microscope for silver gelatin emulsions?

I am an amateur silver gelatin emulsion maker and I would love to be able to see the grain structure of my various emulsions like the photos we see in all the old photochemistry books.

Is this possible for a serious amateur?

If so, can you give some guidance on what I need to look for in a microscope and any necessary supplies or other tools required?

Thanks in advance for your time and sharing all your knowledge.

analog65 said:

I am an amateur silver gelatin emulsion maker and I would love to be able to see the grain structure of my various emulsions like the photos we see in all the old photochemistry books.

Is this possible for a serious amateur?

If so, can you give some guidance on what I need to look for in a microscope and any necessary supplies or other tools required?

Thanks in advance for your time and sharing all your knowledge.

Click to expand...

I don't think so;I'm sure you'll need a raster-electron microscope capable of many k magnification. Yoy may want to check with good university near by and see if you can find a sympathetic professor there helping you getting access; that's what I did and I got 10,000x images for a small donation.

Thanks Ralph, much appreciated.

analog65 said:

I am an amateur silver gelatin emulsion maker and I would love to be able to see the grain structure of my various emulsions like the photos we see in all the old photochemistry books.

Is this possible for a serious amateur?

If so, can you give some guidance on what I need to look for in a microscope and any necessary supplies or other tools required?

Thanks in advance for your time and sharing all your knowledge.

Click to expand...

I've got "The Fundamentals of Photography" by CEK Mees 1935, it's a Kodak publication. There's a lot of photomicrographs of emulsion on film base, 100 to 500 X. Even at 100 times grain is easy to see. There's some cross section images, that show, that the "clumps" are more of a stacking of independent silver grains in the gelatin.
Getting good "slices" involve a bit of real skill with a microtome. This is what I never learned.
There are all manner of old American Optical and the like compound microscopes on Ebay.
I don't know if simply coating a microscope slide with your emulsion and making a series of different exposures, then processing the slides would work? You could try it on a piece of glass, get a little triplet magnifier and get a look at 30X? A pathology student/lab person might be able to help.

Hi,

just two photos of some silver grain, Kodak TMY-2, I made using my microscope with darkfield setup:

First the full image, second is a crop out of the first one:





I was trying to let the silver show up it's metal gloss...
I must admit here some tricks were helpful, like using a very high aperture oil immersion darkfield condenser, a good 40x oil immersion lens, a thin glas slide...

A small strip of the film was mounted on a microscope glass slide and immersed in oil (water lets the film swell too much). On top a cover glass.

The transparency of the film base is fine, so no need to coat a glass slide ourself.
For a general overview simple brightfield (and a entry range microsope) is ok, too - the grains are just black then.

Best
Jens

As you indicated darkfield microscopy already is a step beyond the entry level.

AgX said:

As you indicated darkfield microscopy already is a step beyond the entry level.

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Sure, but no simplier pics at hands...

And as indicated by Ralph, a lot of crystal and silver-grain microphotographs presentd in textbooks or by the industry are enhanced beyond plain light microscopy of the emulsion. For instance by coating or by employing scanning electron microscopy.

Your images are impressive nonetheless.

AgX said:

And as indicated by Ralph, a lot of crystal and silver-grain microphotographs presentd in textbooks or by the industry are enhanced beyond plain light microscopy of the emulsion. For instance by coating or by employing scanning electron microscopy.

Your images are impressive nonetheless.

Click to expand...

Thanks, AgX,

I remember some very impressive electron microscopy images in one of Erwin Puts' publications on film... a great tool to analyse the silver grain...

Anyway I'll make some photos using entry level optics when I find some time the next days.

Have a good day
Jens

analog65 said:

I am an amateur silver gelatin emulsion maker and I would love to be able to see the grain structure of my various emulsions like the photos we see in all the old photochemistry books.

Is this possible for a serious amateur?

If so, can you give some guidance on what I need to look for in a microscope and any necessary supplies or other tools required?

Thanks in advance for your time and sharing all your knowledge.

Click to expand...

Just what do you want to see? I have a college/university grade optical microscope used by Biology students and have looked at the different types of grains (tubular, etc.) in conventional and "modern" films. Told me what I needed to know, mainly the difference between the two..........Regards!