Lemon juice stop bath?

[JBAphoto]

Does anyone know if lemon juice will work as a stop bath and the proportion, that is without the expense of a pH meter?

Our citrus trees grow down a slope from the septic tank leech drain, so we have oranges and lemons in profusion

John
Quinninup

[Daniel Stone]

Hey John,

I've heard about people trying this(with lemons or other citrus), but vinegar will be more consistent IMO. Mix from 1+4 to 1+10. Probably some talk already over on APUG about this.

-Dan

[Light Guru]

Real stop bath chemistry is fairly cheep. If if your not going to use proper stop bath then just use water.

[Mark Stahlke]

I would be concerned about the oils in lemon juice clinging to the film and causing problems with the fixer.

[ki6mf]

Ditto on all the comments and the answer is yes. Stop Bath uses a weak chemical process that is acid based to stop development. Lemon juice would stop the process with the caveat that you are introducing other pollutants into the process

[Wade Guisbert]

Distilled white vinegar is 5% acetic acid, mix 400ml vinegar and 600ml water, and you have 1 litre of stop bath.

The stuff is very inexpensive!

[Brian Ellis]

Stop bath performs functions other than just stopping development. It's cheap, lasts a long time, and should always be used instead of water or anything else IMHO if you value the life and effectiveness of your fixer and therefore your photographs.

[rdenney]

Stop bath performs functions other than just stopping development. It's cheap, lasts a long time, and should always be used instead of water or anything else IMHO if you value the life and effectiveness of your fixer and therefore your photographs.

For prints, absolutely. For film, not so much. I'd rather replace fixer more frequently than risk grain reticulation.

Rick "who uses water for film development" Denney

[Ari]

Stop bath performs functions other than just stopping development. It's cheap, lasts a long time, and should always be used instead of water or anything else IMHO if you value the life and effectiveness of your fixer and therefore your photographs.

I have a differing opinion on that, but only if we're talking about film.
I always use water as a stop for film, but I use regular stop bath for prints.
I was told a long time ago that acetic acid is too harsh on a soft film emulsion, and water is just as effective in stopping development and removing developer.

[Wade Guisbert]

Ari,
Somewhere I read use a 1% or 2% acetic acid stop bath. If some guys are using just plain water for film, maybe I go to 0.5% acteic acid. Somehow, it seems better to have SOME chemicals in there!

[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.... :D

[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.

[Jim Michael]

Do you use an acid fixer? Are you concerned about the contamination of the developer changing the pH of the fixer?

[cyrus]

Any kind of mild acid will work as a stop bath. The entire point is that the acidity stops the work of a basic developer. That's all (the stop bath also helps prevent the developer being introduced into the fixer but plain water would do that too.) I seriously doubt that using lemon juice will have any negative consequences. It is probably just mostly citric acid, which has been used for a long time as an alternative form of stop.

[JBAphoto]

Do you use an acid fixer? Are you concerned about the contamination of the developer changing the pH of the fixer?

Thank you all for your responses, and I take your points about lemon oil contamination

Yes, I do use acid stop bath

I have been using LR grade acetic acid since the 1970s - I use it at 2% aq soln, as dilute as possible, so it is for all practical purposes odour free and and replenish it in my film deep tank line as I try to keep my fixer as happy as my developer - (The D76d developer has been in use since May 1985 and I take great care in its replenishment, the fixer gets dumped four times a year)

The idea is to use our huge excess of lemons as a print stop, to protect the large quantities of fixer used for 32x40 inch prints from 10x8" negs - Anyhow, it looks like I will move on to "white" vinegar, which was my first choice

What can I do with all these lemons? - Quinninup is a very small community and Rae and I produce more lemons and oranges, and currently courgettes/zuccinis, than the town can use - Actually I now spend more time in the garden than I do in the darkroom

Thanks
John

[ROL]

What can I do with all these lemons? - Quinninup is a very small community and Rae and I produce more lemons and oranges, and currently courgettes/zuccinis, than the town can use - Actually I now spend more time in the garden than I do in the darkroom

Thanks
John

Send the lemons to people you "like". Send the zucinnis to lonely women...











...for making delicious vegetable dishes for lonely men. Why? what did you think?

[Tom Monego]

I'd be concerned with pollutants introduced with the lemons, I would at least run the lemon solution through filter lab grade filter paper. I'd try the filtered solution with some throw away film and paper before you do it on large prints. Let us know how it works.
Reticulation is most often due to a drastic change in temperature sometime during the processing, often going from a 70 degree F developer to a cold stop bath or to a very cold water rinse. Did some experiments way back in college about this. B&W film is sensitive to changes in processing temperature, not as critical as color but something to watch.

Tom

[E. von Hoegh]

Any kind of mild acid will work as a stop bath.

Would uric acid work? Because I have an infinite free supply........:)

[Black Lightning]

Guys, you are all missing the important picture here. If we use alternatives to manufactured-for-photography chemistry Kodak's profit and viability may suffer. If anybody else starts to use something other than Kodak stop bath I would not be the least surprised that Kodak does not last past the end of September.

I cannot fathom keeping anything other than glacial acetic acid in my darkroom. The only vinegar we use for food is Balsamic Vinegar which I would never use on my pictures. Likewise I would never use Glacial Acetic Acid on my salad.

[cyrus]

Guys, you are all missing the important picture here. If we use alternatives to manufactured-for-photography chemistry Kodak's profit and viability may suffer. If anybody else starts to use something other than Kodak stop bath I would not be the least surprised that Kodak does not last past the end of September.

I cannot fathom keeping anything other than glacial acetic acid in my darkroom. The only vinegar we use for food is Balsamic Vinegar which I would never use on my pictures. Likewise I would never use Glacial Acetic Acid on my salad.

Glacial is dangerous. I'd rather reduce the amount of hazardous stuff in my darkroom to an absolute minimum, especially since I'm a klutz!

Really? Reticulation due to stop? I can't imagine how this could happen. It would have to involve a very large and sudden pH difference, I'd think, far more than some mild stop would have.

What are the other functions of stop everyone is talking about? I can only think of two: stopping development and rinsing some of the developer off so it doesn't get into the fixer. What else?

[cyrus]

Would uric acid work? Because I have an infinite free supply........:)

I don't think the pH of "natural" uric acide is right...unless you have serious health issues!

[tedw6]

Ive used white vinegar for years. Good stuff

[domaz]

Rick "who uses water for film development" Denney

I used water as a film developer once. Didn't work out so well...

[Ian Gordon Bilson]

At the risk of introducing some humorless reality into this thread,I would have thought that lemon juice,diluted,would be entirely suitable as a Stop.
AFAIK,the oils are held in the skin,not the interior of the fruit.
That said,lemon oils are the main constituent in commercial preparations like "Goo Gone",so you can use it in removing adhesive residue from the labels on the bottles you use to store your photo-chems..

[EdWorkman]

cyrus said
<Really? Reticulation due to stop? I can't imagine how this could happen. It would have to involve a very large and sudden pH difference, I'd think, far more than some mild stop would have.>

Yes, see my post above - well, small explosions in the emulsion due to alkali-acid reaction, - rdenney can answer for full reticulation

[cyrus]

...and your prints will smell sooo good!

[rdenney]

Yes, see my post above - well, small explosions in the emulsion due to alkali-acid reaction, - rdenney can answer for full reticulation

I'm no chemist, and in this case I cannot explain it. But I surely experienced it. Temperature management (the usual root of a reticulation problem) was definitely not the case. I was using Rodinal in those days and I understand it is strongly alkaline. I never had the problem since using water instead of acid stop bath. I also never had a problem of my fixer going bad unexpectedly.

Rick "water before the developer, water after the developer" Denney

[Domingo A. Siliceo]

[...]
AFAIK,the oils are held in the skin,not the interior of the fruit.
[...]


that's true: oils -thus waxes- and/or any other chemical product to control plagues are in the peel. Juice is clean.

[JBAphoto]

The reason I started this thread was serious, as serious as our lemon tree which looks after the entire metropolis of Quinninup and is still burgeoning with fruit

I will do my own lemon juice tests on some prints after I have borrowed a pH meter and worked out the proportion needed to get to the same pH as 2% Acetic acid - I will let you know the results

Damn, I can't load an image from my computer and I can't be bothered loading it to my website first

Second picture was also of the garden, showing the glut of courgettes/zuccinis - No I don't expect anyone has a photographic use for them, but I am getting fed up with these things in every meal, the previous glut was broad beans, but we froze those

[cyrus]

We used to use our extra lemons to make citrus soap

[Brian Ellis]

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

In about 18 years of processing film in formats ranging from 35 mm to 8x10 using Kodak indicator stop bath and another version made by a company whose name I've forgotten I never experienced reticulation and until this thread I never heard of anyone who had. But if anyone has had the problem and thinks it's solved by using water or something else, that's fine with me. It's your film.

[Brian Ellis]

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.

I don't know of anyone who claims there's a different look to the negative from using stop bath vs water. My understanding is that stop bath performs three functions. It neutralizes the alkaline developer remaining in the emulsion so development is instantaneously stopped. It helps prevent neutralizing of the fixing bath by residual alkaline developer carried in the emulsion, and it helps prevent staining and the formation of scum on the negative (all taken from Adams' book "The Negative," not on any personal knowledge or experience). I think these three functions of a stop bath are important enough to cause me to use it. Others disagree which is certainly fine.

[ConnorR]

I would suggest using the extra lemons to plant more lemon trees. However, this is clearly only a temporary solution.

[Robbie Bedell]

On my only trip to Italy I visited the Naples area where there are lots of lemons, it seemed as many as here in Florida where I live. They make a great drink called lemoncello. You can make it at home...good stuff, but I would not use it as stop bath!