Photography with silver chloride

[Alexein]

Silver chloride is photosensitive, it will darken when exposed to light. This serves as the basis for photography and has only recently been replaced by the digital age.

 

The concept can be demonstrated by making silver chloride from silver nitrate and table salt. Then spreading it out and exposing it to light while placing something to be "photographed" over it.

 

[UC]

You should talk to YT about this stuff This is one of his specialties. He's probably asleep right now, so I'll give it 4 or 5 hours before he responds.

[nitric]

you have to suspend the silver chloride in gelatin then put the gelatin on a glass plate, the common method is to make a negative out of silver iodide (plate you make it the same way as the AgCl plate) then place the silver iodide plate after exposure on the silver chloride plate and shine a dim light from above. as UC said, for more detail and more practical methods, ask YT

[YT2095]

if you soak the filter papers in the silver nitrate 1`st and then spray on the salt water soln, you`ll get the PPT form within the fibers weave and are able to create a far more stable image than just using the powder, you also use far less chemical

 

adding a little potassium or sodium bromide to the NaCl will assist in development time too.

 

also if you can make these papers in the dark or under a safe-light, you can use them just like propper photo plates after with only a seconds exposure, and then then develop the latent image with a reducer.

Vitamin C and strong Instant coffee will work as a developer as will paracetamol (acetominophen) and vitamin C.

ALL must be done in a dark room! (except for the actual exposure).

 

a soak in sodium thiosulphate after will "Fix" the image so that no further development can take place and spoil you picture when it`s in the daylight afterwards.

I figure if you can get silver nitrate, then the Thio won`t be a problem

[Alexein]

I am fully aware of those methods (i even say in the video that "modern photography is better and faster"). But i needed to find a balance between making it easy to understand and follow, and doing it right. I choose the former.

 

The point of the video was just to show the basic idea in the simplest way i could think of. It was NOT my intention to do it the best/cheapest way.

 

Not everyone has a darkroom or the patience to attempt this. My intention is something that even a high school or a grade-school science teacher could demonstrate, or some kid for his/her science fair project. So I needed a way to demonstrate photochemistry in a dramatic, but extremely simple way. Handling multiple steps of chemicals and worrying about premature exposure to light would add unneccessary complications to a simple experiment.

 

I think using the silver chloride as-is without additional developing/fixing steps really emphasizes to the kids that it's the sillver chloride that does all the magic of photography, the rest of the chemicals are just improvements.

 

making the silver chloride seperately and putting it ontop of the paper, rather than making it part of the paper itself, emphasizes once again that it's the silver chloride that does the magic. Before, when i did it part of the paper I once had someone ask me how the silver chloride alters the paper... They didn't realize it wasn't the paper that was taking the photograph, it was the silver chloride, the paper was just support.

 

By simply using a powerful lamp, the darkroom is less of a requirement and allows a teacher (or a resourceful kid) to demonstrate the whole experiment on the tabletop.

 

I am planning on making a more advanced photography experiment using the proper chemicals and techniques. Kind of like a "part 2" video for more advanced individuals.

 

But if ya think i'm bastardizing the field i'll remove the current video. Last thing i want is to offend the experts.

Edited March 4, 2009 by Alexein

[Alexein]

Sorry everyone, I'm going to deprecate this experiment and do the more advanced one as instructed.

 

Therefore:

 

DO NOT FOLLOW THE EXPERIMENT IN THE FIRST POST

 

The experiment is wrong and not of the quality expected in this forum as pointed out in the discussion. The absolute last thing i want is to be posting sub-standard videos seemingly done by a high-school moron showing the wrong techniques.

 

I'm currently working on the correct video demonstrating the creation of actual gelatin film with real chemicals and machinery as well the use of actual developer solutions and processes.

 

So once again

 

DO NOT FOLLOW THE EXPERIMENT IN THE FIRST POST!!!

 

Hopefully a mod will come along and delete it. (the first post, not the whole thread, there is good info in the rest of the thread)

Edited March 8, 2009 by Alexein

[YT2095]

Huh!???

[AlchemistAsche]

Hahaha brilliant 👏