About copying Lippmann photography
Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:08 am
With respect to the above discussion and questions raised:
I have looked hard (as Martin knows!) for all photos in the world made by this process, including any on materials other than silver gelatin.
1) I have seen none that look like they were made on DCG, or on albumen emulsions, the latter which Lippmann tried and succeeded with as he succeeded on gelatin.
2) Of the 500+ images I have seen made by Lippmann and others, I have seen none that show complimentary colors. Nearly all made back then were painted black or bonded to black glass on the rear, and those unblackened were experimental failures, I think, and of too low contrast/saturation/brilliance to show this effect. I have seen images by Lippmann, made early on, around 1891-3, I think, that were in the nature of physics experiment portrayals, such as crossed spectra, Newton's rings, and line spectra, but no complimentary colors.
2) My own experiments with narrow band and line sources have gotten me some extremely bright images in reflection, but in transmission in only maybe one case have I seen a hint of complimentary color. Otherwise, I see the same color as in reflection, but weaker. All were on silver gelatin plates.
Any Lippmann experimenter should start by recording narrow band, line or spectra sources; they each have longer coherence lengths than white light and thus deeper, stronger interference fringes than the latter. Darran Green may have bypassed this and is now the only person I know who is getting fairly consistent results in ordinary light, on emulsions of his own making, without a mercury reflector. His color saturation, by eye, is about 85-90% of the best old pictures I have seen. Some years back (early '90s) Chris Rich, in LA, got excellent results in ordinary light, duplicating the old emulsion formulae and using mercury, if I remember correctly.
3) I think that Jeff's objection to copying fails for the reason above in previous letters (Sogonka +): if you can make a wide spectrum Lippmann in the first place (which demonstrably you can), then the complimentary colors will, in ordinary light, be of comparable band width and should record. But the difficulty will be in getting a strong enough complimentary effect. If you want to try this first use narrow band or spectrum sources.
Can't think of anything else at the moment.
I have looked hard (as Martin knows!) for all photos in the world made by this process, including any on materials other than silver gelatin.
1) I have seen none that look like they were made on DCG, or on albumen emulsions, the latter which Lippmann tried and succeeded with as he succeeded on gelatin.
2) Of the 500+ images I have seen made by Lippmann and others, I have seen none that show complimentary colors. Nearly all made back then were painted black or bonded to black glass on the rear, and those unblackened were experimental failures, I think, and of too low contrast/saturation/brilliance to show this effect. I have seen images by Lippmann, made early on, around 1891-3, I think, that were in the nature of physics experiment portrayals, such as crossed spectra, Newton's rings, and line spectra, but no complimentary colors.
2) My own experiments with narrow band and line sources have gotten me some extremely bright images in reflection, but in transmission in only maybe one case have I seen a hint of complimentary color. Otherwise, I see the same color as in reflection, but weaker. All were on silver gelatin plates.
Any Lippmann experimenter should start by recording narrow band, line or spectra sources; they each have longer coherence lengths than white light and thus deeper, stronger interference fringes than the latter. Darran Green may have bypassed this and is now the only person I know who is getting fairly consistent results in ordinary light, on emulsions of his own making, without a mercury reflector. His color saturation, by eye, is about 85-90% of the best old pictures I have seen. Some years back (early '90s) Chris Rich, in LA, got excellent results in ordinary light, duplicating the old emulsion formulae and using mercury, if I remember correctly.
3) I think that Jeff's objection to copying fails for the reason above in previous letters (Sogonka +): if you can make a wide spectrum Lippmann in the first place (which demonstrably you can), then the complimentary colors will, in ordinary light, be of comparable band width and should record. But the difficulty will be in getting a strong enough complimentary effect. If you want to try this first use narrow band or spectrum sources.
Can't think of anything else at the moment.