Looking for true B+W film with silver halide crystals only.

baachitraka · Feb 4, 2014

Are there any film still available with old-style emulsion that has silver-halide crystals only?

I use RPX 400 and Orwo UN54 but I have no idea whether these film are old-style emulsion or they utilize color dye sensitization.

AgX · Feb 4, 2014

ALL films we use employ Silver-Halide crystals only.

ALL films we use for pictorial photography employ color dye sensitization.

What you seemingly refer to is the shape and structure of the Silver-Halide crystals.

Simonh82 · Feb 4, 2014

baachitraka said:
Are there any film still available with old-style emulsion that has silver-halide crystals only?

I use RPX 400 and Orwo UN54 but I have no idea whether these film are old-style emulsion or they utilize color dye sensitization.

As I understand it, there is a difference between colour dye sensitisation, and using colour (black) dyes in the final negative image. Using dyes for sensitisation is very standard and would be included in any panchromatic film. They dyes simply sensitise the silver halide crystals to particular wavelengths of light, with simple silver halides only being sensitive to blue light.

Some, or even many (i'm not sure) modern films use dyes to form part of the final image, as a means of reducing the silver content in the film and perhaps improving other characteristics. I'm sure there was a thread on here a while ago where someone put their black and white film through colour C41 chemistry. This resulted in a film with just a trace of faint image on it and I think the consensus was that this was the dyes used in the film, as the silver would have been bleached away.

If you want a film which doesn't use sensitising dyes, I'm guessing a copy film which is blue sensitive only might be a good place to start but there is no guarantee that it won't use some dyes. If you want no dyes in your final image you could try some of the traditional films which are marketed as 'high silver content'. Maybe the original Efke/Adox CHS films if you can still find any, or maybe the new Adox silvermax or CHSII. Just a guess though.

MDR · Feb 4, 2014

RPX 400 and Orwo UN54 are classic thin layer emulsions as opposed to T-max, Delta and Acros type emulsions with T, Delta or Sigma Grain (Designer grain). All panchromatic films use dyes to get the correct color sensitivity but I guess you mean dyes like they are used for color film or the CN or XP line of chromogenic B/W films in this case no they are not like the latter type.
If you mean old style like in the 1940's or so maybe a few remaining rolls of Fortepan all other films for sale are thin layer emulsion films (developed by Adox in the 1950's).

Orwo UN54 and RPX are classic emulsions

Anon Ymous · Feb 4, 2014

The only BW films that use dyes to form the final image are those that are meant to be processed in C41 chemicals, like Ilford's XP2 and Kodak's BW400CN. Every other BW film, in the classic sense, uses only silver to form the final image, and that includes TMax and Delta films. All this "silver rich" terminology is marketing stuff. Modern films are simply outstanding. TMY2 puts old 100 ISO films to shame.

baachitraka · Feb 4, 2014

Its good that I got confused after reading Darkroom cookbook, to get right answers here. ;-)

removed account4 · Feb 4, 2014

i had been under the impression that orthochromatic as well as panchromatic films use sensitivity dyes ...
and there really aren't any films without dyes that are ONLY silver nitrate.
except of course if one uses olde skool / wet plate and coat your own dry plate and similar,
the silver nitrate impregnates the collodion
and when it is dry, the collodion at least is like a sheet of celluloid film with an image on it ...
and it is able to be removed from the glass substrate and look like film as well ...
silver gelatin emulsion is able to be coated on film substrates, denise ross does this often ..

Gerald C Koch · Feb 4, 2014

baachitraka said:
Are there any film still available with old-style emulsion that has silver-halide crystals only?

Define what you mean or infer from the term "old-style."

baachitraka · Feb 4, 2014

That term arrived yesterday from the darkroom cookbook. I was very hesitant to use that word at first since I have zero knowledge or experience on emulsions. But I may learn something here from those who are familiar what that word.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 4, 2014

papercam said:
i had been under the impression that orthochromatic as well as panchromatic films use sensitivity dyes ...
and there really aren't any films without dyes that are ONLY silver nitrate.
except of course if one uses olde skool / wet plate and coat your own dry plate and similar,
the silver nitrate impregnates the collodion
and when it is dry, the collodion at least is like a sheet of celluloid film with an image on it ...
and it is able to be removed from the glass substrate and look like film as well ...
silver gelatin emulsion is able to be coated on film substrates, denise ross does this often ..

Silver nitrate is USED to make wet plates (and indeed all other silver based photo products). It must be converted to a silver halide in order to make the plate light sensitive. It is silver halides (AgCl, AgBr, AgI) that do the work. So the mention of silver nitrate above is incorrect.

Gerald C Koch · Feb 4, 2014

Don't believe everything you read in the Drkroom Cookbook or the other Anchell book.

I have usually considered the term "old-style emulsion" as a bit of marketing used to sell people films that are not up to the level of modern film technology. Namely those from the former eastern bloc countries. Suddenly a film's deficiencies become advantages. Another ploy is the term "silver rich." Once again the marketing weasels at work.

baachitraka · Feb 4, 2014

Nevertheless, it is quite fascinating to read or see the abvious. In my personal case the metol based developer BTTB.

Axle · Feb 4, 2014

All Traditional B&W film is True B&W...however there are two subsets.

Orthochromatic and Panchromatic.

Give this a read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_film#History_of_film

Film has since the 1870s had colour dye sensitizers.

The closest you'll get to a true 'old school' film is Ilford Ortho Copy Plus (still avalible in 4x5) or if you can find some Kodalith. Freestyle also sells Arista Ortho Litho 2.0. Also Rollei ATO films.

StoneNYC · Feb 4, 2014

Simonh82 said:
Some, or even many (i'm not sure) modern films use dyes to form part of the final image, as a means of reducing the silver content in the film and perhaps improving other characteristics. I'm sure there was a thread on here a while ago where someone put their black and white film through colour C41 chemistry. This resulted in a film with just a trace of faint image on it and I think the consensus was that this was the dyes used in the film, as the silver would have been bleached away.

This is totally incorrect, you can easily create a B&W image from color film, there is actually 3 times as much silver in color films as in B&W (three color layers CYM means 3 layers of silver) though you have to print through the orange base color used for correct color printing on RA-4 paper so the image has to be exposed properly for the medium you are printing on.

Here are a few images shot on C-41 film and developed in B&W chemistry (Rodinal).

Shot on...

Shaws supermarket film C-41 (Rodinal 1:100 stand)

Kodak Gold200 C-41 (Rodinal 1:100 stand)

removed account4 · Feb 4, 2014

Gerald C Koch said:
Silver nitrate is USED to make wet plates (and indeed all other silver based photo products). It must be converted to a silver halide in order to make the plate light sensitive. It is silver halides (AgCl, AgBr, AgI) that do the work. So the mention of silver nitrate above is incorrect.

thanks gerald
i simplified it a bit too much i suppose ..
but just the same, there aren't any dyes in wet plate just the other salts ( I Br Cl ) ...
whenever PE ( or others ) mention making orthochromatic ( Erythrosine dye )
or panchromatic emulsions there are dye sets he mentions, that tend to expensive and used in small amounts
and allow the film to be sensitive to different wavelengths of the light spectrum ( red yellow green &c )
in the silver gelatin making + coating forum here on apug there are lots of people looking for dye sets
to sensitize their otherwise sort of orthochromatic emulsion ... maybe i misunderstood it all,
this wouldn't be the first time i got rather confused with technical and chemical "stuffs"

Simonh82 · Feb 4, 2014

StoneNYC said:
This is totally incorrect, you can easily create a B&W image from color film, there is actually 3 times as much silver in color films as in B&W (three color layers CYM means 3 layers of silver) though you have to print through the orange base color used for correct color printing on RA-4 paper so the image has to be exposed properly for the medium you are printing on.

Here are a few images shot on C-41 film and developed in B&W chemistry (Rodinal).

Shot on...

Shaws supermarket film C-41 (Rodinal 1:100 stand)

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Kodak Gold200 C-41 (Rodinal 1:100 stand)

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Stone, i'm not talking about developing colour film in b&w chemistry, I know this can be done. I'm talking about developing black and white film in colour chemicals. The bleach and fix should leave a completely clear film but someone reported a faint image, which was attributed to the use of image forming dyes in some standard black and white films. I'm not talking about BW400CN OF XP2 but normal black and white film.

I guess the idea is that if you have a faint dye image forming along side the silver image you can use less silver.

StoneNYC · Feb 4, 2014

Simonh82 said:
Stone, i'm not talking about developing colour film in b&w chemistry, I know this can be done. I'm talking about developing black and white film in colour chemicals. The bleach and fix should leave a completely clear film but someone reported a faint image, which was attributed to the use of image forming dyes in some standard black and white films. I'm not talking about BW400CN OF XP2 but normal black and white film.

I guess the idea is that if you have a faint dye image forming along side the silver image you can use less silver.

Well that's also wrong, many who shoot Kodak Technical Pan use C-41 instead of Technidol to process those B&W images. Yes you skip the bleaching of course... Stop and fix as normal.

johnielvis · Feb 4, 2014

Yes, that makes sense that there may be a dye image remianing--if all of the silver was bleached away, it is possible that dyes which didn't get washed out would form a faint image. There's also the possibility that the bleach didn't get to all of the silver--reversal black and white will leave some undeveloped silver halides that the bleach can't get to--these eventually will form an image if they are not fixed out completely.

Another scenario is gelatin tanning and or staining from the bleaching step. some bleaches will harden the geletain when they are used--so you may be left with a matrix film type image. Or the bleach may also stain the geletain slightly--or may not be completely cleared from washing or a clearing bath.

with the differential hardening or staining, it's possible to have a faint image when no silver or dyes remain at all.

Karl A · Feb 4, 2014

I read that too, and I wondered about it. The passage being referenced is in the Darkroom Cookbook, 3rd ed., pp. 33-35

He says there are three kinds of B&W film:

1. Old-style emulsions that rely entirely on silver halides to form the image, e.g. Efke 25
2. Conventional grain emulsions that utilize color dye sensitization to form the image and thereby reduce the amount of silver in the emulsion, e.g. Tri-X or HP5+
3. Flat-grain emulsions, which utilize even less silver, and even more color dye sensitization, e.g. Tmax or Delta

The implication is that 1 is the best, since it has the most silver. He also says 1 is the most sensitive to expansion and contraction, 2 less so, 3 the least.

I have not read that perspective elsewhere.

I believe it is the quality of the final image on the negative that counts, and after fixing most of the silver gets washed away anyway. So it is really the quality/quantity of the silver that gets left in the final image that matters, isn't it? Modern films are less wasteful of silver in this case.

Simonh82 · Feb 5, 2014

StoneNYC said:
Well that's also wrong, many who shoot Kodak Technical Pan use C-41 instead of Technidol to process those B&W images. Yes you skip the bleaching of course... Stop and fix as normal.

I am talking about using the full C41 chemistry, including bleach. If there were no dyes, the film would be blank but it isn't there was reportedly a weak image.

It could be under bleached as suggested above but as colour film has higher silver content than B&W I would have thought it would easily clear the film.

MartinP · Feb 5, 2014

Sensitisation dyes are usually water-soluble and washed out of the emulsion during development aren't they? If anyone suspects that they have some magic image-forming dye in their negs then don't use the name sensitisation-dye.

Is that text-book description of 'differences between materials' some sort of confusion over various properties of different films, coincidentally found in orthochromatic versus panchromatic emulsions? Even the orthochromatic films contain sensitisers don't they? I suspect that, if any image at all is visible after bleaching (I have never tried cross-processing like this), that it will be in the gelatine rather than consisting of a magic image-forming dye.

AgX · Feb 5, 2014

Karl A said:
I read that too, and I wondered about it. The passage being referenced is in the Darkroom Cookbook, 3rd ed., pp. 33-35

He says there are three kinds of B&W film:

1. Old-style emulsions that rely entirely on silver halides to form the image, e.g. Efke 25
2. Conventional grain emulsions that utilize color dye sensitization to form the image and thereby reduce the amount of silver in the emulsion, e.g. Tri-X or HP5+
3. Flat-grain emulsions, which utilize even less silver, and even more color dye sensitization, e.g. Tmax or Delta

The implication is that 1 is the best, since it has the most silver. He also says 1 is the most sensitive to expansion and contraction, 2 less so, 3 the least.

There have been ideas about using the sensitizing dyes for image forming. But this neither is employed at all nor would it work in our processes.

Those three points make no sense to me.

Karl A · Feb 5, 2014

AgX said:
There have been ideas about using the sensitizing dyes for image forming. But this neither is employed at all nor would it work in our processes.

Those three points make no sense to me.

Me neither, just sharing the original source of these ideas, since that was how this thread got started.

baachitraka · Feb 5, 2014

Some are books are like, how I presented my thesis in the University. ;-)

removed account4 · Feb 17, 2014

baachitraka

it took me a while to find the info i was referring to in the post

these are dye the sets that convert a simple uv sensitive and blue sensitive emulsion
to be orthochromatic, and pan chromatic

the dye sets are extremely expensive

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
lists a catalog from 1971 that ron scanned that have 20+/- dyes listed

http://www.corchim.ru/catalog/Phot-sen_PH.html
a place that currently sells them as well.

good luck !

Looking for true B+W film with silver halide crystals only.

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