The Light Farm and Denise Ross's Emulsion Diary websites

[Photo Engineer]

It was a pleasure to have dinner with Tadeki Tani and his wife on their last visit to Rochester. We sat with Paul Gilman and his wife while the three of us 'guys' talked in English and discussed sensitization, what else. That was where we were later joined by our own Ray Rogers from APUG who I met in person for the first time.

Tadeki Tani speaks almost perfect English and we had a lively discussion. He attended Paul's presentation on the 25,000 speed reversal film.

My point being, Denise and Kirk, is that you will find that most everything is published somewhere in English eventually. Even the ICIS minutes from the Tokyo meeting 6 years ago were all in English. I have published a list of significant patents by number elsewhere including the seminal Wey and Whiteley patent. These are two people for whom I have the greatest respect. I did my initial emulsion modeling work on the Wey and Whitely emulsions, and know them well.

But beware of patents. Some are never used, some are impractical, and almost all of them are considerably modified before the production stage. And, lots of information is left out. Wey and Whitely is a stunning example. You can make exactly what they say from the patent, but the outgrowth and final incarnation of it was far better than the original disclosure and much simpler to carry out. Another is my patent on Formaldehyde bisulfite. It was never used until the patent had expired, and the implementation was not in an odorless stabilzer as originally intended, but rather in the E6 pre-bleach bath.

PE

 

[Ray Rogers]

That much non-English information eventually finds its way into English is not untrue....

However,

The point is well taken that the most complete picture of emulsion technology can be obtained by the ability to consult texts in French, German, Russian, Japanese and of course English.

The contibution of Japanese workers is not to be underrated.

That said, No one is contesting the leadership of KODAK research.
The fact that Kodak clearly out-right imported and/or bought much of their knowledge, not withstanding!

(I hope this doesn't turn into a cultural/corporate bashing thread!)

I feel the value of Russian and French work is much underrated.

Yes, most of the important work does get translated into English at some point in time and in one way or another.

But that is only the cream of the crop, and some original material is undoubtably lost. I cringe everytime I see old journals and research reports being discarded... research takes a lot of work and valuable observations can be made by anyone anywhere at any level of sophsitication. I myself have to sort what I consider the cream from the Wey (?!) and have to discard more and more digital stuff all the time.

I also attended the Tokyo meeting, by the way.

Sometimes it is difficult for champions to refrain from beating their chests.
I sincerly hope this does not turn into a 'mine is beter than yours' thread.
All good research is valuable and if not immeadiatly digested and incorporated, should at least be archived until such time comes.

I have the highest respect and admiration for Japanese Researchers.

For anyone who cares, I am American partially raised in Europe, btw.

Ray
---


PS
There is a very tiny error of nuance in Ron's post;
While I do try to control the beating of my chest as much as possible, I too, after all, am a result of my hormones!
I choose to let it stand as is however, because I recognise and accept the pecking order.

 

[Ray Rogers]

...beware of patents. Some are never used, some are impractical, and almost all of them are considerably modified before the production stage. And, lots of information is left out. Wey and Whitely is a stunning example. You can make exactly what they say from the patent, but the outgrowth and final incarnation of it was far better than the original disclosure and much simpler to carry out.
PE

Humm, I have heard that there was a rift inside KODAK between management and the patent department, with management being behind the much of the lack of candor blamed on the patent department.


Does anyone know who Kodak actually liscensed ?
Specific Examples?
How many patents were ultimately liscensed ?
How much would Kodak get per liscense (range-actual data)
What kind of renumeration did the inventors receive, initially and then later, if the patent actually proved able to generate revenue.

???

While I am talking about Kodak, the same question goes for any other sensitized material manufacturer as well.

Ray

 

[Ray Rogers]

...patents. You can make exactly what they say from the patent, but the outgrowth and final incarnation of it was far better than the original disclosure and much simpler to carry out.
PE

This sounds more like progress than deception.
EVERYONE bashes patents.

Can someone who has actually patented a misleading patent, discuss this with us? That would be very informative! I guess not many will be willing to admit to decption in public however.

Ray

 

[Photo Engineer]

Ray;

There has never been a rift at Kodak between management and the patent department. That I can say categorically.

Cross liscencing of patents between all photo manfucaturers is a fact of life. It is very common. Japanese engineers and attorneys visited Kodak regularly from Fuji and Konishiroku as well as Agfa and that is how I met many of them. The revers was also true with Kodak people going abroad.

As for patents being deceptive, the fact is that you may list hundreds of chemicals and give 2 or 3 examples that do work, but you don't have to disclose the optimum, just one that works. The words "by methods known to one who is skilled in the art" are famous in patents. It means that any chemist might read the patent and the point might entirely escape them unless they knew photographic science and engineering as well.

There is an 'art' in this that many have no knowledge of. No one person at Kodak knew a complete formula.

PE

 

[dwross]

Denise and Kirk,

I have a question for you guys. What kind of drying cabinet did you make to let the coated plates dry? I like to coat about 12 plates at a time and want to have a light tight drying cabinet that is simple/cheap to construct.

Thanks

Ryuji

Alas, no drying cabinet in my darkroom. If I made one, I'd have to hang it from the ceiling. My darkroom has 'space allocation overcommitment' (from a list of currently used verbage, but one I actually like - much better than 'packed to the rafters'.)

I do all my coating last thing in the day before I shut down. I have filter fabric over the air intakes to the darkroom (just greenhouse Visqueen) so I rarely get debris settling on coatings. The first time I coated plates, I pre-chilled 11x14 plate glass in the refrigerator. What a nuisance. I had to remove boxes of paper to make room and the cleanup seemed excessive. The next time, and since, I set the plates out on plastic lids lined up in a tray, at room temperature. Except that it was considerably easier, I didn't notice any difference. Right now, I'm developing recipes for the Melenex subbed film that Photographers Formulary sells. That handles just like paper - easier actually because it doesn't swell or curl.

Having said that I, personally, have rejected the need for specialized drying cabinets and chilling tables, I would still love to hear from people who use either or both. Marco Boeringa has posted a description of his homemade drying box both here and on The Light Farm (in the 'News') section.

Denise

 

[dwross]

Yes, most of the important work does get translated into English at some point in time and in one way or another.

But that is only the cream of the crop, and some original material is undoubtably lost. I cringe every time I see old journals and research reports being discarded... research takes a lot of work and valuable observations can be made by anyone anywhere at any level of sophisitication. I myself have to sort what I consider the cream from the Wey (?!) and have to discard more and more digital stuff all the time.

One of my favorite references is the English Edition of Making and Coating Photographic Emulsions, by V.L. Zelikman and S.M. Levi, originally published in Russian. I have an academic's love of original sources and it makes me nuts to look through the references at the end of every chapter and realize that even if I could read Russian, and German, and who knows what else, those original sources may be lost to us.

I hope that everyone who has boxes of information stashed here and there (and I have mine) considers at some point cataloging and archiving. I personally can't imagine anything more tedious - or anything as important. The Rosetta Stone to emulsion making will be carved by all of us.

Denise

 

[Kirk Keyes]

I have a question for you guys. What kind of drying cabinet did you make to let the coated plates dry? I like to coat about 12 plates at a time and want to have a light tight drying cabinet that is simple/cheap to construct.

I was laying them out in the darkroom (I have about 3 times more space than Denise) and just letting them sit until dry. Then I stacked the plates and put some paper over the top to keep dust off. Here's where my problem started - about a week later, I got a package of stuff (including phthalated gelatin) from the Formulary, went down to the darkroom to put the box in, walked into the room, and flipped on the lights. OOOoooppppppsss. Turned them off in a second, but I fogged all the plates....

Next time I need to put the plates in some more light tight storage.

 

[Photo Engineer]

At Kodak, we had neat little light tight drying cabinets. They would dry 20 sheets of 5" paper or plates to give us effectively 40 4x5 sheets of paper, or plates or 40 35mm strips for in-camera work. The box was closed and latched and had a small blower at the top with a HEPA filter. The flow was cross flow as each shelf was offset from the other so that you had a front back front back array of shelves with a small 1" air flow space either at the front or back. Very effective.

Of course, here I just coat 20 sheets of 8x10 in a session and hang them up by clips. Plates are set out on a cool glass surface to dry.

PE

 

[Ray Rogers]

There has never been a rift at Kodak between management and the patent department. That I can say categorically.


PE

Interesting point of view.
Perhaps there are differing opinions,
I don't know.
I would like to make it clear however that I was not speculating.

Ray

 

[Photo Engineer]

Ray;

I spent a year working with the patent office after Ektacolor 37 paper came out and before I began work on catalytic imaging. They had a backlog of Invention Reports, and had to take one person from each department to do this work. I worked directly under Dr. R. Damschroder, asst. director of research at the time. I also worked under and trained under the person who became next head of the patent department.

The point of this story is to let you know that I did work virtually within the KRL patent division for a year. I also knew and met with the head of Kodak Legal several times on legal matters due to the lawsuits and copyrights among others.

I can say that there is no problem and was none at that time. I'm not even sure I understand your statement nor where this can come from. I do know that there is a different arrangement now, in that the scientist has more burden on him to prove originality and the state of the art and the scientist has to write the first draft. He has to do his own literature searches for the most part, but he still has an attorney work with him writing the patent. In the past, there were patent associates at EK that did literature searches on each Invention Report. That job is now incumbent on the scientist.

PE

 

[Ray Rogers]

Cross liscencing of patents between all photo manfucaturers is a fact of life. It is very common. Japanese engineers and attorneys visited Kodak regularly from Fuji and Konishiroku as well as Agfa and that is how I met many of them. The revers was also true with Kodak people going abroad.

Is there an easy way to see if a patent has ever been liscenced?

As for patents being deceptive, the fact is that you may list hundreds of chemicals and give 2 or 3 examples that do work, but you don't have to disclose the optimum, just one that works.

???
I HAVE seen patents that claim optimum known conditions seemingly as a requirement... the exact phrase escapes me now... but I beleive this may be related to the also commonly found "preferred embodiment" and "most preferred embodiment".

I am certainly no patent specialist but are you sure that you are not SUPPOSED to identify the optimal known conditions ?
(for the claims - naturally not for the emulsions)

Ray

 

[Photo Engineer]

There is supposed to be a preferred embodiment, but see the thread I started on patents for more information.

A preferred embodiment does not need to disclose everything! It just has to disclose how to make the invention work, not how to make best use of the invention.

As for cross liscenced patents, there is no way to tell, nor is there a way outside of a laboratory to tell if anyone is in violation of patents. Kodak has a unit which is charged with patent enforcement. They look at all film and paper products to determine if they are free of patent violations.

PE

 

[Ray Rogers]

I'm not even sure I understand your statement nor where this can come from. I do know that there is a different arrangement now....
PE

This may explain the difference.
I would have to reread the original document to be certain, but it could be in relation to Polaroid. Perhaps having to do with pressure to obtain broader claims... and being candid. I can confirm tomorrow, but it seems clear that even if there were such a problem, it may have been an isolated one.

Ray

 

[rmazzullo]

One of my favorite references is the English Edition of Making and Coating Photographic Emulsions, by V.L. Zelikman and S.M. Levi, originally published in Russian. Denise

You might want to explore "Photographic Emulsion Chemistry, by G. F. Duffin", and how often it's referred to in various patents.

Bob M.

 

[dwross]

You might want to explore "Photographic Emulsion Chemistry, by G. F. Duffin", and how often it's referred to in various patents.

Bob M.

Bob,
Thanks for the tip.

I went straight from your suggestion to AbeBooks. The one copy they had was $250, just about an order of magnitude out of my league. I was about to ask if I could rent your copy when I decided to give A****n a try. They had a copy for $20. The only description is 'Unknown binding". I may still be asking to rent your copy . I'll let you know. Hopefully, Photographic Emulsion Chemistry will end up on TLF's literature page.

d

 

[Kirk Keyes]

Dammint Denise - I just did the same search... Lowest I found was $160 in the UK.

Could I rent your copy?

 

[dwross]

Dammint Denise - I just did the same search... Lowest I found was $160 in the UK.

Could I rent your copy?

Absolutely. But it'll cost you a Hazelnut Brown at Rogue Ale .

d

 

[Ryuji]

One of my favorite references is the English Edition of Making and Coating Photographic Emulsions, by V.L. Zelikman and S.M. Levi, originally published in Russian. I have an academic's love of original sources and it makes me nuts to look through the references at the end of every chapter and realize that even if I could read Russian, and German, and who knows what else, those original sources may be lost to us.

Denise,

Zelikman and Levi offers a good explanation of many things, but that book describes several speculative theories that were later found unimportant or superseded by better explanations. Their book is definitely worth reading as an academic reference, but I would also double check with more modern references.

I'd read articles written by Chester Berry, David Skillman, Jong Wey, David Locker about precipitation. Berry was the pioneer of the quantitative analysis of grain nucleation and growth process, and Jong Wey took it to a level higher. If you are interested in numerical simulation, you might search for the works of Edgar Gutoff and Geoffrey Margolis. These are from Polaroid Corporation. Another interesting work is done by Masanori Saitoh and Masaya Shimoji of Konishiroku. They described the outline of their feedback control system for their emulsion manufacturing, but no numerical algorithm is disclosed (of course!) and so you would have to learn from other sources how to design the precipitation profile to get an emulsion you want (which is definitely more important learning process). Wey and Strong's work should give you a very good insight into this, and Gutoff's work should give you one way to think about it. I don't see much of the numerical work published from Eastman or Fuji people. I'm sure they did a lot of work but they probably considered it of little scientific value and a lot of commercial value.

If you are interested in precipitation profile for tabular grain emulsion, Joe Maskasky's work is the first thing you need to read... His patents (there are many) are actually pretty descriptive and informative, but maybe about 1/3 of his patents are actually practically relevant, if that's what you are looking for. His academic publications are also very good and informative.

A lot of practically relevant and useful and insightful information is published by people like Ohzeki, Urabe, Mifune, Satou, Takada, all of Fuji Photo Film. Some are written in English but majority are written only in Japanese.

But this type of list cannot be complete unless I narrow the scope to a very specific issue... because there are so many people who had a few pieces of very good information.

I hope that everyone who has boxes of information stashed here and there (and I have mine) considers at some point cataloging and archiving. I personally can't imagine anything more tedious - or anything as important. The Rosetta Stone to emulsion making will be carved by all of us.

The real information processing occurs in my brain after reading them and thinking about for some time. I have digitized some of my important part of the library, but I still focus on "digesting" the information and actually utilizing it on my practice by making batches of emulsions than to make a comprehensive bibliography... If some people want to collaborate with me in somewhat complementary sides, I'd be up for it, but I only have limited time and I have my priorities...

 

[Ryuji]

Thanks Denise and Kirk for the answer.

Well, I have a rack of flat file cabinet (which holds something bigger than 22x30 inch paper---the biggest I use) and it's fairly light tight by itself, but I don't trust it because it's not designed for that purpose. I cover the face of the cabinet with an opaque black plastic sheet (similar to the bag used to ship enlarging paper) but I am not too comfortable keeping plates coated with fast emulsion in there... plus, there is no ventilation in the cabinet.

 

[Kirk Keyes]

Ryuji - a handy little space saver I found is an electrophoresis plate rack. It has 12 or so slots and holds 8x10 and 5x7 plates quite nicely. I got 3 for $15 online.

 

[Ryuji]

Actually, I have those but I use them to dry processed plates, not coated plates...

(To those who are not familiar with lab work... electrophoresis gel rack is similar to dish drying rack or print drying rack made from coated wires or something...)

 

[Ryuji]

Incidentally, I wrote the section of "emulsion" (among a few other sections) in Encyclopedia of 20th Century Photography and this is the references I gave there:

Carroll, B. H. 1931. The preparation of photographic emulsions. J. of Chem. Education, 8, 2341-2367.

Duffin, G. F. 1966. Photographic emulsion chemistry. London: Focal Press.

Hill, T. T. 1966. Laboratory-scale photographic emulsion technique, J. of Chem. Education., 43, 492-498.

Keller, K. 1993. Science and technology of photography, VCH.

Mueller, F. W. H. 1977. The photographic emulsion. In Neblette's Handbook of Photography and Reprography: Materials, Processes, and Systems, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Sturmer, D. M. and Marchetti, A. P. 1989. Silver halide imaging. In J. Sturge, V. Walworth, and A. Shepp, eds., Imaging processes and materials: Neblette's eighth edition, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Zelikman, V. L. and Levi, S. M. 1964. Making and coating photographic emulsions. London: Focal Press.