Colour of RO9 (Rodinal)

[Asha]

Recently ordered some RO9 OneShot from a french website only to be sent this:

Shot at 2012-05-07


My concern is that there is no date anywhere on the bottle and I don't know if this is the normal colour of this chemical having never used it before (The shot was taken at a window with natural light!)

Having read up on dev times etc I am quite happy to keep it even though it doesn't match the item description on the website so long as it isn't already "expired".

 

[robhooley167]

That seems to be a normal colour, my old bottle was that colour and was fine. You will know when it goes off because it goes a lot browner. Youll see around the lid when you use it more

 

[Asha]

Thanks Rob.....It looks to be the colour of the One Shot that was advertised but with not using this chemical, I don't know if the different variants of Rodinal are different colours!

Interesting to see that most of them are all listed with the same dev times in the digital truth dev guide even though they are supposed to be different formulas!

 

[robhooley167]

Thanks Rob.....It looks to be the colour of the One Shot that was advertised but with not using this chemical, I don't know if the different variants of Rodinal are different colours!

Interesting to see that most of them are all listed with the same dev times in the digital truth dev guide even though they are supposed to be different formulas!

The formulations are only very slightly different, nothing really to worry about. I changed from R09 to APH09 and noticed absolutely no practical difference apart from the colour, R09 is redder

I dont think the times will be significantly different, the ones on Massive Dev Chart will be user submitted, so may have different agitation schemes, different water temperatures, pre-soak or not... In other words there are so many variables that slight differences in formulation wont affect the developing in any noticeable way

 

[joxby]

I'm not sure at what point Rodinal goes off, it is famed for its shelf life.
I've heard of really ancient bottles being perfectly good.
I've used a 6 year vintage open bottle that looked like beef gravy with lumps of fat an everything in it and it was fine, less than a year later it was busted.
I guess you can't tell just by the colour alone, clip test to be certain, or don't soup your Turner prize entry in it...

 

[Woodsy]

I found that my last two bottles started to separate, with sand-like sediment forming at the bottom. Agitation of the whole bottle semi disolved some of it back into the main solution, but even then it still worked fine. My first bottle of rodinal lasted about 2 years before it quite suddenly became completely ineffective: under developed by about 2-3 stops despite there being a slightly higher concentration in the tank than required. Very odd. There were no other signs of it having gone off other than the sediment at the bottom. It remains a mystery to me!

 

[Asha]

Seems it could prove interesting then!

Up to press I've used Ilfords LC29 which is quite easy to figure when it's had its day.....not only does it turn mud coloured but it gives tell tale signs in that the negs start to show signs of being thin.

I'm still curious as to why there is no date on the bottle though...maybe it's the norm or perhaps the seller erased it for a reason

 

[RaglanSurf]

I'm still curious as to why there is no date on the bottle though...maybe it's the norm or perhaps the seller erased it for a reason

I've just looked at my bottle of Agfa Rodinal and there doesn't seem to be a use by or best before date on that either.

 

[robhooley167]

No date on my bottle of APH09 either

 

[offline]

My current bottle started off the colour of Chardonnay a year or so ago, and now looks like black coffee. Still works just fine, there's less than a fifth left and there's no sign of any sediment/crystallisation.

There's no date on my bottle either.

 

[Superewza]

I wonder if you had a bottle that had gone off you could evaporate the solvent then re-dissolve the precipitate. Not sure what you would dissolve it in or what concentration to use... still, i see no reason the 4-Aminophenol should degrade over time.