Theory - Liguid emulsion from negatives?

Just thought It might be fun to play around with;

 

Would it be thoretically possible to scratch off the film base, then

dissolve it in a solvent, and refix it back to the film base. Say, if

you would like to do a 50/50 combination of Ilford and Kodak 400 ISO

films?

*scratch the emulsion off

It seems to me that if you could dissolve it in a solvent, you wouldn't have to scratch it off.

Interesting idea, but are Kodak's and Ilford's emulsions so vastly different that you would go to all this trouble to combine them? Another idea: what if you took 50-50 b/w & color emulsion. That could be weird!

You could also use 50-50 Plus-x and FP-4. You could call it FPlus-4x+. You could dev. in a 50-50 soup of Acutol and Rodinal, Acurod! This should be a combo to make everyone on here happy.

 

Or you could could satisfy the chrome folks by doing a 50-50 split with K-chrome and E-6 films. That one must just bring about world peace!

 

Daniel, get cracking!

You'd have to locate some older films, preferably some that had been frozen to keep them fresh. It only works properly with ASA 400 films. Since all the manufacturers switched to using ISO (due to environmental concerns and OSHA requirements) instead of ASA this no longer works. I've heard, but can't confirm, that if you can locate some old Russian film from the Soviet era, and combine that with Italian made Ferrania film you'll get a one stop speed increase because of the Soviets use of GOST, which of course was banned in the West.

No idea if it's possible, but figure that the emulsion on film is .001" thick or less. If you have a 100' roll of it, 1.37" wide (we'll ignore the perfs), that's an area of 1644 square inches, or 1.64 cubic inches of emulsion (probably less). That's a workable amount, but do you really want to junk a 100' roll to try it? You just aren't going to get enough off a 36 exp roll or two or three to bother with, due to losses, dilution, recoating, and spills.

Here's a great idea -- What if you could take the emulsion off of a positive (chrome) film and put it on top of a negative film? Would that result in no image at all, or would you get unworldly images from the 4th dimension ?!?!

This is absolutely absurd. Films are coated in very thin layers, using extremely prcise euipment. Almost all films made use several layers with different kinds of crystals. Attempting to scrape them off and recoat them is doomed to failure.

As much as I hate to say it, I mostly have to agree with Hans on this one.

 

A few years ago I attempted to mix my own emulsion for making glass plates. This worked ok, but evenly spreading the emulsion on the glass was very difficult. I don't know how Kodak, Fuji and the like do it, but I think you need a quality airbrush or something like that to evenly spray a fine coating on whatever base you're using..

 

The real problem I ran into was that I'm not real good doing precision "construction" work in the pitch black. I can certainly do the normal darkroom stuff ok, but doing chemistry in the dark is hard. Some people use liquid emulsion for making prints on various unusual surfaces, but that is usually done under safelight. Film emulsion has to be dealt with in complete dark.

 

I did end up with useable plates, which I think I developed in D19 with good results. I never spent a lot of time trying to improve the process, but if I were to try it again I'm sure I could do a better job.

 

If you really want to try this, I can provide more details. You can get the chemicals from Photographer's Formulary.

I imagine the layers mentioned earlier are between layers of cellulose acetate. It would be difficult to scrape off all of that.<BR>

If you wanted to dissolve each emulsion (no scratching) then mix them and redeposit them as a single layer on film, you'd still probably have a problem with putting the film in a camera. But then I don't know if there is a thin layer of acetate on the emulsion side.<BR>

Kodak, especially, prides itself on its T-grain structure. If you were to dissolve the silver halides and precipitate them out again, your grains would probably be larger and much rounder.<BR>

Then there's the sensitization step. I don't know how that works, but I think it involves some aging.<BR>

The result would bear no relation to the properties of Ilford or Kodak film because the uniqueness is probably in the production techniques, not the composition.