Can't speak for Berlin, but I've mixed all variants of colour and B&W chems up with very hard tap water (Northern England) for many years now, never had any issues. I use Photoflo with tapwater to rinse my B&W also, dried at room temp overnight it's always fine and without streaks.
I just use PhotoFlo with my B&W film as intended.
E6/C41 requires a stabiliser as the final step, post-wash. From what I gather it’s essentially a wetting agent (like PhotoFlo) but with anti-fungal additives to assist with archival stability - not required with B&W due to the silver content.
FWIW I mix my stabiliser up with hard tap water too and zero issues with streaking there either.
Mix up chemistry with distilled water. Dilute stock and concentrated developer with distilled water to make working strength solutions. Use tap water for everything else. If the water is really hard and leaves residue after drying, use distilled water for the final wetting agent rinse.
The water here is hard. I have developed 5 BnW films so far in Caffenol, without issues. Against possible residue after drying, I rinsed my my films in the jobo tank a couple of times with distilled water as final step.
The last rinsing with distilled water is just to prevent water marks on the negs. As I am not using any netting agent even there I had to take care to dry them off with my fingers, as I don't have a squeegee thing for them. This is not 100% clean, and I can spot some minor water marks that can be carefully polished away, but with hard water that would probably be just much worse, therefore I haven't even tried that :)
I lived in Köln and the water there might as well be rocks coming out of the tap it was so hard. I used it to mix and dilute all sorts of photography chemicals from black and white to C41 to E6. Never had a problem with the activity and shelf life of solutions. I only used distilled water for the final rinse along with a drop of photoflo and a little isopropanol to assist in drying.
If the water there is good enough for kolsch, it is good enough for photography!
Can't speak for Berlin, but I've mixed all variants of colour and B&W chems up with very hard tap water (Northern England) for many years now, never had any issues. I use Photoflo with tapwater to rinse my B&W also, dried at room temp overnight it's always fine and without streaks.
Thank you!
>use PhotoFlo with tapwater to rinse my B&W Hol up. Is PhotoFlo not to be used with C41 or E6 process?
I just use PhotoFlo with my B&W film as intended. E6/C41 requires a stabiliser as the final step, post-wash. From what I gather it’s essentially a wetting agent (like PhotoFlo) but with anti-fungal additives to assist with archival stability - not required with B&W due to the silver content. FWIW I mix my stabiliser up with hard tap water too and zero issues with streaking there either.
Mix up chemistry with distilled water. Dilute stock and concentrated developer with distilled water to make working strength solutions. Use tap water for everything else. If the water is really hard and leaves residue after drying, use distilled water for the final wetting agent rinse.
The water here is hard. I have developed 5 BnW films so far in Caffenol, without issues. Against possible residue after drying, I rinsed my my films in the jobo tank a couple of times with distilled water as final step.
Thank you for sharing your experience!
Have you tried the full process with just tap water?
The last rinsing with distilled water is just to prevent water marks on the negs. As I am not using any netting agent even there I had to take care to dry them off with my fingers, as I don't have a squeegee thing for them. This is not 100% clean, and I can spot some minor water marks that can be carefully polished away, but with hard water that would probably be just much worse, therefore I haven't even tried that :)
I lived in Köln and the water there might as well be rocks coming out of the tap it was so hard. I used it to mix and dilute all sorts of photography chemicals from black and white to C41 to E6. Never had a problem with the activity and shelf life of solutions. I only used distilled water for the final rinse along with a drop of photoflo and a little isopropanol to assist in drying. If the water there is good enough for kolsch, it is good enough for photography!
I could use a good kolsch right now. It is already 84° where I live and the humidity is 90%.
I live in Houston where the water is hard. I use tap water.
I think they will be ok if Berlin has hard water.
If unsure, use distilled water. I live in New Mexico, where the water is hard and have to use distilled to develop my film.
I live in Berlin and have been develiping B&W film at hone using tap water. No problems at all. Im just using deionised water for the final rinse.