Kodak-branded chemicals available (Photo Systems Inc.)

[Michael R]

I thought it might be worth posting that further to the announcement in November 2023 quite a few of the Kodak chemicals are now available:

https://kodak.photosys.com/

[Kiwi7475]

And Rodinal is now available on Freestyle!

Been out of stock for months…

https://www.freestylephoto.com/12054...veloper-500-ml

[Mark Sampson]

A quick read of the 'about us' section of the website reveals that this is the company who made Unicolor chemistry back in the day. I hope that they can provide quality as good as EK did themselves before their troubles began.

[Fred L]

The Cinestill angle is very interesting. Wonder how this will look when things are running again.

Would love to see b/w slide processing chemistry back in production, but understand that is a very niche market. But if they can tweak it for Tmax films, I'd be down with that.

[Bob Kerner]

I've been following the saga Kodak photo chem saga. I went to buy some HC 110 and noticed one retailer specifically states "2019 version" for a 1 liter bottle at $44. Is there any reason to hunt for a "current" version? I'm guessing as long as it's sealed it doesn't matter.

Also I notice Film Photography Project selling an HC 110 equivalent for about $15 less. Any reason to avoid that? My guess is they either buy this stuff and relabel it, or buy the ingredients and mix in-house....or some variation of the two.

[Kevin Crisp]

I have three big bottles of the old stuff and tried the new for comparison. They seem to work the same. But from what I hear the shelf life of the new version might be more like a year than forever. Also (unlike the older yellow version) you have to be careful about the new one getting too cold. Even if not frozen, it will separate and form a precipitate that will not redissolve.

[landstrykere]

this is interesting because the questions about HC-110 are ongoing since at least 2018 I guess and it brings the topic of DIY.

I am in Europe and used to buy the 1L "real" HC-110, the syrupy one becoming more viscous and darker yellow with time but unchanged characteristics. Yet some more liquid version not keeping well was also sold in Europe. I think Alaris changed something.
Then it was sold to SinoPromise, and i still have 3/5 of a 1L squarish bottle that SinoPromise had manufactured in Germany. It is not the same than the previous syrupy formula. It has turned reddish/brownish but unchanged viscosity, it's liquid:



i used 6ml in a stand development last month and it was good. But that's not the older syrup.
I don't recall what was the manufacturing place of the older i used to buy from Germany, this one by SinoPromise was manufactured in Germany for sure, maybe by Norderstedter Chemiewerke Gmbh (outside Hamburg), same manufacturer of Tetenal and Compard/Digibase chemicals, BW and C-41. Norderstedter Chemiewerke went bankrupt by lack of gas in some way (Germany cutting cheap russian gas). Besides Norderstedter I can only think of Calbe in Germany.
Anyway it was already chaotic and we don't know why formula did obviously change from Kodak to Alaris to SinoPromise.

By now in Europe the alternative, is the branded "Euro HC" by Bellini. (Perugia, Italy).

but then what does it mean?
- either whoever owns the HC-110 patent has been giving it away left and right
- or HC-110 equivalent have been implemented.

and basically HC-110 is no longer HC-110.

as I shoot more and more 5x7/13x18 and 18x24/8x10 also non general photographic emulsions like x-ray and aerial, I have been using more and more home developers from known formulas. There are many available books in french, german, russian and english, with among many formulas, the handful of staples around metol, hydroquinone, phenidone, pyrocatechol.
For printing, homemade is also convenient with some older stocks of papers, or for lith experiments.
So I have a shelf full of raw chemicals, metol, hydroquinone, phenidone pyrocatechol, sulfites and sulfates of carbonate, natrium, kalium, bisulfites and metabiwhatnot, EDTA, boric acid, etc.

so all in all it brings the topic of homemade HC-110 . As everyone-and-their-mother are doing their commercial own now, with or without the Kodak closed/patented formula, itself modified over time, then why not us?
At least when you do your own developer from raw chemicals you can keep reproducibility of the results.

[Michael R]

The formula for Kodak HC-110 has changed a number of times since it was introduced in the 1960s.

The most recent iterations, which users have noted are lower in viscosity, appear to be more conventional in composition - specifically the amine-based addition complexes for sulfite etc. have been dispensed with in favor of simpler-to-make versions which necessarily contain more water. In theory this would result in a shorter shelf life, however I don’t know of any reliable data on the storage properties of the newer version(s), nor do we really know how well the legendary older versions stored.

[landstrykere]

The formula for Kodak HC-110 has changed a number of times since it was introduced in the 1960s.

this, risk of non-availability depending the moods and policies of corporate people, an equivalent by Bellini, in the end if we could replicate the formula of the old syrupy one, it would be better.
I have used syrupy HC-110 a lot with small and medium format but since I use much more large formats I tend to mix known formulas. At least I have consistency over time.

[landstrykere]

I forgot to mention, besides Bellini'c Euro HC, there is also Ilford's Ilfotec HC.