Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/04/18

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Black & White Negative Film Processing
From: pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein)
Date: Sun Apr 18 21:02:49 2004

Re. water as stop bath:  If you agitate much, there isn't any discernable 
difference between water and acid stop bath.

However, the Old Wisdom holds that you can pour the water in, agitate 
gently a couple of times only. Then let the tank sit for a few minutes 
before agitating again, pouring the water out and adding the fixer.  This 
can bring up the shadow detail in available light negatives, or add some 
"edge effect" to slow thin-film negatives.

As say, this is Old Wisdom I learned in the late 60s/early 70s, so your 
mileage may vary.  I do recall using it on negs shot in the blackest of 
places.  Have no idea how well it worked, because I never did a controlled 
experiment.

--Peter Klein
Seattle, WA

At 12:47 PM 4/18/04 -0700, Eric wrote:
>My standard developer is Xtol 1:3, and it's very close to exhaustion by the
>time I'm done developing, anyway.  After hearing a few here on the LUG talk
>about water as their only stop bath, I experimented.  I haven't been able to
>tell any difference between using a real stop bath vs. water, so I now use
>one less chemical.  :)