Anyone ever make Lippmann plates?

[Ray Rogers]

Ray, I remember the video you recorded when we went to see the Lippmann collection at the Musée de l'Elysée (http://www.elysee.ch/index.php?id=144&L=1) in Lausanne, Switzerland. As you know they have the world's largest collection of Lippmann photographs, I believe some 120 plates by Gabriel Lippmann. Have you been able to digitize that video in the meantime?
Given the rarity of original Lippmann photographs, your video might be a pretty interesting and unique document - even if the viewing conditions at the museum were far from ideal (fluorescent tubes!!!).

Hi Martin!

Yes, Thank you for reminding me.

You may recall I had a computer virus and had to reinstall everything; some necessary software still needs to be reinstalled...
But perhaps you are right.

You probably know there is/was a book due out (late last year perhaps?) that was to have some images as well as perhaps Lippmann's biography... Nevertheless, if you think it might be worthwhile, I will reinstall the software and finish it up. (I really need to anyway from an archival point of view. Hardware and software changes and other problems like that.)

What format do you think would be the best way to store and present the material?

 

[holmburgers]

Ray Rogers, what book do you speak of? I'd be very curious to know.

 

[Ray Rogers]

Sorry, I can't locate anything more specific just now.
I belive it was due out about a year ago... the author's name was "Allen" something but I am not certain it has actually been released... If I come across anything more definate, I will let you know.

 

[R Shaffer]

1st try making a Lippmann - partial success

So I gave it go yesterday making a Lippmann Plate.

It looks like I have a ways to go to get better color rendition, but I am stoked I was able to record a standing wave pattern in the emulsion. I used GEO-03 holographic plates. Hardened the emulsion with a Glyoxal soak and developed in Lumiere Pyrogallol-Ammonia developer.

I definitely altered the emulsion too much in processing, which is why the white table is blue & the red roses in the middle of the table are not red. But the green plants at the top left & bottom right are almost green & the blue turtle on the table is very blue.

If anyone has any suggestions on how I might reduce altering the emulsion in processing, I'm all ears.

Hardener (6min): 5ml Glyoxal, 1gr KBr, 2.5gr So. Carbonate to make 500ml

Developer (2min): Sol A - 1gr Pyrogallol, 100ml Alcohol. Sol B - 10gr KBr, 100ml H2O. Mix 20ml A + 30ml B + 140ml H2O + 10ml Sat. Ammonia

Rinse 10min & soak 2min in LFN ( 4drop in 500ml approx )

All at 60deg F, except the developer seemed to be having a reaction and warmed itself to 68deg.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Did you wash after the hardening step? That is an important step to consider. Glyoxal should be removed before development. Also, Sodium Sulfate may be a good addition to the hardening solution.

PE

 

[R Shaffer]

Did you wash after the hardening step? That is an important step to consider. Glyoxal should be removed before development. Also, Sodium Sulfate may be a good addition to the hardening solution.

PE

Yes, I did do a quick rinse maybe 15 - 20s. Although I did not pay much attention to this step. It only rinsed for the time it took me to reset my very finicky timer. Maybe I should have gone longer?

I could not find any info on the pre-hardening the emulsion with Glyoxal. All the formulas used formalin, so I just swapped out equal amounts of glyoxal for formalin in the formulas I found.

Do you think not completely rinsing would have increased the solvent action of the developer?

 

[Photo Engineer]

I would use 2 minutes at minimum for the post hardener wash. Also, without Sodium Sulfate, the hardening would take place, but not optimally due to swell.

The Bromide at that concentration will inhibit the solvent action if not washed out. Excess Glyoxal will react with the Ammonia and reduce solvent action. So, you see that a good wash and a proper prehardener are both needed.

PE

 

[R Shaffer]

I would use 2 minutes at minimum for the post hardener wash. Also, without Sodium Sulfate, the hardening would take place, but not optimally due to swell.

The Bromide at that concentration will inhibit the solvent action if not washed out. Excess Glyoxal will react with the Ammonia and reduce solvent action. So, you see that a good wash and a proper prehardener are both needed.

PE

Oh that's good info, thanks PE

I don't have any Sodium Sulfate in my darkroom pantry, so I'll need to order it.

The initial feedback I'm getting on the holography forum is that the color shift is probably due to the emulsion being thinner after processing. So the more I can harden it and avoid swelling or shrinking the better.

If I wanted to reduce the solvent action of the developer, would it be better to reduce the ammonia or increase the bromide?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Solvent action is more a function of the Ammonia with bromide being secondary to solvent action and primary to antifogging.

Decreasing amonia would probably be best.

PE

 

[Hologram]

So I gave it go yesterday making a Lippmann Plate.

It looks like I have a ways to go to get better color rendition, but I am stoked I was able to record a standing wave pattern in the emulsion. I used GEO-03 holographic plates. Hardened the emulsion with a Glyoxal soak and developed in Lumiere Pyrogallol-Ammonia developer.

I definitely altered the emulsion too much in processing, which is why the white table is blue & the red roses in the middle of the table are not red. But the green plants at the top left & bottom right are almost green & the blue turtle on the table is very blue.

If anyone has any suggestions on how I might reduce altering the emulsion in processing, I'm all ears.

Hardener (6min): 5ml Glyoxal, 1gr KBr, 2.5gr So. Carbonate to make 500ml

Developer (2min): Sol A - 1gr Pyrogallol, 100ml Alcohol. Sol B - 10gr KBr, 100ml H2O. Mix 20ml A + 30ml B + 140ml H2O + 10ml Sat. Ammonia

Rinse 10min & soak 2min in LFN ( 4drop in 500ml approx )

All at 60deg F, except the developer seemed to be having a reaction and warmed itself to 68deg.

Great results, congratulations!

I don't know whether the two hardeners, formaldehyde and glyoxal, act at similar speed regarding emulsion hardening.
Maybe glyoxal takes much longer.
What about baking the plate right after the photographic exposure and prior to liquid processing? I remember having done baking (without adding any specific hardening agent) with a couple of gelatin based materials, like dichromated and ferric gelatin. They required a relatively long time of treatment - say, 45 - 60 minutes at 120°C. So this definitely complicates the whole process.

Regarding your developer I wasn't aware (anymore) it had such a high KBr concentration. As PE pointed out KBr also acts as a silver solvent. By the way there are colloidal developers that contain but KBr as the silver solvent. Moreover, in my reply to your post at the holography forum I forgot to mention that ammonia is both a silver solvent and a very strong alkali. So increasing/decreasing its amount makes it very tricky in respect to solvent/developing action.
So switching to another developer may be a better option I guess. There's an alternative to the GP-2 type of developers. I was involved with people from the Russian holography forum to set up a developer which replaces the ammonium thiocyante by sodium thiosulfate. I can't seem to find that link anymore. The whole thing was done with two stock solutions, one containing the thiosulfate only (I believe).

 

[Hologram]

(...)like dichromated and ferric gelatin. They required a relatively long time of treatment - say, 45 - 60 minutes at 120°C. So this definitely complicates the whole process.

Speaking of dichromated gelatin, one thing you might try before switching to another developer would be a "DCG-like" approach: put your already exposed/developed plate into a cold water bath for five minutes or so. Then you insert it into an 50% alcohol (isopropanol, ethanol or methanol) solution for two minutes. Then put it into a 100% alcohol bath for another two minutes. When you remove the plate you'd apply a warm air stream (hairdryer etc.) to dry it without causing condensation defects. Let me know if this shifts the reonstructing colors towards longer wavelengths.

 

[R Shaffer]

Great results, congratulations!

I don't know whether the two hardeners, formaldehyde and glyoxal, act at similar speed regarding emulsion hardening.
Maybe glyoxal takes much longer.
What about baking the plate right after the photographic exposure and prior to liquid processing? I remember having done baking (without adding any specific hardening agent) with a couple of gelatin based materials, like dichromated and ferric gelatin. They required a relatively long time of treatment - say, 45 - 60 minutes at 120°C. So this definitely complicates the whole process.

Regarding your developer I wasn't aware (anymore) it had such a high KBr concentration. As PE pointed out KBr also acts as a silver solvent. By the way there are colloidal developers that contain but KBr as the silver solvent. Moreover, in my reply to your post at the holography forum I forgot to mention that ammonia is both a silver solvent and a very strong alkali. So increasing/decreasing its amount makes it very tricky in respect to solvent/developing action.
So switching to another developer may be a better option I guess. There's an alternative to the GP-2 type of developers. I was involved with people from the Russian holography forum to set up a developer which replaces the ammonium thiocyante by sodium thiosulfate. I can't seem to find that link anymore. The whole thing was done with two stock solutions, one containing the thiosulfate only (I believe).

Thanks

I was thinking along the same lines with the hardening step, that the glyoxal is not really a 1 to 1 substitute for formalin. But in multiple searches I could not find any info for this application. Seems only us gummies use it for hardening our gelatin sizing. Sounds like a couple of tests are in order.

I like baking, I don't think my oven goes all the way down to 120deg. But maybe the toaster oven would. Need to get the OK from my wife before I start sticking stuff in the oven though :rolleyes:

I used the pyro-ammonia since it was (relatively) easy to mix up myself in small quantities, I only have small time windows to play with my little projects. Perhaps it would be better to try and raise the ph of the developer to slow down its activity?

I have the PF GP-2 developer as well, that I intend to use for another try. I just did not want to mix up a whole liter of developer for the first go as it will be a couple of weeks before I can get back to testing. But I like the idea of a comparable developer that uses regular hypo. I also saw some pyrocatecol developer formulas, I need to see how close they are to my pyro-cat HD, wouldn't that be cool.

Thanks, this helps.

 

[R Shaffer]

Speaking of dichromated gelatin, one thing you might try before switching to another developer would be a "DCG-like" approach: put your already exposed/developed plate into a cold water bath for five minutes or so. Then you insert it into an 50% alcohol (isopropanol, ethanol or methanol) solution for two minutes. Then put it into a 100% alcohol bath for another two minutes. When you remove the plate you'd apply a warm air stream (hairdryer etc.) to dry it without causing condensation defects. Let me know if this shifts the reonstructing colors towards longer wavelengths.

I have a plate I can try this out on and it sounds easy. How cold? Water bath with ice cubes floating in it cold? I was hoping there might be a way to reswell the emulsion.

And I read somewhere about post processing with a rehalogenating bleach or maybe it was bleaching and then redeveloping to try and restore the emulsion thickness. I need to go back and reread a few things.

 

[holmburgers]

Robert, this may be what you're referring to....

"The Lumier developer was frequently recommended and can also be used for modern Lippmann photographs. Development time was 1 to 3 minutes. Most often the image was fixed. However, it was sometimes recommended not to fix the developed image, since that would change the thickness of the emulsion and, change the colour of the image. Many Lippmann photographers used image intensification by a bleaching and redeveloping process, which compensated for the shrinkage introduced by the fixing step." - Bjelkhagen, 'Lippmann photography: its history and recent development', page 3, bottom paragraph.

 

[Hologram]

I have a plate I can try this out on and it sounds easy. How cold? Water bath with ice cubes floating in it cold? I was hoping there might be a way to reswell the emulsion.

I would use all baths at >20°C.

In order to post-swell the emulsion you might try also a 5% glycerol (sorbitol would be another option) solution.

And I read somewhere about post processing with a rehalogenating bleach or maybe it was bleaching and then redeveloping to try and restore the emulsion thickness. I need to go back and reread a few things.

I assume this would imply to develop (or re-develop) the emulsion to increased densities. Then you'd have to use a rehalogenating bleach that does very little damage to the integrity of the Lippmann fringes. Bleaches based on ferric EDTA or copper sulfate, maybe on iodine would come to my mind. The "classic" method implies mercuric chloride but that one surely has to be ruled out.

 

[Hologram]

I would use all baths at >20°C.

Oopy, that was a typo. I meant to say < (below) 20°C of course.

 

[holmburgers]

Just so everyone knows, this is still ongoing. No one's given up here!! I'm due to get some experiments going soon and I've been in contact with Darran Green, one of the Lippmann gurus out there. He suggested a slightly modified GP2 hologram developer to use. I think that is what I will go with, as the Lumiere pyrogallol has some deficiencies, apparently.

basically... BUMP

 

[michaelbsc]

Just so everyone knows, this is still ongoing. No one's given up here!! ....
basically... BUMP

Thanks for the bump. I'm watching this and really want to see this work. I'm working on a job out of town now, so I don't have any resources to devote to it myself that I can do in a hotel room. But I plan to try it as soon as I can get all of my tasks finished and get back home.

 

[holmburgers]

Awesome, I'm glad to hear some others are interested as well. Stay tuned, I guess this isn't for the impatient

 

[R Shaffer]

New Lippman Test Results

So I have made some changes to my processing of the Lippmann Plate and the results are promising. These were based upon feedback from my initial results from Mr. Darren Green ( thanks )

I changed the developer to Formulary' GP-2, however the developer is split into a solution A and B. Solution A is all the GP-2 ingredients, except for the Thiocyanate, mixed into 1 liter of stock solution ( GP-A ). The 12g of thiocyanate is then mixed with 200ml H2O for a 6% dilution ( GP-B ). The working developer is 15ml GP-A + 4ml GP-B + 100ml H2O.

Exposure: 2min @ f/8 bright sun

Processing:
9min soak in Glyaxol @ 65deg ( prev. was 6min, did not check end temp )
3min development @ 65deg ( actually I used drift 63deg start - 66deg end )
rinse 10min @ 66deg
30s soak in 2% glycerin + 3 drop LFN @ 66 deg ( 375ml total )

I was able to get much better color rendition, although the plate is rather dim. I have been told that increasing the GP-B will brighten the plate, but may alter the color.

I was also told that blue table in the previous image post was solarization. I believe that this is confirmed with the new plate as the white mailbox is turquoise & there is some turquoise in the fence. The 4 min exposure I made of this scene has a significant turquoise cast across entire image.

The right side of the image was not completely submerged in the glyaxol hardener ( me being too stingy w/ chemistry ), however it seems to show that I am getting good hardening of the emulsion with the glyaxol and it is essential to harden prior to developing.

So my next test will be shortening the exposure to 1min and 1 1/2min. And increasing the amount of GP-B in the developer.

Progress

 

[holmburgers]

WOW, Robert, you're definitely getting there! Incredible!, actual colors! And all that from a "black & white" plate; this is exciting.

How representative is the picture you've attached of the real deal? Does it look better in person? My Lippmann fervor is revived...

 

[R Shaffer]

WOW, Robert, you're definitely getting there! Incredible!, actual colors! And all that from a "black & white" plate; this is exciting.

How representative is the picture you've attached of the real deal? Does it look better in person? My Lippmann fervor is revived...

Definitely looks better in person. The plate has an iridescence ( the turquoise looks like a beetle ), better color and contrast when properly viewed. The brightness of the surface reflection makes is difficult to photograph. I really need a 10deg prism for better viewing.

One thing that is interesting between the pyro developed and GP-2 developed plates is that this plate ( GP-2 ) has a much tighter viewing angle. Even small changes from optimum angle & the color vanishes. Not the case with the pyro plate. Also the GP-2 plate with 4min exposure is drastically darker than the 2min exposure, almost un-viewable. Whereas the pyro plates at 2min, 4min & 8min all were very close in appearance.

And lastly. These have a rather narrow dynamic range of maybe 3 stops. I'll get a better idea when I get the exposure nailed, but there is only about 3 stops between the solarized mailbox and the tall blue ecium in the background.

 

[holmburgers]

A quick update....

I've built a plate holder and the GP-2 chemicals are on the way. Should be making my attempts soon.

But in the interim, I've been thinking a bit about interference photography like this. I recently discovered what dichroic filters are; interference filters! Call me ignorant, but I'm new to this..

So, we all know that the Lippmann photograph records colors in the same manner, by microscopic interference (iridescence) patterns in the emulsion, but it results in an image only viewable by reflection, not transmission. I'm struggling to understand why there can't be a transmission Lippmann photograph; essentially making a "dynamic" dichroic filter that relates to the colors of the image, in other words, an interference photograph that's viewable by transmission. Imagine a picture made in this way.... I would have to think it would be incredible.

Any thoughts? What conditions would have to be present for this to work?

*edit* Here's a resource I haven't seen before, might have some useful info for those interested http://books.google.com/books?id=1J...EwBQ#v=onepage&q=lippmann heliochrome&f=false

 

[R Shaffer]

A quick update....

I've built a plate holder and the GP-2 chemicals are on the way. Should be making my attempts soon.

But in the interim, I've been thinking a bit about interference photography like this. I recently discovered what dichroic filters are; interference filters! Call me ignorant, but I'm new to this..

So, we all know that the Lippmann photograph records colors in the same manner, by microscopic interference (iridescence) patterns in the emulsion, but it results in an image only viewable by reflection, not transmission. I'm struggling to understand why there can't be a transmission Lippmann photograph; essentially making a "dynamic" dichroic filter that relates to the colors of the image, in other words, an interference photograph that's viewable by transmission. Imagine a picture made in this way.... I would have to think it would be incredible.

Any thoughts? What conditions would have to be present for this to work?

*edit* Here's a resource I haven't seen before, might have some useful info for those interested http://books.google.com/books?id=1J...EwBQ#v=onepage&q=lippmann heliochrome&f=false

I'm not clear on how they were projecting the Lippmann images, but I think you came across Lippmann projector made by Zeiss.

It would be interesting to know if they were reflecting light off the plate or transmitting light thru the plate in these projectors. American Amateur Photographer ( Vol 10 - 1898 ) has several articles about Lippmann color images being projected at various lectures.

Hope you are successful with your Lippmann Images.

 

[holmburgers]

Yeah, that was a reflection projection. Aphengenoscope I believe, basically an opaque projector.