life of a colour slide film

<p>Hi,<br>

I just owned a Nikon F100 and am new to film photography. I was wondering if anyone there can tell me how much longer a slide film can be left in the camera once loaded, without affecting the picture qualities.<br>

I began with Kodak Ektachrome 100VS, are there any suggestions regarding this? Which other films can I go for?<br>

that would be great if any one can suggest me book on film photography that gives me the fundamental knowledge.<br>

Thank you<br>

- vish</p>

<p>I am not sure I load a roll shot it all and develop it within a day or 2. :)</p>

<p>The answer can be anywhere between a couple days and a couple years. The answer depends on what kind of stuff you shoot and how critical you are. For raw stock keeping (before exposure), if you just want a decent image, you can leave the film in there for 2 years if it is fresh. If you are shooting critical scenes with gray sweep backgrounds and you want them to match each other, the critical factor will be latent image keeping (after exposure). In a very critical situation, 2 days can make a perceivable difference. </p>

<p>In general, you will get the best results if the film is well within expiration and is processed within a week or two of exposure. </p>

<p>Non substantive films like Kodachrome can be left slightly longer as they are basically mono films where the colours are added during processing.<br>

Most films you should process within a couple of months, but can if you store the camera in a cool dry place still be Ok for non critical work for up to a couple of years, Pro films need to be processed more promptly as they change more over time if not stored correctly.</p>

<p>Just don't worry about it, unless you have left the film in the camera for years - even then it wold be worthwhile to develop it - just to see what happened to it. YOu can use ANY 35mm film in your camera - but if I were you, I would stick with one film first, so you can see what you are doing wrong.<br>

Slid film is probably not the best film for a beginner because it is unforgiving. I would get a print film, like Kodak Gold 100 or 200 and use that to get prints made.</p>

<p>Slide film is great for a beginner it shows problems faster that can be corrected quickly. Learning curve is accelerated.</p>

<p>Larry</p>

<p>"Non substantive films like Kodachrome can be left slightly longer as they are basically mono films where the colours are added during processing."</p>

<p>I think I can shed some light on this. First, lets deal with the myth that Kodachrome is basicly a B&W film. I've heard it many times, especially from colleagues when I was the engineer in chage of Kodachrome formulation. It is an enduring myth, but it is not true. Check out slides 4-7 in this presentation: <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/randrews4/Kodachrome/KodachromeC.htm">http://homepage.mac.com/randrews4/Kodachrome/KodachromeC.htm</a><br>

Kodachrome has the multiple layers that are typical of color films. It only lacks couplers (one part of a dye molecule). In both substantive and non-substantive films, chemicals need to be added to form dyes. </p>

<p>Now lets discus keeping. If the dye forming reactions were the primary factors in keeping, this claim would be true. The primary factors in raw stock keeping are changes in the sensitivity of the silver halide crystals. The primary factors in latent image keeping are changes in the developability of the exposed crystals. The dye formation reactions are fairly stable. Non-substantive films like Kodachrome have no special advantage. Since Kodachrome is a much older formula it is a little less stable than some of the modern coupler incorporated films (i. e. Ektachrome). Modern formulas benefit from new technology and a better understanding of keeping.</p>

<p>Hi All,<br>

Thank you many times for your valuable suggestions. I was thinking of storing slide film in the camera for 2-3 month but having read all your responses I am more confident to judge myself on storage life of films.<br>

Hi Nicholas, your suggestion to refrigerate the camera sounds paradox, thanks though. I would neve known this otherwise.<br>

Hi Larry, as you indicated slide film helps us learn faster. But what about the cost of E6 processing compared to negative film processing? I have no idea about it. <br>

Hi Ron, I take pictures of landscape and nature (this is for your information as it was not clear in my previous question). Nice to here from an expert like you. Your presentation is very informative. Is that ok to print it out and read and would you like to attach a down loadable file to my email ( vishwakc@gmail.com ) .<br>

Hi Juergen, can you please rephrase your statement "Slide film is unforgiving" I think there is a lot to learn from you.<br>

Regards<br>

-vish</p>

 

<p> First, lets deal with the myth that Kodachrome is basicly a B&W film<br>

Its no myth:<br>

http://photo-utopia.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-it-works-kodachrome.html<br>

Kodachrome has the multiple layers that are typical of color films. It only lacks couplers (one part of a dye molecule). In both substantive and non-substantive films, chemicals need to be added to form dyes<br>

Wrong Kodachrome has no colour layers like substantive films, these are added through developers with couplers.<br>

What it has is a blue sensitive b&W layer a yellow filter a green/blue sensitive mono layer (Yellow filter takes out blue spectrum) and an othochromatic (extended red) B&W layer there are no colour layers in Kodachrome thats why it is non substantive.<br>

"both substantive and non-substantive films, chemicals need to be added to form dyes"<br>

True but with E-6 the colours are in the emulsion at exposure, with K14 they are added during the CMY developer/coupler process.<br>

<br /><br>

<br /></p>

<p>As I said before, the myth is wide-spread. There are lots of references to Kodachrome being a monochrome film before processing. I respectfully disagree. Kodachrome was the first integral tripack color film. Monochrome films have one or two emulsion layers. Kodachrome has 6 emulsion layers just like other color films. (There is a fast and a slow layer for each color record.) The emulsions are spectrally sensitized to red, green, or blue, just like other color films. B&W films are generally pan sensitized. Some of the emulsion components used in Kodachrome have also been used in Ektachrome products. None of them have been used in B&W films.</p>

<p>Polaroid and the old Kodak Instant film had all of the chemicals necessary to for a full color image. Compared to these self processing films, all other color films are lacking some of the chemistry necessary to form dyes. I wouldn't call them B&W films.</p>

 

<p>Ron I don't want to cast doubt on your knowledge, but as you say you are an expert I'd like some clarification:<br>

"Kodachrome has 6 emulsion layers just like other color films"<br>

All my literature says four layers, top layer is a blue sensitive only B&W emulsion like those produced in the 1900's followed by yellow filter. Next layer is an orthochromatic emulsion (blue/green blue filtered by yellow layer) bottom layer is a blue sensitivity emulsion with a panchromatic dye to give blue/red (the blue being filtered by the yellow filter to record red)<br>

I have never heard of a 6 layer Kodachrome all my books say RGB mono integral tripack negative converted to CMY positive during fogging and development,<br>

Do you have a list of the layers? <br>

I don't doubt you have a lot of knowledge but I have several books that contradict your experience including a Kodak tech doc showing four layers, which is why you only have 4 developers Mono (PQ) yellow developer,Cyan and magenta the yellow filter is removed during processing.<br>

Can you show me a schematic of the layers?<br>

Integral tripack films can be mono, as long as each mono layer is sensitive to one component of RGB.<br>

Here is a colour picture taken on APX100 with non integral tri pack <br>

<img src="http://www.pbase.com/mark_antony/image/90950122.jpg" alt="" /><br /></p>

<p>K-64 has 6 emulsion layers with 11 layers overal:</p>

<p>Overcoat with matte, lubricant, and anti-static agent.<br>

UV filter<br>

Fast Yellow Emulsion<br>

Slow Yellow Emulsion<br>

Yellow filter layer with Carey Lea silver (that is yellow) and Lippmann emulsion that turns black in the first developer<br>

Interlayer<br>

Fast Magenta Emulsion<br>

Slow Magenta Emulsion<br>

Interlayer<br>

Fast Cyan Emulsion<br>

Slow Cyan Emulsion</p>

<p>For the emulsion layers, I'm using the internal designations that refer to the color of the dye that is eventually formed in that layer. It is also a description of what the emulsion looks like before it is coated. The blue sensitive emsulsions are yellow in color, the green sensitive emulsions are magenta and the red sensitive emulsiosn are cyan. Of course the only way to see the color is to view it in white light which will fog the emulsion. People in the factory do see samples of the emulsions that are removed for testing.</p>

<p>Many of the published diagrams of film structure are simplified just showing a red sensitive record rather than showing the individual layers. Older color films generally had at least two emulsions layers per record. Many modern films have 3 cyan and magenta layers. There was one color neg film that had a cyan record with 4 layers. It had exceptional grain when fresh, but the high silver levels made it very sensitive to background radiation. </p>

Substantive - term introduced by the Agfacolor Neu people...

 

How long do the specific color sensitizers in the Kodachrome formulations keep?

 

It is obvious that the sensitizers must absorb the complementary colors. But I doubt that a black and white-emulsion appears "colorless", i. e. yellowish-white only from the silver bromide/iodide crystals. Of course, in b & w sensitizers with a broader absorbance should be possible.

<p>Most of the spectral sensitizing dyes are very stable. One ot the two original green sensitizers oxidized slowly with time. That was the primary cause of the color shift from green to magenta as the film aged. This was one of those times when the short term high temperature keeping tests failed to predict the long term room temperature effects. Oxygen diffuses very slowy through gelatin. It wasn't until keeping tests were run at very high pressures that the long term effect could be studied in a reasonalbe amount of time. Once the cause was determined, the search was on for a more stable sensitizing dye. There were a couple of unsuccessful attempts. Finaly a more stable dye was found, but it left more stain in the film after processing. To compensate for the increased stain, we changed the red sensitizing dyes to a set that produced less stain. These red sensitizing dyes caused the latent image keeping of the red record to improve to the point where it was better that the green and blue records. This color balance shift was deemed unacceptable so we added an agent to the red record to make the latent image keeping worse so it was a better match to the other two records. This improved keeping package was introduced in K-64 in 1987. K-200 used the new set of sensitizing dyes from the outset. The volume of K-25 was too small to support a significant reformulation.</p>

<p>As for the color of B&W emulsions, in many cases, the sensitizing dyes were not added until shortly before coating so the emulsions in storage were somewhere between white and slightly yellow, depending on the amount of iodide in the crystals. The T-grain emulsions in T-max films would have the sensitizing dyes added at the same time as chemical sensitization. I didn't have any experience with these emulsions. </p>

<p>Ron Andrews... Your Kodachrome knowledge is AMAZING! I thank you for everything I have learned about my favorite film throughout the years you've posted on Photonet. </p>

<p>Tom Burke</p>

<p>You're welcome. It was my job for 5 years in the 1980's to understand this stuff. Fortunately I had several dozen engineers and scientists to consult with and several hundred operators who did the real work and taught me how things worked. </p>

<p>R.I.P Kodachrome. I treasure my 55 years of Kodachrome movie film and slides. My friends' Ektachrome has faded to insignificance.</p>

<p>Kodachrome is not dead yet. And I think we are all part of the lifesupport it is on. Keep pumping on the chest of Kodachrome and breath new live into the old gal. Nothing last forever but some things can be kept on Earth for a little longer.</p>

<p>As I've said on this forum many times, my bet is that I will be able to shoot Kodachrome and get it processed in 2010 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the product line. I created a website to promote this celebration: <a href="http://ronald.andrews.googlepages.com/kodachrome">http://ronald.andrews.googlepages.com/kodachrome</a></p>

<p>Ron <br>

I see the confusion when you state:<br>

"For the emulsion layers, I'm using the internal designations that refer to the color of the dye that is eventually formed in that layer"<br>

By eventually you mean after development, you are also counting both speed layers as single layers (which is fine but confusing)<br>

My Books state:<br>

Gelatin overcoat<br>

Blue sensitive mono layer <br>

Yellow filter of collodial silver<br>

Interlayer<br>

Green sensitive othochromatic emulsion<br>

Interlayer<br>

Red sensitive (Extended by injection of panchromatic dyes)<br>

Remjet anti halation backing<br>

Film base.</p>

<p>Ron I'm not suggesting what you state is wrong, but rather deceptive it differs widely from all my information about Kodachrome (even that from Kodak) <br>

Kodak state that the film is essentially a series of mono emulsions with dyes to modify their spectral sensitivities. These are then exposed to light and each layer developed in a separate colour developer with the opposite colours coupler.<br>

What you say must be true if you worked on the emulsion for as long as you state, but can you explain why all other sources (apart form yourself) say it is a mono RGB sensitised emulsion sans couplers?<br>

Mark</p>

<p>Mark,</p>

<p>Some of this is the degree of complexity one wants to use in describing a film. All full-color films have at least three color records. (I'm not counting the 2-color Kodachrome as a full color film.) There are many sources that refer to color films having three "layers". These sources are simplifying a color record by describing it as a layer. If you define "layer" as part of the coating that has a consistenet composition, then all modern color films have more than 3 layers. The original Kodachrome films had 3 emulsion layers with big fat interlayers between them (necessary for controlling the dye bleach process). In the 1950's it was discovered that improved results could be obtained by using two emulsion layers for each color record. In the 1970's this idea was expanded to three layers for some of the color records. As I mentioned before, there was one color negative film that used 4 layers to make up the red record. (see Example 1a at column 14 in US patent 6,875,563). This particular film had a total for 14 layers. </p>

<p>Perhaps I'm being too technical, but if there are two different kettles with two different green sensitive emulsions and these two kettles are delivered down two different pipes to the coating hopper and they are extruded through two different slots in the coating hopper and they don't mix together and you can see the difference when you look at a cross section of the film, then I would call them two layers rather than one. </p>

<p>I'm not sure what book you are using, but it has some factual errors. The film base is between the remjet backing and the red sensitive record. The red emulsions use red spectral sensitizers that are different from panchromatic sensitizers. The reference to a "blue sensitive mono layer" is confusing. This could refer to a single layer blue record or a monochromatic blue record. All individual emulsions are monochromatic. It is when you put several different emulsions together in different layers that you for a color film. </p>

<p>Ron<br /> Yes you're right the remjet is between I was remembering rather than looking at the books.<br /> The Books I'm using are:<br /> The Science of Photography H Baines Edited by E.S Bomback 1976<br /><em> page 266: 'The film (kodachrome) consists of four separate coatings on the base. The first consists of a non colour sensitised emulsion for the blue record. Under that is a yellow gelatin filter under which is an orthochromatic emulsion blue/green sensitive but because of the yellow filter blue light doesn't hit the layer so is a green record.<br /> Finally the bottom layer is a standard emulsion (blue sens) incorporating a special panchromatic dye with very little green sensitivity.<br /> Exposure thus records the RGB constituents in the three layers"</em><br /> (End quote)<br /> Also I have read in the book 'Film' by Michael Freeman.<br /> Page 108: Non Substantive film<br /><em> "As you use it (Kodachome) it is essentially a black and white film, with three colour-sensitized layers, the colours are added later"</em><br /> (end quote)<br /> Another Book Advanced Photography by M.J Langford <br /> page 180<br /><em> "As shown Fig 10.6 the film consists of an ordinary blue sensitive emulsion, the second being an orthochromatic, since both are blue sensitive a yellow filter is place between the two, thus making the second green only sensitive.<br /> The third is sensitive to red but not green.</em><br /> (End quote)<br /> It then goes on to give the mechanism by which the oxidized developer bonds the couplers to the individual layers.<br /> Lastly The theory of the photographic process fourth edition T.H James (C.E.K Mees)<br /> on page 337 <br /><em> The p-phenelenediamine developer reacts with the exposed silver halides, the oxidised developer then reacts with the couplers (in the developer not film of course) to form dyes in the separate layers.</em><br /> It goes on:<br /><em> Among the acyclic methylene compounds that react with the oxidised p-phenylenediamines to form Yellow azomethine dye are beta-ketocarboxamides etc<br /> It then explains how the magenta pyrazolones and cyan phenols react to make indoanaline dyes.<br /> All very technical stuff :-) but they seem to suggest that the colours are formed by the developer (or rather the oxidised dev) to generate dyes within each RGB sensitive layer, in other words those dyes are not within the emulsion at time of exposure but are made by chemical reactions between the developer and couplers in the processing baths.</em><br /> Thank you Ron for you patience.<br /> You see my problem in accepting your version, as it doesn't seem to agree with my literature on the subject.<br /> lastly:<br /> http://www.kodak.com/global/plugins/acrobat/en/service/Zmanuals/z50_03.pdf<br /> Where they state:<br /> Simultaneously, the resulting oxidized color developer<br /> combines with the cyan coupler to form a positive cyan dye<br /> image. This image is deposited only in the red-sensitive<br /> emulsion layer.<br /> That last quote seems to suggest that the dye is indeed formed in the red layer which if it is a panchromatic mono emulsion as seems to be suggested by all the books I've read would make sense<br /> Thanks<br /> Mark</p>

<p> </p>

<p >Mark,</p>

<p >I don't know whether anyone else is paying attention, but I'm willing to continue the discussion. I understand the confusion. There are many sources that don't all agree.</p>

<p >I'm not familiar with "The Science of Photography H Baines". I take issues with the quotes. The reference to "a special panchromatic dye with very little green sensitivity" is an oxymoron. Panchromatic sensitization must have green as well as red sensitization. In practice, there is no single spectral sensitizing dye that can be considered panchromatic. All panchromatic films have more than one dye to cover the spectrum. To refer to "four separate coatings on the base" and "Exposure thus records the RGB constituents in the three layers" is, IMHO, overly simplistic. I understand the confusion. I've used these simplified explanations in some situations, but I get a bit more technical on photo.net. It is technically correct to refer to three color records, but then you have to explain what you mean by a color record. It is easier to refer to three coler layers even if it isn't quite correct. </p>

<p >The one source I'm very familiar with is the 4th edition of "The Theory of the Photographic Process". This was considered the "bible" in the Kodak Research Labs. I wouldn't dispute anything in that volume. The dyes in all conventional color films are formed when the oxidized color developer joins with the coupler to form a dye. This is true for K-14, E-6, and C-41 films (as well as ECN-2 and ECP-2 and several other processes).</p>

<p >I'm disappointed (but not surprised) that the K-14 Z-Manual refers to only three color layers. This is not the only time that I have disagreed with Kodak publications. They like to keep things simple. I have used that same diagram that is included in page 3-4 of this reference. I also includes photomicrographs of crossections that clearly show two cyan and two magenta layers. (If you know where to look, you can also see two yellow layers.) Check slides 10-19 in this reference: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://homepage.mac.com/randrews4/Kodachrome/KodachromeC.htm" target="_blank">http://homepage.mac.com/randrews4/Kodachrome/KodachromeC.htm</a></p>

<p >It is true that if you process a roll of Kodachrome film in an E-6 process, you get blank film--just as you would with B&W film through E-6. But, you can't process a B&W film through K-14 and get an image either. To call Kodachrome a B&W film where the color is added in processing is overly simplistic. Perhaps the tongue in cheek comments from my colleagues have made me too sensitive to the issue. To me a color film is a film that records a color image and can, after development, reproduce a color image. Kodachrome fits that definition of a color film.</p>

 

<p>Correction: If you process a B&W film in K-14, you might get a dye image, but it will be monochrome. The conclusion is not changed. A color film is a film that records a color image and can, after development, reproduce a color image. Kodachrome fits that definition of a color film.</p>

<p>Hi, Ron...<br>

Are you saying that dye is not added to the film from the K14 processing solution? If not, was dye ever added to the film when Kodachrome was processed (K12 and earlier)? </p>

<p>Tom Burke</p>