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Old June 29th 09, 03:28 AM posted to rec.photo.darkroom
Thor Lancelot Simon
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Posts: 163
Default Bad E-6 5L kits circulating?

I think -- after very carefully *not* ordering another 5L E-6 kit
from Adorama since the last one they sent me was short dated (only
4 months left on the concentrate shelf life when it arrived) -- I
just got a bad 5L E-6 kit from B&H.

I can't be sure, since I mix partial kits, keeping the concentrates
out of vacuum and drawing them from the bottles with clean syringes.
This isn't, of course, the Kodak Approved procedure and I am pretty
sure that consequently, Kodak won't be too eager to help me. But
the first run of film I did in this kit, about a month ago, was
fine -- and generally I can keep a kit for well over a year using
this procedure, if I have to, with no problem with the developed
film. Today's tanks of film (sadly I ran two at once) showed all
the signs of exhausted first developer. There was a good strong
vacuum when I opened the bottles, so that's not it -- and it was
not particularly hot where they were stored, either, and I know
I got the mixtures right and times/temps were correct.

I wonder when the last time Kodak made the 5L E6 kits was. Has
anyone else received a bad one lately? With bad results from
both B&H and Adorama I'm not even sure where to turn for a new
one.

--
Thor Lancelot Simon
"Even experienced UNIX users occasionally enter rm *.* at the UNIX
prompt only to realize too late that they have removed the wrong
segment of the directory structure." - Microsoft WSS whitepaper