And I finally did it too!

[jamiewakeham]

Solares,

I guess someone else will say this too, but - there's no need to 'guess' at fixing times. You can work them out exactly - indeed, if you reuse fixer you should work them out every time, as the fix time will change as your fixer exhausts.

Take a scrap of spare film - I usually use the leader. Put a small dot of fixer on it. After a while the film will go clear beneath the dot. The chuck the scrap of film into the fixer and time how long it takes for the rest of the film to go as clear as the already-fixed dot. This is 'clearing' time. Double this, and that's how long to fix for.

I'm about six or eight rolls ahead of you in my developing career... it's fun, isn't it! Bl**dy frustrating, too...

Cheers
Jamie

ps Congrats, Mark!

 

[Trius]

"In hopes" is about right, Joe 🙂.

I make stock Photo-Flo at 1:400, not 1:200, and it works much better, pretty well foolproof. My water is what I recover from dehumidifiers. I filter that water through a paper cone filter (think Melita), then run it through a Brita filter and store it. I use the double-filtered water for ALL my solutions, including wash, using the Ilford soak method.

Earl

 

[Finder]

Personally, I never skip the stop. It does not help acid fixers and it gives more consistancy and control in developing. In some processes like RA-4 (color print), it can be be a really bad mistake to cut the stop bath.

Just in case you think no one uses stop.

 

[taffer]

Isn't it just magical, as you pull the film from the tank for the very first time and see those first glimpses of your images in negative?

hmmm ... film! 🙂

Makes me all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it! 😱 :angel:

Jon

Oh yeah ! Ain't it magic !? 🙂

Congrats on a major step forward Francisco, and don't worry, after some time you'll end with the inversion/washing times and methods that work best for you. I myself skip stop bath and just rinse with water, same after fixing followed by a couple minutes in a washing / wetting solution.

Don't throw away that stop bath though ! It will come in very handy once you set up your darkroom and start with wet printing 😉

Congrats my friend,

Oscar

 

[varjag]

There are two major reasons to use a stop bath: to avoid uneven development with rapid processes (it cuts the development momentarily as the name suggests) and dercease contamination of next stage chemicals (in case with classic BW, of a fixer). So with some processes it is indeed necessary, but then again there are processes where stop bath absolutely can't be used.

I find the issue of stop bath for BW much like that of using UV filters for protection. Some people do that, some don't, and vendors are happy to sell you clean glass or citric acid at nice price 🙂 Unlike a filter though a stop bath can't make your image worse, so if you find it necessary in your process just use it.