Bogdan Karasek wrote:
hello, Just want to Thank everybody who contributed an answer to my problem concerning AZO. Very helpful. Just have to get some Amidol from my photo chemist. Somebody mentioned that precautions had to be taken with Amidol. Could precisions be made concerning the precautions to be taken when using Amidol. Do I have to wear a Hazmat suit ;)
Back when I used Amidol a lot (Ansco 113, IIRC), I experimented with it a lot at first. I find it takes about one stop more exposure than other developers, such as D-72 or Dektol. I used benzotriazole as restrainer. This gave a very nice color with Ilfobrom, or whatever I was using at the time. But it gave no more intense blacks that D-72. I found, though, that I could get the same color from D-72 by replacing the KBr with a suitable amount of benzotriazole, and that cost far less. When using Amidol developer, I do not worry much about what is in it. I use SB-1 stop bath, although, since the developer is much less alkaline than most paper developers, I wonder of plain water would work as well. But acetic acid is cheap so I might as well use it. Since I do not use gloves, except when selenium toning, I just let my fingers get rinsed in the stop bath. I do not drink the stuff, and _never_ eat in the darkroom. I wash my hands frequently, and after cleaning up the darkroom. If I had to use a HazMat suit, I would stop using the stuff (though I pretty much have anyway, since it does not work appreciably better than D-72). I have never used Azo, so I do not know if D-72 would work as well as Amidol on it. Edward Weston preferred Amidol on Azo. He was not much of a chemist, but he made some great photographs. I have a print of his, printed by Cole Weston, that is lovely. Better than what I saw of an original print by Edward Weston himself. I do not know if this is because Cole used a different paper, different developer, or what. -- .~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642. /V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939. /( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org ^^-^^ 08:10:01 up 57 days, 14:24, 3 users, load average: 4.38, 4.44, 4.49 ============================================================================================================= To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.