company? Nope.
This deserves a clarification.
As part of the bankruptcy of the American company, Kodak faced a $2.8 billion claim by the UK Kodak Pension Plan (KPP) that controls Kodak Alaris (today mostly a marketer) as a privately held company through Kodak Alaris Holdings Limited.
So we have a US Kodak company that manufactures film that is marketed by UK Kodak company taking a share to sustain UK Kodak Pension Plan.
...but KPP wants to sell its "Droit du seigneur" on Kodak products, so they make a short term pricing policy to increase the short term profit to make the sell of Alaris easier and to show a value that can increase the selling price.
So we don't know well what is all that, IMHO Alaris is nominally an UK company but it's also an instrument to pay the debt in UK of an American Kodak company.
Problem is that all this mess damages color LF popularity, and it challenges the long term survability of this kind of photography.
Harman Technology / Ilford Photo outsources its processing chemical production too. They are not immune to supplier disruption.
Even if Ilford wasn't subject to supplier changes, switching to Ilford would still require process changes and testing.
Changing those developers (Xtol, D-76, HC-110) would be a sacrilege, but always read datasheet, if you don't see a change in the recommended times in the datasheets then there is nothing to worry about.
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