Would instant film be difficult to make?

keithwms · Apr 30, 2008

Dumb question: how is it that type 55 didn't need to be agitated? That has always mystified me.

We could make up the same goop...

:rolleyes:

David A. Goldfarb · Apr 30, 2008

We could make up the same goop, but there are probably a few exotic chemicals in there that would be hard or expensive to obtain. The monobath that I've been making uses fairly ordinary stuff.

I think Type 55 didn't require agitation because it worked so fast--20 sec. Also, monobaths generally need less agitation, because agitation helps the fixer more than it does the developer, so if you agitate too much, it's like decreasing the development time.

Photo Engineer · Apr 30, 2008

The goo is carboxymethyl cellulose or the stuff in "natural" laxatives. The alkali is Sodium Hydroxide. The rest is just odds and ends.

PE

David A. Goldfarb · Apr 30, 2008

Haist describes this goop from BP 987,764 assigned to Polaroid for a P/N instant film that sounds much like Type 55--

Water--180cc

Sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (high viscosity)--6 g

Sodium hydroxide--9 g

Sodium thiosulfate (penta)-- 10.8 g

Amidol-- 7.2 g

Ascorbic acid-- 1.8 g

Sodium sulfite-- 6.5 g

I'm sure there were a few extra tweaks in the final version, but it would be interesting to try this one. I suppose that if I didn't need it to be a gel, I could leave out the laxative.

Photo Engineer · Apr 30, 2008

The gel acts as a surfactant to spread the developer evenly and also as a 'glue' to hold the two parts together for a short time.

PE

keithwms · Apr 30, 2008

So, one advantage I can see to reconstructing the goo is that it'd be quite easy to design a roller system that would apply it very sparingly, evenly, and reproducibly. Goo obviates the uneven wetting issues with watery liquids. The goo could be pre-applied like a condiment to the rollers from a little packet like you get at McDonalds.

...and then there is simply shooting to paper...

P.S. Ron that formula looks totally trivial, could it really be so?! Now where is my aldrich catalogue when I need it...

SIMON! How about making some magic goo for us, in little condiment packs?

David A. Goldfarb · Apr 30, 2008

Photo Engineer said:
The gel acts as a surfactant to spread the developer evenly and also as a 'glue' to hold the two parts together for a short time.

PE

Yes, but I was thinking it might be interesting to try it as a liquid just to see how it develops film.

hmmm... if it's a liquid rather than a gel, I suppose the reaction times will be different, so it may need to be rebalanced.

That's quite a lot of sodium hydroxide, isn't it? FX6a uses 10g/l, and this uses 50g/l.

Steve Smith · May 1, 2008

keithwms said:
CC, if you aren't familiar with Land's story, his biography by McElheny would be a very interesting read.

I can second that. It goes into quite a bit of detail on the black and white process (I can just about follow it!). As for colour...... You would need to be some sort of Photo Engineer to understand that!

A very good book which I recommend to anyone with an interest in the technicalities of photography.

Steve.

Photo Engineer · May 1, 2008

David A. Goldfarb said:
Yes, but I was thinking it might be interesting to try it as a liquid just to see how it develops film.

hmmm... if it's a liquid rather than a gel, I suppose the reaction times will be different, so it may need to be rebalanced.

That's quite a lot of sodium hydroxide, isn't it? FX6a uses 10g/l, and this uses 50g/l.

I was merely indicating that it would work without the CMC as that has only thickening proprties in the goo. The alkali was near 1 molar. Thats about 40 g/l for NaOH.

But, there are other ingredients and I have forgotten them over the years.

PE

keithwms · May 1, 2008

Well, if it's of any service, I can do Raman, IR, Uv-vis-NIR and NMR on the goo and figure out what's in it....

But surely polaroid would be willing to provide us the formula if we file a class-action lawsuit claiming severe emotional distress...

Photo Engineer · May 1, 2008

Actually, you also need some sort of rail arrangement to insure the correct gap. If you take a sheet of any Polaroid material apart, you will see a paper or cardboard cutout of the image area in which the goo is spread. This acts as a separator with the correct gap (rails) to spread the goo correctly.

Keith;

At this point what I need is an SEM to study my emulsions. Got one? Can you do carbon replica? Can you remove gelatin?

PE

keithwms · May 1, 2008

Well, I was trying to think of a way to make use of all those pola processors and backs.... seems like making a proper goo spreader won't be hard.

Ron, yes, I do have SEM. TEM too!

By carbon replica, do you mean sputter with gold and image that? If so then yes, that's easy, I do that with nanotubes all the time.

Gelatin I can remove for sure with fuming nitric

What about AFM? Why muck with SEM on low-Z materials? I have AFM in my group. Come down and play. Jack M. would love to hear about it if he were still around.

Photo Engineer · May 1, 2008

Well, Keith, gold treatment will work as well. The emulsion images I posted were either EMs or SEMs. The EMs were carbon replicas and the SEMs were carbon + gold IIRC. The silver halide was removed as was the gelatin.

I'm not sure about AFM, as it does not give me the information I need IIRC. Neither does TEM.

I need size and frequency in the 0.1 - 10 micron range.

PE

keithwms · May 1, 2008

My AFM does 100 micron scans with lateral res ~10nm, height res ~1nm. You get size and frequency. I guess you plan to use NIH Image or similar to build a frequency/size histos. IIRC I have some particle analysis software that I never used.

Oh incidentally I can do 100x100 micron Raman maps, if that is of interest. Might be because there is surface enhancement you get from silver grains.

Anyway, SEM is easy enough.

Photo Engineer · May 1, 2008

Keith;

Not interested in Raman, sorry. I think that since my stuff is all EM or SEM, comparison might be difficult with other formats. I don't kneed height resolution as I am not making t-grains (yet). Can you give me a cost estimate?

PE

keithwms · May 1, 2008

I won't charge you.

Incidentally I am thinking of doing some kind of summer workshop down here so maybe that would be of interest, if you want to do a workshop presentation or two, then you can come play on the SEM to your heart's content.

Photo Engineer · May 1, 2008

keithwms said:
I won't charge you.

Incidentally I am thinking of doing some kind of summer workshop down here so maybe that would be of interest, if you want to do a workshop presentation or two, then you can come play on the SEM to your heart's content.

Keith;

I've never used one. We had a department that did all photo micography and electron microscopy. All I had to do was submit a work order and I got back an SEM and a size frequency distribution along with a map of internal ions such as Iodide and dopant metals.

So, I would probably ruin your equipment.

I did make my own photo micrographs at one time. They figured that was safe enough for me to learn and all I would ruin would be a microtome and/or an oil immersion lens.

My teacher BTW, was Anton Dvorak's nephew. You may have heard of Anton Dvorak, well his nephew was a freedom fighter in the underground during WWII and told some amazing stories about their group and the SS. We listened to his stories as we toiled away in the lab learning how to make cross sections.

PE

crystalclear · May 1, 2008

I'm willing to bet that theres quite a few instant film users out there that would be willing invest some cash into finding an alternative. And after reading some of your posts, it seems like theres quite a few people that understand the chemistry involved. We're not talking about buying Polaroid equipment here. This would have to be a completely in house, dare I say Homemade process, in order to make it feasible. Believe me, if I had the cash and know how, I know I'd be looking for a way.

okto · May 2, 2008

I'd chip in financially. I don't have access to a TEM or any nanotubes ( ;-( ), but I have access to cash.

keithwms · May 2, 2008

Let me survive the end of the semester and grading and all that and then maybe we can figure out a way to make use of all those polaroid backs and processors

okto · May 2, 2008

keithwms said:
Let me survive the end of the semester and grading...

Amen to that. Two rolls with contact sheets and workprints, plus six or seven fiber prints by tomorrow...

crystalclear · May 3, 2008

If some individual, some entrepreneur, really wanted to start from the ground up and come up with a similar system, they'd probably choose to make the 669 type peel aparts. That would probably be the simplest way to start out. It seems like the concensus is that the one step would be too difficult to produce from scratch, especially if your talking about making it compatible with the millions of cameras already in existence. I doubt a guy making this stuff in his garage would think it was worth it to spend countless hours in the dark, unless he built his own proprietary equipment. For example, I saw a post recently about an ex kodak employee making his own film with a homemade setup. Not instant of course, but it proves the concept. I may have to buy my 35mm from someone like him one day when Kodak, fuji, Ilford, say Sayonara!

The alternative would to find a system that didn't require you to spread the developer onto the negative. Maybe the developer would be in the paper itself and wouldn't process the film until it was activated by something, such as infrared light, heat, etc. That would get rid of the need for a pod. Of course, I'm no photo engineer, but I'm thinking that you either have to work with whats in the box or, excuse the cliche, think outside of it.

CrystalClear

keithwms · May 3, 2008

CC, I think peel-aparts are not going to be a good venture, they are very difficult and costly to manufacture. Whatever I may say about polaroid, I would not question their ability to compute their profit margin

But what could realistically be done is to figure out how to make little monobath gel packs so that people just crank their film through and get a well-developed neg out the other side, which then goes into a clearing bath if it's a keeper.

Frankly, I think that the problem of creating a peel-apart that gives a presentable positive is not worth tackling. I say that mostly because the very thorniest technical issues have to do with creating a print that doesn't degrade. And frankly that is a somewhat outdated priority now, whether your workflow is purely traditional or hybrid.

I think the priority has to be quickly, easily and reproducibly generating a superb negative. The strength of type 55 is that it gives jaw-dropping slide-like levels of detail and superb tonality, albeit only if you expose it properly, and so being able to shoot and see your neg in 2 minutes is a huge benefit.

With only about 50 shots of type 55 and another 50 or so of 665 left in my reserves, I am very interested in any attempt to recreating the type 55 magic.

Recently I taught a trad b&w photo class in which we used 665. The students were of course impressed to see the cute little print in a few seconds - certainly faster than I could get a file off my dslr and through an inkjet! - but when they saw the cleared neg, they just said, okay, so? It wasn't until they saw that neg enlarged that they really "got it." 55/665 is just as enlargeable, I think, as fine slide.

So what I think might actually sell is an ultrahigh quality film like type 55, or perhaps a scan-friendly chromogenic or pyro-esque version that is processed via staining dev. I think it is still very possible to make a product that kicks b&w digital's ass and kicks it thoroughly; I truly think that if polaroid had let the positive print aspects of 55/665 go and simply brought out a way to get that superb neg processed on the spot, that would have been a better seller and it might still be in high demand. My totally-non-expert analysis is that the positive print aspects of the polaroid products are probably what cost the bulk of the r&d and production expenses, but they are actually not the key selling poiint of 55/665, looking forward (if polaroid had looked forward).

JBrunner · May 3, 2008

This is nice, but not likely. I hope I'm wrong.

Failing that, what would be nice is if Ilford or somebody would just source the type 55 film as sheets. Screw the pack and pods. That would be a film folks would buy. If I could have purchased it as just plain film, I would have.

I think that could actually happen. Where the hell did that film come from? Did Polaroid make it? Or did Big Yellow? Or someone else? Where was it coated? Are there master rolls left? These are questions really worth looking in to.

crystalclear · May 3, 2008

Good question.

Something I forgot to mention earlier was that Freestyle photo said that one of the reasons that Polaroid axed their film was that some of the materials and chemicals involved were either getting to expensive to souce out and that some had even become scarce or discontinued completely. Has anyone else heard anything similar?

CrystalClear

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