Making film emulsion

[narigas2006]

Hi all,

I am new at this post and I am so happy I found it!!! I've been doing my own developing for motion pic films and I guess I would like to try something a little bit more radical. I've been following some of the posts and I now thought about the possibility of doing my own MP film. I was able to do my own emulsion w Ag nitrate and K bromate and despite not being able to get a pretty pic, the crystals turned out to be ~3um (rough guess, using an infrared microscope). Anyway, after developing it looks very flexible and nice, but despite the fact that it did not crack or anything, it was very hard after a coat a piece of acetate. Well, 2 questions, 1. how could I make the emulsion more flexible (i am using home gelatin)? Can the same technique be used for super coating? Many many thanks.

richard

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Cool! You can get photographic gelatin from artcraftchemicals.com.

What are you using as the film base? Clear leader?

 

[Photo Engineer]

Don't use food gelatin. The additives will cause severe problems.

Adding some sorbitol or other sugar at very low concentration will reduce cracking. However, the film support must have a proper subbing layer on it or the emulsion will appear to crack, but it is really flaking away from the support.

PE

 

[narigas2006]

Cool! You can get photographic gelatin from artcraftchemicals.com.

What are you using as the film base? Clear leader?

Yes, I was thinking in using clear leader from Orwo. And spray the emulsion using compressed air through a heated tube. And thanks for the tips photo engeneer, very very helpful!

 

[LordMagnus]

Now there is an idea. Here is the one I thought of using for apply emulsions, use an airbrush! Another idea is to use instead of gelatin, use pure agar, or the highly purified agrose used in dna sepertion gells, it's allot more rubbery than animal gelatin, and less prone the microorganism attacks.