Lemon juice stop bath?

[Wade Guisbert]

Ari,
What are the effects on the film emulsion that acetic acid would cause?

[rdenney]

Ari,
What are the effects on the film emulsion that acetic acid would cause?

From my experience: Grain reticulation. Perhaps my stop bath was too strong, and I was probably using it behind a strongly alkaline developer, like Rodinal. But since then I've used water with no ill effects.

Rick "once upon a time surprised by huge grain artifacts on Panatomic-X" Denney

[Corran]

I found some "cleaning vinegar" at Wal-Mart a while ago and it said it was just acetic acid. I needed some stop so I grabbed it. I put just a swig of it in with water and it works great. Haven't seen any difference from when I was using Ilfostop. Plus it was less than $2 for 2 liters.

[Ari]

Ari,
What are the effects on the film emulsion that acetic acid would cause?

From my experience: Grain reticulation.

Rick "once upon a time surprised by huge grain artifacts on Panatomic-X" Denney

Rick is right, and I once got unexplained reticulation too; acetic acid contracts the film, which, I suppose, would lead to reticulation.

[ROL]

Ummm ...yummm. Most of my prints are "lemony" anyway.

[EdWorkman]

I stopped using stop a long time ago, in favor of water. That stopped "bubbles" from exploding in the emulsion [little black spots on the prints]. Back then i was using a lot of Verichrome , and I suppose kodak and Ilford films presently available have thinner emulsions that are not susceptible. Now there are those continental films that may still be "thick". But I also use fairly dilute developers like Xtol 1 to 2 or 3 [hey i saved the original development recommendations] and Rodinal at max 1:75, so i have no need to bash the developer with a quick stop at the resulting long times. In fact I let the film sit in the rinse [the same water i used for the pre-developer rinse] while I conjure that there may be some compensation going on. I've stopped chanting tho'
Ahhhh no myths last as long as photomyths. Do we still hear the one about fixer sinking to the bottom of the wash?

[Ash]

Just use a yellow filter....

[Jim Michael]

I believe some people are using citric acid as a less smelly alternative. to acetic acid stop bath.

[Steve Smith]

I always use water as a stop for film, but I use regular stop bath for prints.

Me too.


Steve.

[Shen45]

I use BTZS and transfer the film to the stop bath under safelight or a low wattage white light however an interesting test will be to expose two identical step wedges and use stop bath for one and water for the other, fix normally and then read the base + fog of each film. If there is no significant difference I would be happy to use water.