Rollei Digibase C-41 Kit

[TheBigYin]

Last couple of times I've bought the Tetenal C41 kit, but I'm finding that as I'm not shooting particularly often, the chemicals are "going off" through age - last kit I had managed 10 rolls before going a bit grungy, as anyone who has seen the "Homeless Holga" results thread will realise.

So - I was wondering, is the Digibase kit any better in terms of lasting once made up into working solutions than the Tetenal kit.

 

[EdMoss]

Yes, use and abuse it.
There is a massive thread on it over at APUG which is worth a read.

I've used it for about a year now and never had any problems, except for a bit of user stupidity.

 

[mustanir]

I must say, I once kept using a Tetenal C-41 kit on and off for about a year with little negative effect on the results. The stuff got murkier and sludgier as the year progressed (some months I had loads to dev and some months none) but as long as I compensated for age with extra dev time, all was well.

Very robust kit I find, so I'm surprised you have the issues with it that you have had.

 

[freecom2]

You can keep it as long as a year? Hmm, I got the (general) impression from most of the C-41 kits that they were a 'best to use and blitz through all your rolls quickly' jobby.

 

[TheBigYin]

I've a sneaking suspicion that it's the Blix that's stuffed - I'm going to try the advice in here and see if it'll revive it.

I've got a roll of C41 that was still in a Canon Sureshot compact I bought a few months ago - it was on frame 22 of 24 of the previous owners shots, so I clicked the last couple off, and threw the film in the camera bag "to be processed when I've got another c41 35mm roll" and I haven't had one since then!

I shot a test roll of B&W through the sureshot, and it worked fine, so I'm really not worried in the least about the c41 roll - so I guess it's the perfect test subject for this.

FWIW, I've done 8 rolls of film in a 1L kit, that was originally mixed a couple of weeks before christmas last year - so - call it 8 months shelf life - in sealed bottles, with the air excluded, kept in the dark unless out for use!