Recently, I tried stand development with Rodinal (R09 one shot) for the first time. To my surprise, the result were crystal clear negatives showing no images and no edge markers. Even though Rodinal is known for its extraordinary shelf life, my first suspicion was that the developer had gone bad. Since I had two bottles of old Rodinal lying around I decided to test both and compare them to another developer.
| Developer | Producation/Purchase date | Dilution | Development time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adox Rodinal | 2017 | 1+100 | 1h |
| R09 one shot | 2018 | 1+100 | 1h |
| Adox Neutol Eco | 2020 | 1+4 | 10min |
Don't use the time from the Adox Neutol Eco for developing actual pictures. Adox Neutol Eco is a paper developer, and 10min is far too long for developing negatives. I used it here only as a baseline to rule out the possibility of a film issue.
The results speaks for themselves. The negatives developed with Adox Neutol Eco and Adox Rodinal appear normal, whereas the negative from the R09 one-shot developer is clear. All developers were stored under the same conditions. Adox Rodinal and R09 one-shot are both based on Rodinal formulas, yet they seem to have different shelf lives.