Category: the Lab

Developing Film –

Posted on Posted in coursenotes, labnotes, the Lab

The deeper dive into the way film develops. While learning, try to avoid the post holes..the forums, which may have had good larger intent, but now are often fights between amateurs over who has a claim on meaning.

from Haist

L.F.A. Mason:

  • approach of the developing agent to the surface of the grain.
  • adsorption of the developing agent to the grain surface
  • transfer of an electron from the developing agent to the latent image sight
  • conduction of the electron through the latent image speck
  • combination of the electron with a silver ion from the grain
  • deposition of the silver atom to enlarge the latent image
  • movement of other silver ions through the train toward the latent image site, leaving pits on opposite side of grain surface, where bromide ions are liberated

That is the way to developed silver, no matter how the magic soup is concocted — the magic brew never makes a silver bullet — merely a speck of silver and residue. This process proceeds in three dimensions: from the top of the emulsion downward. Like a sponge absorbing water. The agitation cycle, particularly the initial portion is the key to smooth development. In with the good chemical, out with the exhausted chemical. The breath of life for a silver born image.

More… about emulsions. The magic of gelatin.

Notes: Kodak Research Lab

Posted on Posted in dye transfer, film, morning wood, The Biz, the Lab

change over in 85/86 caused disruption within KRL

John Capstaff at the Kodak Research Laboratory in Rochester from 1914 to 1918.

director of research Kenneth Mees

  • C. E. Kenneth Mees, From Dry Plates to Ektachrome Film; a Story of Photographic Research. (New York: Ziff-Davis Pub. Co., 1961).
  • Mees, From Dry Plates to Ektachrome Film, 293-301.
  • Journey: 75 Years of Kodak Research (Rochester, N.Y.: Eastman Kodak, 1989).
  • Robert L. Shanebrook, Making KODAK Film. The Illustrated Story of State-of-the-Art Photographic Film Manufacturing (Rochester, NY: Robert Shanebrook Photography, 2010).
  •  Carl W. Ackerman, George Eastman (Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1930); Elizabeth Brayer,
  • George Eastman: A Biography (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).
  • Douglas Collins, The Story of Kodak (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1990).
  • Reese Jenkins, Images and Enterprise: Technology and the American Photographic Industry, 1839 to 1925 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975).
  • Gary Jacobson, “KODAK: Research is in the Driver’s Seat,” Management Review 77, no. 10 (1988): 32- 32; J. D. Ratcliff, “Eastman Kodak’s Research Odyssey: Profitable Sidelines Add to Company’s Earnings from Photographic Products,” Barron’s, June 23, 1941, 3; Martin Sherwood, “Photographic Research in Focus,” New Scientist (February 8, 1973): 301-303.
  • E. Roy Davies, “Reports of Meetings. Scientific and Technical Group’s Second After-Dinner Lecture – 15 February 1962”, The Journal of Photographic Science 10, no. 4 (1962): 252-257.
  • G. B. Harrison, “The Laboratories of Ilford Limited,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences 220, no. 1143 (December 22, 1953): 9-20.
  • Fritz Wentzel, Memoirs of a Photochemist (Philadelphia: American Museum of Photography, 1960).

Key Mees Books

  • Mees, C. E. Kenneth and John A. Leermakers. The Organization of Industrial Scientific Research. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1950.
  • Mees, C. E. Kenneth and John Randal Baker. The Path of Science. New York: J. Wiley & sons, Inc., 1946.
  • Mees, C. E. Kenneth and Samuel Sheppard. Investigations on the Theory of the Photographic Process. London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta: Longmans, Green and Co, 1907.

Mees Bibliography

  • Mees, C. E. Kenneth. “Amateur Cinematography and the Kodacolor Process.” Journal of the Franklin Institute 207, no. 1 (1929): 1-17.
  • ———. Dr. C.E. Kenneth Mees: An Address to the Senior Staff of the Kodak Research Laboratories, November 9, 1955. Rochester N.Y.: Kodak Research Laboratories, 1956.
  • ———. “Fifty Years of Photographic Research.” Image, the Bulletin of the George Eastman House of Photography 3, no. 8 (1954): 49-54.
  • ———. From Dry Plates to Ektachrome Film; a Story of Photographic Research. New York: Ziff-Davis Pub. Co., 1961.
  • ———. The Fundamentals of Photography. Rochester N.Y.: Eastman Kodak Company, 920.
  • ———. “The Kodak Research Laboratories.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences 192, no. 1031 (1948): 465-479.
  • ———. “On the Resolving Power of Photographic Plates.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A 83, no. 559 (1909): 10-18.
  • ———. “The Organization of Industrial Scientific Research.” Science 43, no. 1118 (1916): 763-773.
  • ———. The Organization of Industrial Scientific Research. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc, 1920.
  • ———. “A Photographic Research Laboratory.” The Scientific Monthly 5, no. 6 (1917): 481-496.
  • ———. Photography. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937.
  • ———. The Photography of Colored Objects. Rochester N.Y.: Eastman Kodak Company, 1919.
  • ———. The Photography of Coloured Objects. London: Wratten & Wainwright Ltd., 1909.
  • ———. “Planning a Research Laboratory for an Industry.” The Scientific Monthly 7, no. 1 (1918): 54-67.
  • ———. “The Production of Scientific Knowledge.” Science 46, no. 1196 (1917): 519- 528.
  • ———. “The Publication of Papers from Research Institutions.” Science 70, no. 1821 (1929): 502-502.
  • ———. “The Publication of Scientific Research.” Science 46, no. 1184 (1917): 237-238.
  • ———. “Recent Advances in our Knowledge of the Photographic Process.” The Scientific Monthly 55, no. 4 (1942): 293-300.
  • ———. “Research and Business with some Observations on Color Photography.” Vital Speeches of the Day 2, no. 4 (1935): 117-117.
  • ———. “The Science of Photography.” Sigma XI Quarterly 19, no. 1 (1931): 1-19.
  • ———. “Secrecy and Industrial Research.” Nature 170, no. 4336 (1952): 972.
  • ———. “The Supply of Organic Reagents.” Science 48, no. 1230 (1918): 91-92.
  • ———. The Theory of the Photographic Process. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1942.
grain, dev, chemists
haist; cube grain, d-23, etc
henn: tab grain, xtol, etc