How sensitive are films going to become to things other than light?

AgX · Oct 29, 2007

Well, how sensitive films are going to become is often discussed.
However, how sensible, to other influences than light, they are going to become is merely talked about. One of the few, or rather the only one to do so was the Gigabitfilm institute/company in Germany.
Just now this topic has reached Apug. And in a most recent publication in Germany this source gives a statement which only could be read as to keep the hands off a certain film in a certain cartridge.

Is this just the effect of some weird strategy within the industry? Or is this a real problem challenging the industry AND the user?
Up to now the 135-type film size was probably the most robust. (With only few exceptions like light-piping and storage issues for some rather irregular films.)
Are scenarios to fear that before processing the first strip of film has to be cut off because it has been touched with plain hands, otherwise resulting in contaminating the process? How much care, starting with selecting the right materials, has to be applied to processing equipment?
Is that one a single voice? Has the rest of the industry kept this issue in-house in order not to worry the user? Was one player negligently releasing foul material?

I’m curious how the industry will react on this issue.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Oct 29, 2007

Can you perhaps provide a clearer background to the question you are raising? I cannot understand the implied meaning of your post very well.

david b · Oct 29, 2007

what?

keithwms · Oct 29, 2007

He means "sensitive" not sensible. Lichtempfindlich, gel?

I don't forsee any major problems even if films become much more light sensitive; people (like me!) already work with IR films and take special precautions. Blowing through the first frame is wise in general, for any roll of film, in my opinion. It has saved me many times, even with slow films.

I don't see much point in pushing the limit further in 135 format though. Looking at what is already commonly available in electronic capture, I think there's much more of a place for a superfast MF rollfilm. I have no idea who would pay the research price for beating back the fog boundary though.

P.S. If you mean enviro-sensitive, that is another topic...

AgX · Oct 29, 2007

clarification

Sorry, it was not my intention to be cryptic.

I meant what I wrote: Sensible to anything other than radiation. Which you can read as chemical agents outside the processing contaminating halide films before or under processing. The crucial word is `contamination´, which I should have used at the beginning in my post above.

This is an issue put forward time ago in Germany by the Gigabitfilm institute. Seemingly getting not much attention. (Months ago I referred to that here at Apug.)

The basic idea is that emulsions being processed in the most advanced developers of today reaching for their limits as well most modern emulsions processed in rather middle of the road chemistry will be susceptible to agents they get in contact with during manufacture, handling, exposing and processing producing artefacts not seen (or overlooked) so far.

Meanwhile it is getting more attention in a German forum related to the release of the high-resolution film ATP-V1 and its custom chemistry. Yesterday a posting was publicised here at Apug giving via a reference to a German forum a warning for a certain film/cartridge combo.

((there was a url link here which no longer exists) /post 53)

keithwms · Oct 29, 2007

Ah okay, bear in mind that in translation, sensible means (roughly) practical.

AgX · Oct 29, 2007

Sorry again.
Yes you are right, as I just realized.
But please bear in mind that I'm reading and writing on a daily basis in three languages, with two of them giving `sensibel´ the intended meaning.

Moderator,

please change the thread-title to something making more sense...

Ulrich Drolshagen · Oct 29, 2007

I'd rather use the term susceptible

Ulrich

David A. Goldfarb · Oct 29, 2007

Title updated.

Monophoto · Oct 29, 2007

My response is a bit off topic, but some might find it interesting.

I was in high school during the period when nuclear weapons were actively being tested aboveground (45 years ago). Naturally, there was a lot of discussion about radioactive fallout from these tests and the potential hazards therefrom. I was a geek (still am, and damn proud of it), and decided to do a science project to test the hypothesis that it should be possible to detect the presence of fallout.

I had a good friend who was into photography (probably an early influence on me) who told me that the fastest film commercially available film at the time was Super HyPan. I wrapped sheets of this film in light-and weather-tight plastic, and left them outside for several weeks. The hypothesis was that if radioactive fallout was detectable, it should be possible to see evidence of that fallout in the form of areas of fogging on this film after it was processed.

I didn't have a darkroom, so I had to use the family bathroom (it was a one bathroom house, so I had to time my processing strategically), and based on recommendations from my friend, I used a monobath developer/fixer to process the film.

Results - I found no evidence of detectable fogging. So either the hypothesis was wrong, or else the sensitivity of the film was insufficient for the amount of radiation that was present.

Vaughn · Oct 29, 2007

"Silver salts are sensitive to thought." from Ted Orland's Photographic Truths.

Other than that I am not too worried about it. If a company makes a product for general consumption and the general public can't use it, then the company will have to withdraw it from the market. Specialized products still have to be able to be used by specialists without too many complications.

Canon came out with cameras that use an infra-red sensor to advance the film...thus losing the users of infra-red sensitive film. Fortunately for Canon that user group was not too big.

Vaughn

AgX · Oct 29, 2007

Monophoto,

Yes, your post is off topic because it is related to radiation; but I can tell you I've got a German scientific publication out of this period in my library discussing the effects of radionuclide fallout on the photographic industry.

AgX · Oct 29, 2007

Vaughn,

This seems to be an issue to all high-end materials on the market. And most probably all new material to come in future will be high-end. High-end in the meaning that the processes of image capture and image intensification/gain are much more susceptible to influences beyond radiation, influences coming from within the imaging chain.

And to my understanding (maybe I misinterpreted what has been published) there are already problems within the industry.

rmolson · Oct 29, 2007

How sensitive

Fallout fogging paper
I can tell you from experience that radioactive fallout does affect film and paper. In the mid 60s I was working in a photofinishing plant in Canton Ohio. Our Christmas rush was at its peak when suddenly our color paper went bad. No matter how we tried to compensate with our printers the colors were off and out of balance. As we used Kodak paper as everybody did, the Kodak tech rep was practically living in our lab. But no one could fix it. In desperation we sent all of our work to another lab, our competitor. They were not having the problem. Finally we dumped our entire stock of paper in storage and Kodak send a truck load of new paper. By then the season was passed. Years later a story turns up that the government quietly settled with Kodak for the lost of their production run when the fallout from the above ground tests drifted over Rochester.. I can not verify the settlement but I can verify that our paper went bad for no reason at all. Including our paper in a refrigerated storage unit.. We bought our paper by the truck load and that paper was the batch than had been contaminated.. .

Photo Engineer · Oct 29, 2007

Film is sensitive to radioactive fallout. After the first atom bomb tests and use, Kodak was forced to install some expensive equipment which included foot baths for shoes when entering and leaving sensitive areas. I remember walking through these running water baths all the time.

As for general sensitivity, film is very sensitive to mercury vapor and formaldehyde fumes to name two. Mercury is strictly controlled in all areas of Kodak park. Employees were not allowed to use merthiolate (the mercury salt of erythrosine).

Oddly enough, both formalin and mercury salts can do good things if added properly before coating, but will harm film after manufacture.

Iron salts in film or in developer will harm film. Iron salts falling onto unprocessed film or paper will cause problems, so I use a filter to remove any rust from my lines.

However, the bottom line is that heat is the enemy of all film. Film suffers heat death from any source including your car's glove compartment on a hot summer day. In fact, that is probably the primary limiting factor in making fast films. If they were fast enough, they would not survive long enough on store shelves to be usable.

PE

Gigabitfilm · Oct 29, 2007

Better speed and a better quality in AgHal is only possible when mostly all not well known mistakes of the past are solved. Then better times for AgHal can begin. But this means work for the details, of course a lot of little things never mentioned in scientific publications. This forum is the only, where you can find and inform some of the experts, who could have heard about disturbing factors from a real AgHal-production.

Vaughn is right, if a product can only used from a specialist, it is not for common. But when the reason is found, why this product has to be a special product only for specialist, than it is your duty as a scientist to CANCEL THE REASON, and to realize a common product for common market. AgHal cannot wait or digital will take all markets from us.

My research goal since 1992 was to detect all possible mistakes for highspeed halftone in monodisperse emulsions, now the last puzzlepiece is found. In a velvet for a cartridge (when details wanted, see my german aphog.de forum text) can exist anti-electrostatic agents, water repellents, anti-felting agents, softening agents, catalysts for non-creasing and non-shrinking finishes, and so on ... you can read on the other page here in apug.

This finding happens to me last week, and I am happy about it, happy for a more stable future for analog.

To this forum why not starting with a list of all possible influence?

Starting points:
1.cameras auxiliaries from other films, sweat from hands,
2.cartridges velvet auxiliaries, auxiliaries from other films in production of cartridge, storage conditions (X-ray, radon), plastic smell of plastic tube, sweat from hands,
2a. rollfilm backpaper,
3.developing tools silverscum, plastic softener and heat, once used with pyrogallol like PMK, cleaning and wetting agents, sweat from hands,
4.developers producing Mackie-Lines in large dense areas, water,
5.fixers producing Mackie-Lines in large thin areas,
6.drying

Photo Engineer · Oct 29, 2007

Gigabitfilm said:
My research goal since 1992 was to detect all possible mistakes for highspeed halftone in monodisperse emulsions, now the last puzzlepiece is found. In a velvet for a cartridge can exist anti-electrostatic agents, water repellents, anti-felting agents, softening agents, catalysts for non-creasing and non-shrinking finishes, and so on ... you can read on the other page here in apug.

producing Mackie-Lines in large dense areas,
producing Mackie-Lines in large thin areas,

All of the areas you list were subject to intense research at Eastman Kodak for years. There are more items that can be added to this list, for example how to increase micro contrast over macro contrast for improved edge effects, humectants to prevent creasing and shrinking, development accelerating agents, matting agents, antistatic agents and 2 electron sensitization using osmate salts.

There are reduction sensitizers, and direct reversal agents similar to the direct reversal you have described here. Kodak has 20 years worth of research on the shelves at this time which has not been realized and this includes the new 25,000 ISO film mentioned elsewhere.

This high speed film has the grain and sharpness of a conventional 400 speed film from what I saw of the samples. However, its shelf life is unknown as I noted earlier.

PE

keithwms · Oct 29, 2007

Ron, I'm not familiar at all with the chemical side of the sensitization process, so I'll ask a dumb question. Give the short shelf life of high speed films, might it be possible to complete the sensitization process right before capture? I mean, you'd get the emulsion and a sensitization kit, kind of like the daguerreotype kits that people went mad over. You'd go in the darkroom and swab on some nasty bromide concoction or whatever, and then you'd go shoot... and develop quickly.

Or maybe there could be something like a reverse-order polaroid contraption, you'd feed the film into a chamber through rollers that would squish a packet of sensitizing goop over the emulsion layer. Then you'd shoot. And develop quickly.

Or you could simply send us the film packed in dry ice

Anyway, a colleague of mine, Jack Mitchell, apparently had a bit of a longstanding academic issue with some folks at Kodak regarding hole sensitization (as I recall); he lamented the amount of unused research at Kodak before he passed away a few months ago.

Photo Engineer · Oct 29, 2007

Keith;

This procedure you describe is "hypersensitization" and is used by astronomers. They treat the film to hypersensitize it and then use it as the effect fades away over several hours.

It uses Hydrogen gas.

You are welcome to try it. Make sure your insurance is up to day and add me as a beneficiary.

PE

keithwms · Oct 29, 2007

Photo Engineer said:
Keith;

This procedure you describe is "hypersensitization" and is used by astronomers. They treat the film to hypersensitize it and then use it as the effect fades away over several hours.

It uses Hydrogen gas.

You are welcome to try it. Make sure your insurance is up to day and add me as a beneficiary.

PE

Ah H2 gas is no problem, I use it at 1000C all the time. A grad student came to my office and said, calmly, there are flames coming out of the furnace; is that normal? I didn't know whether to run up to the lab or run out of the building.

Now H2 dosing in the field might be a bit of a problem.

Photo Engineer · Oct 29, 2007

Keith;

IDK, but my worst experience was when we had phosgene get loose in the lab. OTOH, one day I came into the lab and the door 'banged' just as I arrived. It felt as if the door had pushed back at me. I had trouble opening it and found glass and metal all over the floor keeping the door from moving properly.

Upon investigation, I found that the hydrogenation bottle had exploded just as I was pushing the door open. It left a dent about 1" deep in the solid metal doors just about chest height. The metal cage and the thick glass bottle were spread in an arc right at the door. Hydrogen escape appeared to be a non-problem.

Win a few, lose a few.

PE

Gigabitfilm · Oct 30, 2007

You mentioned the chemical bigbangs in labs, an echo I found on a patentstudy. It is my private meaning, that some of the intellectual work had to do with following: Company X is angry about company Z and modify their chemistry, that in X-chemistry Z-films get the colour tone of Z-company. Now is the R&D stuff of company Z not stupid and improve their Z-chemistry, that all X-films get the color-tone of X-company. --I cannot proof this, believe it or believe it not. From this patentstudy:

To increase micro contrast over macro contrast is a splendid idea from GROET und LINDSAY, 14. july 78 US-Patent, in 1999 I mentioned them as one of the few modern ideas in my speech 100 Jahre Kontrastausgleichsverfahren 100 years procedures for contrast reducing, you can find on my site, only in german, together with a lot of rare datas
http://www.gigabitfilm.de/html/deutsch/anwendung/wissenschaft/archiv/archiv.php?Layout=normal

The 25K-ISO Film, light/photons distribution at that intensity are very grainy, clumpsy. Could the sensitivity be more stable against cosmos-radiation for commercial trade with a ultrahigh LIRF, starting at 1/10 sec with 1 stop loss, I am not sure. The other questions has to do with that hypern (I had posted some experience in german aphog.de) and to switch on speed once described for a Mars-satellite-cartography-project in a german science magazine 30 years ago.

By monodisperse films, the positive is the perfect quality near the limits of optical laws. The negative is the reduced tolerance, when you develop with full speed, because you enhance the gaussian distribution curve of production quality, using the film with a chemistry, the emulsion was not constructed for. You need more control and you enhance possible problems. In the combination selected films and chemistry problems are solved. When nothing from outside will disturb it, it's quite equal as highend-digital.

With HDR-chemistry some users will test a lot of all commercial monodispers films, mostly of them in medium (to get an imagination for rollfilm) or large format. It can be, that the versatility in usable films will grew up, it can be, that some films will give no sufficient results, but to look for new qualities is good for photography.

keithwms · Oct 30, 2007

And so it goes.

Photo Engineer · Oct 30, 2007

I first met Nick Groet in about 1962 at a conference at Cape Canaveral, along with Paul Vittum. I am familiar with his theories as applied to color films. However, the definitive work on these lines was the lengthy paper by Mike Kriss which I have mentioned here on APUG before. It contains the full meaning of micro vs macro contrast and edge effects. This is applied to this day by Kodak.

As Keith says, "And so it goes".

PE

Gigabitfilm · Oct 31, 2007

A remark to 25K-ISO films. In ultra speed the developing reactions are more efficient or quicker as usual, mistakes will have enough time to constitute themselves. When you see the mathematical precision of the Mackie-lines by monodispers films, you can compare them - in my eyes - with equidensites (once exist a film by Agfa from RANZ - Agfacontour). When you have to do with errors in mathematical forms, then think in mathematical form to minimize them the interference. With that the field comes You wrote: ... antistatic agents and 2 electron sensitization using osmate salts. There are reduction sensitizers, and direct reversal agents similar to the direct reversal you have described here. Kodak has 20 years worth of research on the shelves at this time which has not been realized and this includes ...

I have not a direct reversal process, but in my understanding I can fog the weak exposed parts. When the mechanism is now very stable, why not to enhance the system with more fogging-power.

I can prove following: Over 30 years ago, 6,4K-ISO was (or is?) possible on Tri-X, the semester before me in Cologne, photo engineering, find out around 1970 a method for normal gradation with Rochester-Tri-X, not english Tri-X, with pre-fleshing and after-exposure 4?hours, developed in Tetenal Emofin, each bath 30 min at 30 C. Little more grainier than normal with acceptable fog. Once as a student I safed 2 stops underexposed important portraits on TriX with Emofin, each bath 30 minutes, but no pre- or after exposure. I was since 1985 never interested in normal films, but now it could be interesting for to compare past with new, to controll Tri-X how much speed he has. Once I made a simple test for that with my Typ IV chemistry, but the normal resolution of mix-emulsion films was going down, the gaussian sensitifity-distribution was too big enhanced in this speed-enhancement (that's the reason I prefer monodispers). I need only to add some sulfit and depending on grain-size some amounts of Kbr. The positive effect of extrem exposure latitude stays, grain is bigger (perhaps is this something for ULF-users, they need speed).

How sensitive are films going to become to things other than light?

Membership Council

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency