blank film, dead Rodinal?

[MattKing]

I'm pretty sure that when last used there were no crystals.

They may have been stuck together on the bottom of the bottle.

 

[Paul Howell]

Maybe, if so don't know what caused them to beak up, I did not shake the bottle. Now I know to give the bottle a shake to see if crystals are forming.

 

[Donald Qualls]

Is there any evidence that crystal formation (which happened with perfectly good original Agfa Rodinal) causes a problem with the developer? I understood it was simply due to a saturated solution cooling or evaporating a little and resulting in precipitation, and presence of the crystals kept the solution saturated.

 

[removedacct2]

When news that Agfa was discontinuing Rodinal I immediately bought 6 bottles...a lifetime supply.. No changes in use detected. Like honey found in some ancient Egyptian tombs, seems to last forever.

actually, as mentioned twice in the thread, Afga Rodinal formula was bought by Adox Fotowerke AG, who are also the owner of the film supplies shop and lab Fotoimpex in Berlin and website of same name. The Adox Adonal/Rodinal (same, different naming) developer is the last Afga Rodinal formula of 2004:
https://www.adox.de/Photo/adox-film-developer/rodinal-adonal/

I never had any of the original Rodinal go bad on me. I mix Gainer's EZ-Rodinal these days and it is good for at least a few years. That is an all Sodium based formula. If you want to try Rodinal don't be put off by what you discovered in your friend's bottle. Who knows what happened to it when he had it. He might have poured something back into it or left the cap loose for years. Never know.

the story is I was not looking for Rodinal. I found on local ads a Tetenal 1l C41 kit (unopened) sold cheap, so I bought it (just for the developer in fact, I don't like blix, uses Compard or Fuji bleach and fixer, but anyway can use bleach too in case of need). It was a twenty-something girl who had wanted to try home developing and got herself the C41 kit with the idea to try colour, and for BW the R09 500ml bottle, a 1L Ilford Rapid fixer, plus a tank, and couple accessories but was no longer interested after just one roll BW. I got the R09 and Rapid Fixer along the C41 for peanuts. Unless she got the R09 from someone else, she didn't had it years for sure. But I didn't think of asking... So she certainly did something wrong. Anyway,.,.
The bad is that I had my Moskva-5 in the bag and two rolls of Agfapan AXP 100 that I shot and then unknowingly wasted....
BW chemicals are so cheap that I don't bother try to collect opened bottles here and there, just buy new.

that said I am a bit surprised by that crystals precipitates being common. The little chemistry I know is that if salts in a solution do crystallize then the solution is partially deprived of the full effect. That's no rocket science: put a cube of sugar in a glass of tea, and if you don't dissolve it, the tea isn't sweet.

I collected all the precipitates, the bottle is 500ml, the precipitates weight 50 gr, I found is a bit much:

 

[Donald Qualls]

From what I've seen with Parodinal, the crystals are probably mostly sodium sulfite (or maybe potassium sulfite, since I think the Agfa formula is sodium-free). The solution is saturated when it's bottled, and may be at elevated temperature from the mixing (which includes potassium hydroxide -- gets hot when added to water), so some precipitation is normal. Add even a tiny bit of evaporation, and you could get a quarter of the dissolved sulfite crystallizing out, and have virtually no effect on the developer.

Beyond that, Rodinal that color is generally fine. I've used home-mixed Parodinal that color and it worked perfectly -- and I wouldn't expect my Parodinal to last the way Agfa/Adox Rodinal/Adonal should.

Last point here: even if the developer were bad, it shouldn't be 100% bad. Meaning that even bad developer (especially one as normally long-lived as Rodinal/Adonal) would produce some development in, what was it, eleven minutes? So I'm going to suggest that, instead of bad developer, you made the classic mistake of pouring the fixer first. It's easy to do, and it's what we'd normally call out if you had no edge markings (can't look for leader on 120).

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I had the same issue of huge crystals forming with the version sold in Canada. Blazinal.

 

[Donald Qualls]

I had the same issue of huge crystals forming with the version sold in Canada. Blazinal.

But the developer still worked, at least to some extent, right?

 

[MattKing]

If you want to try Rodinal, and mix your own developers at all, you likely only need to spend around $10 to make your own -- acetaminophen/paracetamol tablets, drain opener lye, and sodium sulfite (plus water, preferably distilled for mixing this). Formulas for "Parodinal" are all over the place.

Well this may be true in your area Donald, it isn't necessarily the case elsewhere - the OP is in Norway..
I know that lye is relatively difficult to source here, and we have already discussed how much more expensive sodium sulfite is here.

 

[Arvee]

Crystals forming in Rodinal is a normal thing and isn't a problem.
When I bought Formulary's version of Rodinal kit you prepared the basic solution and then, very slowly, add the hydroxide until a precipitate began to form. At that point one stops adding the hydroxide and the developer is ready for use. Also at this point the solution had generated a great deal of heat. The precipitate remained in the bottle until I finished it.

 

[Paul Howell]

I take it that Adox R08 and Adox Rodinal are the same version of their version of 2004 Agfa Rodinal?

 

[Donald Qualls]

Well this may be true in your area Donald, it isn't necessarily the case elsewhere - the OP is in Norway..
I know that lye is relatively difficult to source here, and we have already discussed how much more expensive sodium sulfite is here.

Well, true enough. I do tend to forget we have a much larger membership than a single nation or even continent. EU has gone far down the path of regulation -- for understandable reasons, surely (with much higher population density than North America, they both have more sources and more consequences from any sort of pollution). But then, within EU, it's probably cheaper to order your Adonal or R09 from Fotoimpex that it would be for me to get it from Freestyle or B&H.

And lye isn't as easy here as it used to be -- grocery stores don't seem to carry it any more (plenty of equally hazardous liquid drain cleaners, though), and I ordered it from Amazon before bothering to check if the hardware and home improvement stores carried it. On the other hand, it seems people can buy acetaminophen powder almost anywhere except the United States; I have to start with tablets (fortunately, the small amount of starch and wax that goes into those isn't photographically active). It evens out, more or less.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

But the developer still worked, at least to some extent, right?

I didn't bother with it. I think I still have the bottle in my darkroom. When I get time (I'm in the middle of overhauling my entire darkroom) I'll test a scrap piece of film with it.

 

[37th Exposure]

Looks like you have a bottle of Rollei Compard R09. It is claimed to be the exact same as Agfa Rodinal. They just can’t use the Rodinal or Adonal name as those trademarks are already registered.

 

[Paul Howell]

I dug my old bottle out of the trash, it reads Adox APH 09, Scharfesteigernder Filmentwicker, Freestyle currently lists Adox Rodinal, I got my old bottle from Freestyle a couple of years ago, so I assume a change in label, still the same stuff.

 

[37th Exposure]

I dug my old bottle out of the trash, it reads Adox APH 09, Scharfesteigernder Filmentwicker, Freestyle currently lists Adox Rodinal, I got my old bottle from Freestyle a couple of years ago, so I assume a change in label, still the same stuff.

Adox APH09 was an old 1945 Agfa formula for Rodinal. Adox offered it as an alternative to the 2004 formula which is sold as Rodinal or Adonal. For a few years they offered both versions until APH09 was discontinued about two years ago.

 

[VinceInMT]

A friend gave me these bottles a few years ago. After reading this discussion I guess I should give them a try,

 

[Paul Howell]

Adox APH09 was an old 1945 Agfa formula for Rodinal. Adox offered it as an alternative to the 2004 formula which is sold as Rodinal or Adonal. For a few years they offered both versions until APH09 was discontinued about two years ago.

Maybe I shouldn't have dumped my bottle even though it had participated out so many crystals, my last bottle of Agfa Rodinal lasted 10 years, although very dark, black, no crystals.

 

[Pflaumesaft]

My APH09 is running on 5 years now (not accounting for pre-purchase storage). Rocks as big as the OP's but working fine.

 

[AgX]

Well this may be true in your area Donald, it isn't necessarily the case elsewhere - the OP is in Norway..
I know that lye is relatively difficult to source here, and we have already discussed how much more expensive sodium sulfite is here.

The problem I see here is that lye-based drain cleaner sold here can be pure NaOH but likely be a compound, even containing solid Aluminium.

 

[subsole]

I take it that Adox R08 and Adox Rodinal are the same version of their version of 2004 Agfa Rodinal?

https://www.adox.de/Photo/aph-09-2/

 

[pentaxuser]

Well we now seem to have a number of posts that suggest that for the OP to have nothing on his film - not even a hint of development - is at best very unlucky. Oh and Arvee seems to have had the same bad luck. Makes you wonder what happened to both their Rodinals to make them both quite that dead

pentaxuser

 

[Paul Howell]

https://www.adox.de/Photo/aph-09-2/

Thanks for the link, now I get it.

 

[removedacct1]

Having some crystals precipitate out of solution in the current formula(s) of Rodinal is normal and to be expected. However there is a "point of no return" where so much chemical has dropped out of solution - as in the OPs case - that the developer becomes inactive. I have a bottle of the original Rodinal from 1984 that is half full and still works as expected. It has not formed a precipitate on the bottom. I also have a bottled of R09 purchased in August 2019 and it is half full, and it has quite a bit of crystal precipitate on the bottom of the bottle, though it still works as of 10 days ago.

I believe that with the modern Rodinal recipes, you should proceed with caution once the crystals start to form in the bottle: test it by putting a piece of film (in daylight) in the diluted developer and observe the results before proceeding to develop a valued roll of film. The test film should be quite dark within 5 minutes or so. If it doesn't, then don't use the developer; buy fresh. Whatever the reason, the new Rodinal does NOT have the shelf life of the stuff we used to use in the 1980s.

 

[Donald Qualls]

The problem I see here is that lye-based drain cleaner sold here can be pure NaOH but likely be a compound, even containing solid Aluminium.

At least here (USA), the version with aluminum in it (which is added to increase the heat production that melts the grease and soap and speeds the attack of the hydroxide on hair) would be labeled as "drain opener" but not as "lye" -- if they're going to call it lye, it has to be lye. There's a hazard panel that tells what hazardous materials it contains, as well, and with materials like sodium hydroxide, a rough percentage.

 

[removedacct2]

Having some crystals precipitate out of solution in the current formula(s) of Rodinal is normal and to be expected. However there is a "point of no return" where so much chemical has dropped out of solution - as in the OPs case - that the developer becomes inactive.

makes sense, 50gr of 500ml it's quite a lot I guess. The small bottle had spilling stains, it's possible the owner, a complete noob, didn't even screw the safety cork correctly for a while-
Let say I got a one in a million occurrence of bad luck.