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 t...@rek.tjls.com "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
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