Swapped from tap water to distilled for my film developer and wow what a difference

I spent like 6 months fighting with uneven development and weird streaks on my black and white rolls. Kept thinking it was my technique or my chemicals were bad. Finally my buddy who shoots way more than me told me to try distilled water for mixing my developer. I was using regular tap water from my kitchen sink. First roll I developed with distilled water came out SO much cleaner. No streaks no weird density shifts. It was like $1.29 for a gallon at the grocery store. Now I also use distilled for my final rinse step and it helps a ton with drying spots. Has anyone else had tap water mess up their development or was my local water just extra bad?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_david1d agoTop Commenter

Lol I had the opposite problem using distilled made my fixer go cloudy.

danielmartinez1d ago

Huh, that's weird but makes sense in a way. It's like when you buy organic dish soap and suddenly your glasses don't rinse clean. Sometimes the basic stuff with a few minerals in it works better than the pure version.