Topic: Vinegar as stopper

[calbisu]

I had not been able to bring a stopper to Sudan (because its liquid form), and although I had read that you could use vinegar as a stopper I had not forced myself to try it. Well finally I did it, vinegar (plain white vinegar) diluted in water, 30% of vinegar. It just worked smoothly!!!

will the negatives autodestroy in the long term?  

I used the big Pentax 67 with Kodak tmax 400

[Heather]

The fixing stage is probably the only stage where you'd really have problems with your negatives storage length. If you underfix or underwash, it can go a bit wrong.

By the way, I always tended towards using 1+1 dilution vinegar and water because vinegar tends to be 5% acidity and stopbath's around 2% so i figure 2.5% is about right, especially with London's hard water probably sucking up some of the acidity.

[calbisu]

The fixing stage is probably the only stage where you'd really have problems with your negatives storage length. If you underfix or underwash, it can go a bit wrong.

By the way, I always tended towards using 1+1 dilution vinegar and water because vinegar tends to be 5% acidity and stopbath's around 2% so i figure 2.5% is about right, especially with London's hard water probably sucking up some of the acidity.

Hi Heather, thanks for the Info, about the dilution I have read all different kind of info about it, truth is that I just used some kind of an average of what I had read. Now that I read what you wrote I understand how it works. 

[LT]

is this for film Carlos? I don't use a stop with film at all - just plain water. no issues.

I thought I had a problem recently, but it turned out to be something else.

great pics BTW.

[Francois]

acid stop does stop development. but mostly, it's a good transition to the acidic fixer (most of them are) and helps keep it good.

[gregor]

second on Leon's comment. Plain water - works every time ;-)

[Blaxton]

Second Francois' comment and third Leon's.  I might add that water will serve well to slow development (if not stop it on a dime) but you may find that your fixer exhausts quicker without an acid bath to lower the ph of whatever developing solution gets transfered to the fixer.  I also find that using water instead of an acid stop bath helps to produce flatter negatives but this will vary from film to film.

[calbisu]

is this for film Carlos? I don't use a stop with film at all - just plain water. no issues.

I thought I had a problem recently, but it turned out to be something else.

great pics BTW.

Hi Leon, yes, it's for Film. But if it might help my daughter stop crying I could also use if for her.. 

How do you use the plain water? As for the stopper I pour the dilution and constantly agitate for 1 minute.

[Sandeha Lynch]

Good question.  With my normal stop solution (very dilute) it's in there for the time it takes for me to rinse the stop flask and reach over to move the fixer flask closer, maybe 15 secs max.  I've always thought of it as a flush, so I'd assume a similar flush with plain water would be enough.  But that's me guessing.

Don't some people use lemon juice in water?

[LT]

How do you use the plain water? As for the stopper I pour the dilution and constantly agitate for 1 minute.

exactly the same with water, but twice. I have it in my head that using water gives the shadows a bit of extra chance too, but that is probably just nonsense.

[edthened]

Och am wi Leon heer, a yoozz watter....................................cozz its re cheepizt, so ther 

[BirgerA]

Don't some people use lemon juice in water?

I use citric acid, not lemon juice. It has approximately the same acidity as vinegar but without the smell. I buy it from a grocery store, one bag of 100 grams in approx 2.5 litres of water

[Francois]

exactly the same with water, but twice. I have it in my head that using water gives the shadows a bit of extra chance too, but that is probably just nonsense.

It's always possible since the developer's action is not instantly stopped. The developer that remains in the emulsion will stop working by both dilution and exhaustion. And since the shadows develop slower than the highlights (that is if my mind works correctly this morning), they should continue developing until the developer is gone.

[Nigel]

... interesting... when I had no money I used water then as some point I started using Ilfostop, on the basis it must be 'better' but from the general consensus maybe it isn't.

[jojonas~]

huh... I mostly use water nowadays. started when I was on my big caffenol-trip in developer land and I've continued now since going back to rodinal. I have some stop but not much and mostly I do stand developing anyways so I'm in no rush to stop the development phase.

I do feel that my fixer exhuasts pretty fast though... I've got some citric acid left from the caffenol, so I might try that.

[Francois]

Pretty much anything acidic should work. The big advantage of vinegar is that it's super cheap.
But other things should work, like lemonade, orange juice, leftover vinegar from pickles (provided you filter it first, I don't know how well dill and fixer get together). But I've yet to try anything else so I can't say for sure what would be a definite no-no.

[LeonY]

I use it for paper only:
1 part vinegar
9 parts water

Some people use more i hear!

[Jack Johnson]

I trusted someone else's math and use 400 ml 5% white vinegar with 600 ml water to produce a 2% stop bath.