Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/03/25

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Darkroom Question
From: Jim Brick <jim@brick.org>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2002 09:24:23 -0800

At 09:04 AM 3/25/2002 -0600, Bill Satterfield wrote:
>Was in the darkroom over the weekend developing film.  I use  a tank. On 
>one batch, I used a  ounce of short stop to 15 1/2 ounces of  water rather 
>than a 1/2 ounce. Film looks OK.  What harm did I do and what can I 
>expect?. A mental error caused by waiting to long to develop rolls of 
>film. Perhaps, I ought to develop more frequently. Thanks


Actually, no harm. I have never used a stop bath in film processing in my 
50 years of darkroom work. It is unnecessary. But too much stop won't 
bother anything anyway unless you are using a developer containing 
carbonate. Which there are none of nowadays.

Hydroxide will evolve CO2 but Rodinal is about the only normal contrast 
developer containing it. But I have never known anyone to have stop bath 
problems, regardless of concentration.

When I started darkroom work in the 50's, there were carbonate containing 
developers being used and stop bath had the possibility of causing "pin 
holes" which is gas forming within the emulsion, rapidly being released, 
causing an eruption thus a pin hole. Because of this, I was taught (Brooks 
Institute of Photography) to simply use water as a rinse between the 
developer and fix with film. It has served me well for all of these years.

Jim

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Replies: Reply from Bill Satterfield <cwsat@istate.net> (Re: [Leica] Re: Darkroom Question)
Reply from Jim Brick <jim@brick.org> ([Leica] Re: Re: Darkroom Question)
Reply from "Roland Smith" <roland@dnai.com> (Re: [Leica] Re: Darkroom Question)