I'm tired of mixing the solid chemicals and wish to go to a liquid concentrate system as preparation is less complicated. I think DDX is a good "all around" fine grain developer from Ilford but I wonder about the shelf-life after the bottle has been opened and exposed to oxygen. Some people tell me the concentrate is good for several months but I'm a little wary of this...

Anyone have any experience with this developer and its shelf-life?

-- John Chan (ouroboros_2001@yahoo.com), March 14, 2002

Answers

After a year of the day I opened it, results were the same as the first day. It is a fine grain developer but resolution do suffer.

-- Roger (roger@photo.net), March 14, 2002.

Ilford recommends a maximum shelf life of three months once opened. I definitely would not recommend a year as above. They may be acceptable but you would quite likely be loosing some developing speed and contrast.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), March 14, 2002.

I just finished a bottle of DDX that had been opened for perhaps 6 months without any degradation. I also use Ilfotec HC, a syrupy concentrate that lasts for a year or so. DDX, however, is often mixed at 1+3, so it gets used fairly rapidly. In contrast, HC is usually used at 1+31, meaning a little goes a long way.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), March 14, 2002.

I've been storing it on the top shelf of the refrigerator and the last of my last bottle gave expected results a full year after it was first opened. I have no idea how it would do in room-temperature storage.

It's essentially a liquid-concentrate version of Microphen.

-- John Hicks (jhicks31@bellsouth.net), March 14, 2002.

I use DDX. I generally run through a bottle in about 1 month (or less) - but have had bottles open for up to three with no problem. A bottle does 20 rolls at Ilford's recommended 1:4 dilution - which seems like a weird proportion unless you use metric - and then it makes sense. 50ml of DDX and 200ml of water make 250ml of solution - exactly right for 1 roll in metal tanks. Double/triple/quadruple the amounts to do multi rolls.

I don't know about fine grain/soft resolution - I did a side-by-side with Kodak XTol and the negs were in-D-stinguishable. It routinely holds 100 lppm with Pan F and a 90 f/2.8.

With normal exposure I back off Ilford's times by 10%, but most often I just uprate Pan F to 64 and use Ilford times exactly.

If shelf life troubles you, get 2 to 4 smaller bottles and split the stock solution up. Remember that only the SURFACE is exposed to O2 unless you're shaking the bottle a lot - 95% of the solution isn't exposed to air even in a partially filled bottle.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), March 15, 2002.

To clarify my earlier post - there may not be a lot of visual degradation if you keep you developer longer than is recommended. I guess I look at it thusly - I've spent thousands of dollars on top notch (that would be Leica ;-) cameras - why chintz out on a couple of bucks every six months for developer. The degradation may be small, yet you are willing to pay the price for the small increase in quality over, say Canon or Nikon glass. Makes no sense to me.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

> why chintz out on a couple of bucks every six months for developer

I definitely agree with you on that; if the developer isn't _known_ to be good it's foolish to hope it is just to try to save a few dollars. Of course it'd be nice if DD-X was available in smaller bottles too.

-- John Hicks (jhicks31@bellsouth.net), March 17, 2002.