Developer Storage

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No, I'm not talking about developers like programmers. This is not a post about gentrification, though admittedly the title might be even better for that.I mixed up a batch of XTOL on Sunday and was storing it in collapsable opaque bottles. These are the same bottles I've used for donkey's years at this point. As I was using it today (well, I was filming a video about film development) I noticed that the bottle wasn't sealing as well as it should.The problem with film developer is that it needs to walk a fine line between being a reducing agent for the latent images on the film and not itself getting too oxidized to work properly. Even XTOL, being a relatively mild developer, is prone to go bad with too much air circulating.Then: brainstorm.Box wine.Wine has the same constraints. While wine is mildly acidic and developer is mildly basic, they share the same problems with oxygen. I finished off a box of wine today and had it sitting on the counter... after a thorough rinse, it's now the developer container!I can dose out some developer without even introducing any additional air into the system! It's like it was made for the task at hand!And it's just something that I would have thrown away into the recycling. Now: second life as the containment for film developer!  :-D

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