How do you know that? It can take some time for Developer to diffuse out of the emulsion. What if fill/agitate/dump water 3 times is not enough?
Michael, sorry if I was not clear, I follow The Darkroom Cookbook instructions. Not only I fill/agitate/dump water 3 times, I also have the film in water for 1 min at least.
TDC says:
"While a running water bath will not stop development as rapidly as an acid stop bath, it will slow it down to the point that the amount of residual development is insignificant. This is because, depending on its strength, it takes an acid stop bath approximately 15 seconds to halt development and a running water bath takes approximately 30 seconds. The difference in the negative image could not be measured. If you are still not convinced consider that the slight additional development will automatically be factored in when you run your film development test"
Page 104:
https://silveronplastic.files.wordp...ookbook-3rd-ed-s-anchell-elsevier-2008-ww.pdf
Let me point that I not dump water 3 times to stop development, I do it to have the film clean and to not bring extrange chem to the fixer. The Acid Stop brings some acid and some inactivated developer, rinsing with water 3 times brings nothing to the fixer but water drops. Not saying that the contamination from an Acid Stop in the fixer is always harmful... but I prefer keeping my alkaline fixer the cleanest as possible.
As mentioned above, a mild acid fixer would also be a good idea, it is enough, no bubbles in high carbonate chem, lower acid chem transport to a potentially alkaline fixer...
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Above was for rolls. Furthermore,
when processing (8x10") BW sheets, I open lights after the sheet has been 30 seconds in the Water Stop, my 8x10" daylight tank is a
paper safe, I prefer that kind of tray development because it is daylight type and I like to control agitation (rotary can't) to obtain some highlight compensation when wanted.
After development completed I close lights and I open the safe to move the 8x10" to a
tray with plain water, after some 30 seconds I open lights and I do the rest lights open, witnessing the fiixer action (clearing time). Even if development is not totally stopped after 30s there is no effect because the newly exposed crystals are nor starting their development until the induction time passes, and by then pH/agents in the emulsion have no strength.
What I do then is preparint the development of the next sheet, this is dumping the used one shot developer in the tray and pouring the following dose, washing my hands, closing lights to place the new sheet in the developer, so each 10min I make a new 8x10" sheet, each with a (potentially) different N and agitation (contary to rotary). When the new sheet is the developer's paper safe I open lights again to move the sheet in the water bath to the 1st fixer tray, just after clearing (I often measure claring time) I move that sheet to the 2nd fixer tray for an effective and perfect fixer action.
One of the reasons to not have an acid tray in this workflow is that any spill (hands contaminated with the acid stop) will ruin the sheet as contaminated surface won't develop.
I can tell that this process way is flawless, my 8x10" shots are a (low art) personal treasure one by one, because I only shot a 8x10" after a careful preparation and hauling weird heavy gear around, so I'm not to take risks in the development.
This is also convenient because lights are only closed several seconds to move the sheet in/out in the the developing safe. A very nice LF tank based on this is the
Stearman Press SP-8x10 daylight processing tray that can only be recommended for its well executed effective minimalism, delivering totañ flexibility and efficiency. Nothing wrong with rotary... right now I'm personally making a
JOBO ATL retrofit for good reasons...
For starters: stop reading 138S's posts.
Starters should read The Darkrom Cookbook, then The Film Developing Cookbook and later the comprehensive and advanced Well Beyond Monochrome to have a well detailed map about the terrain they are walking on.
Also, do yourself a favor, instead going to personal attack, read well The Film Developing Cookbook, you'll get some technical criterion.
I’m so confused... what should I do?
Brian, sorry, but you are not confused, you know perfectly what you should do...
My position is that both plain water and acid will work perfectly, and you also know that.
But there are nuances...
> if using plain water stop with some not well buffered acid fixers then we may want to correct the pH of the Fixer if pH increases too much when nearing exhaustion.
> if using acid stop with some not well buffered alkaline (or neutral) fixers we may want to correct the pH of the Fixer if pH decreases to much when nearing exhaustion.
Nothing else !!!