Water Stop times

I realize that everything is different for everybody with respect to

developing, but I was curious, for those of you who use a water stop,

how you adjust your development times for the time of the water

stop. I know that the development continues during the water stop,

so how much do you shorten the development times in your case.

Andrew, Being that the development keeps going, albeit slowed with water stop, pull your film out and time it to the fix for the amount of time you need for full development... maybe 10 seconds are fine for the water stop, at least that is how I do it.

The important thing is to be <b>consistent</b>. Development time should be adjusted to your own circumstances, and not just always the same as published times. This is because of differences in agitation technique, pour in/out time, enlarger type (condenser vs. diffusion), etc, all of which affect the final contrast.</p> Since development affects negative contrast, it should be personalized for your process and materials. The way to determine the proper development time is testing or experience.

When my development times exceed 10 minutes I don't consider the difference between a stop bath and water rinse to be significant enough to worry about. It takes less than a minute to dump the developer, rinse and pour in the fixer. Any residual developer is slowed to a crawl with the first rinse and agitation.

 

When development times are closer to 5 minutes I use a stop bath since as little as a 10% difference in development can affect contrast and even grain.

 

As Mark said, consistency is the most important factor.

I rarely find myself with development times less than 8 minutes. I make no allowance for the water time, but it's a quick pour in, fast agitate, and pour out before the rapid fix goes in. There are too many other variables than to worry about 5 or 10 seconds.