Ed Wesly wrote:I have a confession to make. A few years ago Valeri offered samples of his film on Colin’s forum, and I took him up on it. I might have been the only one!
I tried both Valery Smirnov's red and green sensitive films. He had generously sent me a huge quantity of free film samples for testing. They were very good. The layers were well hardened. The red emulsion was slower than the green emulsion. Grain size must have been in the PFG-03 range. In my experience colloidal development did perform better than a treatment involving chemical development/rehalogenating bleach. From my own experience with home made AgX emulsions, I assumed this to indicate a relatively low silver content.
As an aside: thinking about the progress made in the photopolymer area I guess we all are waiting for the arrival of an AgX material (with its inherent extraordinary sensitivity) that can be dry processed to high index modulation...
However, because it was film, I have trouble using it. No matter what I tried, I never figured out how to hold it well for reflection hologram usage.
Smirnov's films are availabe on PET. So unlike the messy handling of most of the TAC films around (except for the old Agfa materials), index matching is very easy. To some extent, the polyester base even allows color tuning in liquid gates.
The thought of laminating, index-matching, etc., just makes me cringe!
Well - REAL HOLOGRAPHERS DO IT ON FILM...
Sorry my comrade in holography Valeri, my full-time job and other holographic projects stopped me from even trying your film. If I had been successful, I would certainly have posted my results, as you will notice that I sing the praises of Sphere-S GEO-3 in this forum and on my web site.
I would have loved to try Sphere-S as well. But unfortunately - despite their promise - I never received any of their materials.
The sample VRP-M film I tested was from Geola. I'm obviously sliding into senility at a faster rate than I thought.
