![]() ![]() On the other hand, if you are like the rest of us who sometimes have negatives that have wonderful things in them but that are difficult-to-impossible to print, this article is written for you, with the hope that it will make your time in the darkroom less difficult and more productive. If you are one of those photographers that does live in that perfect world where all negatives are perfect, read no further I have nothing to teach you. Even those who have done seemingly interminable testing and refining of exposure and development techniques often have negatives that aren’t exactly right on and/or that require extensive dodging and burning-in. Perhaps I don’t know the right people, but I have yet to meet a photographer who lives in that perfect world. All negatives would then print on a normal grade of paper, require a standard amount of exposure, and require no dodging or burning-in. In the best of all possible worlds, all exposures would be perfect-neither over nor under exposed, and all negatives would be developed for the right amount of time. This is an expanded version of the article that originally appeared in the May/June 1998 issue of View Camera Magazine. Dilute table vinegar 1:3 and you'll be fine.ON PRINTING AND WHY THERE Is NO SUCH THING AS A DIFFICULT NEGATIVE TO PRINT MICHAEL A. And the bubbles the OP warns about only occur if your stop bath is waay too strong. That was my rationale for my process.īTW, to the points in the OP's blog post: Vinegar is acetic acid table strength is about 5% if I recall correctly. With a single-reel metal tank though, you won't carry over more than a few mm of chemicals from one process step to another.Īnother way to look at it: Stop bath is cheap, fixer is expensive. In that case, you'd like your fixer to last as long as possible. ![]() I was typically developing 20 rolls of film at a time. Also, when I used a Jobo processor, there is a lot of surface area (tanks/reels) to carry over chems from one step to the next. In general, I think the most important thing is consistency, particularly the more film you process. Slide the slider over the street in front of the big building in the mid-ground to see what I mean. This indicates to me that his negs continued a bit of density build up during the water-stop step. Stop is not chemically necessary, but there is a bit of density difference between the mid-tones on his stop/no-stop comparison. I plan to leave whatever is left in the two bottles when I pop off this planet to my stepson, who is now keenly interested in photography and setting up his own darkroom. Some good advice here, do NOT use the Kodak stop bath in your salad dressings. At the of my printing session I just dispose of the chemistry anyway now. I worked out long ago that it works just as well diluted somewhat less than the recommended mix. I used to print a lot (still do but less often now) and I still have concentrate left in both bottles. A friend gave me his bottle, half full, in 2000 or 2001. ![]() I bought a liter bottle of Kodak indicator stop bath (the smelly canary yellow concentrate) in 1990. A select few go the way of a citric acid stop bath. A few dilute household vinegar until they figure out the absurd cost of doing this. An interesting read from the OP but I think he has too much free time on his hands.
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