Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

This is a forum exploring Lippmann photography.
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R Shaffer

Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

Post by R Shaffer »

My first post on this forum.

So I jumped in and have tried to make a Lippmann Plate ( see attached ) and I am quite pleased that I got a reflected image.

However, I am hoping you guys can shed some light upon where I have messed up. The white table is blue, the couple of red roses in the middle have a slight reddish cast but mostly look blown out, the green plants top right & bottom left are on the verge of being green :) and the blue turtle on the table is really blue :D

I am using GEO-03 plates. The exposure I am showing is one of three I made in bright direct sun, 4min @ f/8 ( also did 2min & 8 min ). I soaked the plate for 6min in glyoxal, KBr & Sod. Carb to harden the emulsion. Quick rinse and into Lumiere pyrogallol-ammonia developer for 2min. Followed by a 10min rinse & 2min in LFN ( similar to photoflow ) I would have added some glycerin to the LFN bath if I had it. All the baths were near 60deg F, except the developer. There seemed to be some reaction going on that brought the temp up to 68deg by the end of processing.

I think I shrank the emulsion in processing. I also have GP-2 developer and I was going to give it a try next.

Any thoughts on what I should be doing differently?
Attachments
Attempted Lippmann Plate
Attempted Lippmann Plate
plate1 (1 of 1).jpg (171.23 KiB) Viewed 91144 times
Colin Kaminski

Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

Post by Colin Kaminski »

Very nice and Welcome! :clap:
Martin

Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

Post by Martin »

R Shaffer wrote:My first post on this forum.

So I jumped in and have tried to make a Lippmann Plate ( see attached ) and I am quite pleased that I got a reflected image.

However, I am hoping you guys can shed some light upon where I have messed up. The white table is blue, the couple of red roses in the middle have a slight reddish cast but mostly look blown out, the green plants top right & bottom left are on the verge of being green :) and the blue turtle on the table is really blue :D

I am using GEO-03 plates. The exposure I am showing is one of three I made in bright direct sun, 4min @ f/8 ( also did 2min & 8 min ). I soaked the plate for 6min in glyoxal, KBr & Sod. Carb to harden the emulsion. Quick rinse and into Lumiere pyrogallol-ammonia developer for 2min. Followed by a 10min rinse & 2min in LFN ( similar to photoflow ) I would have added some glycerin to the LFN bath if I had it. All the baths were near 60deg F, except the developer. There seemed to be some reaction going on that brought the temp up to 68deg by the end of processing.

I think I shrank the emulsion in processing. I also have GP-2 developer and I was going to give it a try next.



Any thoughts on what I should be doing differently?
Wow, that's pretty impressive for a first try - congratulations! Looks like these new Geola emulsions are very interesting for Lippmann work.

As for color rendition, obviously your finished developed/dried layer is thinner than at the moment of light exposure. Maybe there has been too much solvent action (too much ammonia), some metal silver being lost.
R Shaffer

Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

Post by R Shaffer »

Thanks Colin & Martin,

I do recall reading in one of the papers about needing to adjust the solvent in the developer when 'chasing colors'. So that makes some sense. I lifted the developer formula from some of Mr. Hans Bjelkhagen writings.
The one used is: Sol A - 1gr pyro in 100ml alcohol, Sol B - 10gr KBr in 100ml H2O, mix 20ml A + 30ml B + 140ml H2O + 10ml Sat. Ammonia.

Any idea on about how much I should reduce the ammonia?

Or perhaps just reducing the development time, which seems really short, but he indicated 1 to 3min.
Sergio

Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

Post by Sergio »

WOW, impressive Lippmann with nice composition, keep up the good work, for the development with pyro, I remember from my holo days that you need to soak for 1 min max development time! This for Agfa emulsions and guess the GEO emulsion may be more soft so maybe place a logarithmic development here ? 30sec, 1, 2min... after that you may need to control the ammonia percentage on developer in the same way testing. Small plate pieces instead a full one is also recommended due number of shots necessary :think:
Ed Wesly

Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

Post by Ed Wesly »

I don't know if you have tried these plates for holography or not, I have what I think is the same stuff, and after developing 15' in GP-2 and fixing got a decidedly green color with a He-Ne exposure. In my case fixing might be the problem of the shrinkage, although Slavish PFG-03M plates processed simultaneously the same way maintained their color. Might just be the material itself. There are hints on this site about expanding emulsions to plump them up to regain the original fringe spacing.
R Shaffer

Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

Post by R Shaffer »

Sergio wrote:WOW, impressive Lippmann with nice composition, keep up the good work, for the development with pyro, I remember from my holo days that you need to soak for 1 min max development time! This for Agfa emulsions and guess the GEO emulsion may be more soft so maybe place a logarithmic development here ? 30sec, 1, 2min... after that you may need to control the ammonia percentage on developer in the same way testing. Small plate pieces instead a full one is also recommended due number of shots necessary :think:
Thanks Sergio,

Those are really short development times. I would be concerned that I would not be able to get even development.

I was hoping to get a chance this weekend to expose a few more plates, but the weather has not cooperated. All dreary and overcast. I'm gonna try the GP-2 developer, but with increased thiocyanate. I like your idea about the smaller plates. I Think I can cut them after exposure and try different developing times.

Rob
R Shaffer

Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

Post by R Shaffer »

Ed Wesly wrote:I don't know if you have tried these plates for holography or not, I have what I think is the same stuff, and after developing 15' in GP-2 and fixing got a decidedly green color with a He-Ne exposure. In my case fixing might be the problem of the shrinkage, although Slavish PFG-03M plates processed simultaneously the same way maintained their color. Might just be the material itself. There are hints on this site about expanding emulsions to plump them up to regain the original fringe spacing.
I've never tried to make a hologram, so I can't be of much help. I have wanted to ever since I saw the exhibit at MIT, very cool. But the isolator table & other equipment needed makes that a bit too much.

I did not fix these plates, only developed. I have considered using a rehalogenating bleach and redeveloping in hopes of plumping it back up.

It has also been suggested that I may have overexposed the plates causing the shift from white to blue. So next chance I get, I have several avenues to explore.

Rob
R Shaffer

Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

Post by R Shaffer »

So I have made some changes to my processing of the Lippmann Plate and the results are promising. These were based upon a PM I received reguarding my initial results. Not very scientific as I changed several aspects of the processing.

I changed the developer to Formulary' GP-2, however the developer is split into a solution A and B. Solution A is all the GP-2 ingredients, except for the Thiocyanate, mixed into 1 liter of stock solution ( GP-A ). The 12g of thiocyanate is then mixed with 200ml H2O for a 6% dilution ( GP-B ). The working developer is 15ml GP-A + 4ml GP-B + 100ml H2O.

Exposure: 2min @ f/8 bright sun ( 9:30am )

Processing:
9min soak in Glyaxol @ 65deg ( prev. was 6min, did not check end temp )
3min development @ 65deg ( actually I used drift 63deg start - 66deg end )
rinse 10min @ 66deg ( did not check end temp )
30s soak in 2% glycerin + 3 drop LFN @ 66 deg ( 375ml total )

I was able to get much better color rendition, although the plate is rather dim. I have been told that increasing the GP-B will brighten the plate, but the color may be less pure.

I was also told that blue table in the previous image post was solarization. I believe that this is confirmed with the new plate as the white mailbox is turquoise & there is some turquoise in the fence. The 4 min exposure I made of this scene has a significant turquoise cast across entire image. So I guess the dynamic range is rather restricted.

The right side of the image was not completely submerged in the glyaxol hardener ( me being too stingy w/ chemistry ), however it seems to show that I am getting good hardening of the emulsion with the glyaxol and it is essential to harden prior to developing.

So my next test will be shortening the exposure to 1min and 1 1/2min. And increasing the amount of GP-B in the developer.

One interesting difference between the the 1st test and 2nd is that the viewing angle of the 2nd test is very limited. I have to hold the plate with a precise angle to view the image, whereas the pyro developed plate has a much broader reflected angle that shows the image.
Attachments
plate-2min.jpg
plate-2min.jpg (144.86 KiB) Viewed 91078 times
hansholo

Some help with making a Lippmann Plate

Post by hansholo »

When You have overexposed a Lippmann photograph, white parts of the image gets bluish. Try a shorter exposure. Sometimes it is difficult to get white and dark areas of the image correctly exposed at the same time. The exposure latitude is rather limited in Lippmann photography. Always try to have a rather uniform illumination of the scene to be recorded. No dark shadows and bright white objects. mixed in the same recording.

HANS
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