I have put up on my web site my magnum opus of the results of exposing over 200 holographic plates. This was the impetus for the paper I presented at the ISDH at MIT in the summer 2012. You can see how I arrived at my conclusions about which holographic recording materials are my favorite.
http://nlutie.com/ewesly/PreambleResearch.html
Exhaustive testing
Exhaustive testing
"We're the flowers in the dustbin" Sex Pistols
-
MilanKarakas
Exhaustive testing
Thank you Ed for posting this very informative collection of your research. I am new to holography and will need a lot of informations in order to understand what is going on when something went wrong. Lasers are more familiar to me than holographic recording. That is because in the past I paid more attention to properties of the laser than it's use. Mostly dealing with DIY lasers - nitrogen lasers and nitrogen pumped dye lasers.Ed Wesly wrote:I have put up on my web site my magnum opus of the results of exposing over 200 holographic plates. This was the impetus for the paper I presented at the ISDH at MIT in the summer 2012. You can see how I arrived at my conclusions about which holographic recording materials are my favorite.
http://nlutie.com/ewesly/PreambleResearch.html
Now, I am amazed with the beauty of the holographic works and become addicted to it. Still have troubles of various kind, from laser stability to understanding what is what in the chemistry of the emulsion and sensitizer(s), as well as methods of finalizing holograms (bit of chemistry, bit of physics).
Sooner or later (more likely later, still have headache with my laser), I will give a try AgX plates (DIY), so I will need all of this data.
Best--
m--
Exhaustive testing
Thank you very much for posting, Ed!
Just curious: Colour Holographic recommends soaking in 1% TEA for presensitisation. Did you have any reason to replace this step with Photo-Flo (other than you had a lot of Photo-Flo?) I don't understand the chemistry behind, sorry for maybe silly question.
Petr
Just curious: Colour Holographic recommends soaking in 1% TEA for presensitisation. Did you have any reason to replace this step with Photo-Flo (other than you had a lot of Photo-Flo?) I don't understand the chemistry behind, sorry for maybe silly question.
Petr
Exhaustive testing
Thanks for sharing this, Ed!
Exhaustive testing
Hey lobaz!
Not a silly question at all. It is said that a triethanolamine (TEA) pre-soak will increase emulsion speed. I haven’t done any side-by-side tests to see how much. Mainly because I usually get fog; the hyper-sensitization either makes the plate overly sensitive to my safelight conditions, or it chemically exposes or fogs the plate on its own. The water pre-soak activates the emulsion, I have tested that, without giving an overall fog. See #23 and #24 in the above to see the difference. The treatment seems to wear off after a few days, like a week. Then you have to do it again.
I am really not a fan of these pre-exposure operations. Every time you get the holograms wet there is always the chance of disaster. I have heard from Hans Bjelkhagen and Stas from Geola that the chemical reason for having to do this is because there is not enough "free silver". I am not so sure what that means.
The TEA is a bit messier, with its oily residue. If the TEA is left in the emulsion during exposure, there is a color shift to shorter wavelengths, which may be not the desired result, although it is a somewhat reliable way to control color, especially to yield blue holograms or multi-colored ones. Click on Triethanolamining at
http://nlutie.com/ewesly/FormulaeFrameset.html for more details. Leaving the plate loaded with TEA usually implies squeegeeing a plate to remove the excess, another step that can ruin a hologram even before exposure.
The TEA can be washed out before drying, and will allegedly increase speed, without changing the color. But when I was doing these tests, I didn’t feel like mixing the TEA up. Maybe I missed something by not doing that, so perhaps the next time I am fooling around with the BB series of plates I will give the same exposure series to plates that are right out of the box, activated with H20 only, and with a 1% TEA.
More info on TEA at
http://books.google.com/books?id=tiGP9M ... ne&f=false
Why not give it a shot and tell us what happens!
Not a silly question at all. It is said that a triethanolamine (TEA) pre-soak will increase emulsion speed. I haven’t done any side-by-side tests to see how much. Mainly because I usually get fog; the hyper-sensitization either makes the plate overly sensitive to my safelight conditions, or it chemically exposes or fogs the plate on its own. The water pre-soak activates the emulsion, I have tested that, without giving an overall fog. See #23 and #24 in the above to see the difference. The treatment seems to wear off after a few days, like a week. Then you have to do it again.
I am really not a fan of these pre-exposure operations. Every time you get the holograms wet there is always the chance of disaster. I have heard from Hans Bjelkhagen and Stas from Geola that the chemical reason for having to do this is because there is not enough "free silver". I am not so sure what that means.
The TEA is a bit messier, with its oily residue. If the TEA is left in the emulsion during exposure, there is a color shift to shorter wavelengths, which may be not the desired result, although it is a somewhat reliable way to control color, especially to yield blue holograms or multi-colored ones. Click on Triethanolamining at
http://nlutie.com/ewesly/FormulaeFrameset.html for more details. Leaving the plate loaded with TEA usually implies squeegeeing a plate to remove the excess, another step that can ruin a hologram even before exposure.
The TEA can be washed out before drying, and will allegedly increase speed, without changing the color. But when I was doing these tests, I didn’t feel like mixing the TEA up. Maybe I missed something by not doing that, so perhaps the next time I am fooling around with the BB series of plates I will give the same exposure series to plates that are right out of the box, activated with H20 only, and with a 1% TEA.
More info on TEA at
http://books.google.com/books?id=tiGP9M ... ne&f=false
Why not give it a shot and tell us what happens!
"We're the flowers in the dustbin" Sex Pistols
Exhaustive testing
Arturo said:
And I thank you once again for sending me some Ultimate Plates! the only problem is that I have not played with the red ones yet! One of these days...Thanks for sharing this, Ed!
"We're the flowers in the dustbin" Sex Pistols
Exhaustive testing
As long as you share your results, please take your timeEd Wesly wrote:And I thank you once again for sending me some Ultimate Plates! the only problem is that I have not played with the red ones yet! One of these days...
Exhaustive testing
Hello all,
here you can find a slowly growing test results report for different materials (currently only BB640 and Harman HoloFX Red), different processing schemes and different exposures. Not as big as Ed's, but perhaps you find it useful.
http://holo.zcu.cz/txt/materials_report.pdf
Enjoy!
Petr
here you can find a slowly growing test results report for different materials (currently only BB640 and Harman HoloFX Red), different processing schemes and different exposures. Not as big as Ed's, but perhaps you find it useful.
http://holo.zcu.cz/txt/materials_report.pdf
Enjoy!
Petr
It helps! :-]Ed Wesly wrote:Why not give it a shot and tell us what happens!
Exhaustive testing
Wow! Very impressive and fastidious work! It does show the increase in sensitivity that TEA does generate as you set out to prove!
Your report also shows how superior the BB plates are compared to the Harman Technology. Steven Brierley, one of the principals of Harman Technology, visited Harrington College of Design and I told him the company to beat was Colour Holographics. For whatever reason they came out with what appears to be warmed over Agfa 8E style products, just like their old Ilford films and plates, along with the short-lived Fuji materials. How unfortunate.
It also confirms that the recommended developer for the material, JD-4, (which is called TJ-1 in the Harman literature) is a bit too aggressive and causes a lot of fog, as evidenced in your page 18. But there is a surprise on page 19 with the noise going away simply by changing to the copper sulphate based JD-4 bleach over the Fe EDTA! (I blame this less than optimal processing scheme on the character who was testing the material for them in England, who shall remain nameless.)
It seems to me that the sodium hydroxide based developers work way too hard on the Agfa/Ilford/Harman/Fuji style of materials, but do work well on the smaller grained stuff like the BB and Sphere-S GEO-3 stuff. (I never wandered from the Ultimate chemistry on the Ultimate plates as it worked so well, why bother? Plus I had a limited amount of plates to begin with.) I also got the lowest noise results with the basic Pyrochrome developer, with its lower pH, and went back to good old Kodak D-19 (also sodium carbonate alkali based) instead of the JD-4/TJ-1 on the Harman.
What is also great is watching the color shift as the replay angle of incidence is altered, putting a color to the Bragg angle equation! And the black box is also very clever.
Congratulations on a job well done!
PS: Were you at MIT this past summer?
Your report also shows how superior the BB plates are compared to the Harman Technology. Steven Brierley, one of the principals of Harman Technology, visited Harrington College of Design and I told him the company to beat was Colour Holographics. For whatever reason they came out with what appears to be warmed over Agfa 8E style products, just like their old Ilford films and plates, along with the short-lived Fuji materials. How unfortunate.
It also confirms that the recommended developer for the material, JD-4, (which is called TJ-1 in the Harman literature) is a bit too aggressive and causes a lot of fog, as evidenced in your page 18. But there is a surprise on page 19 with the noise going away simply by changing to the copper sulphate based JD-4 bleach over the Fe EDTA! (I blame this less than optimal processing scheme on the character who was testing the material for them in England, who shall remain nameless.)
It seems to me that the sodium hydroxide based developers work way too hard on the Agfa/Ilford/Harman/Fuji style of materials, but do work well on the smaller grained stuff like the BB and Sphere-S GEO-3 stuff. (I never wandered from the Ultimate chemistry on the Ultimate plates as it worked so well, why bother? Plus I had a limited amount of plates to begin with.) I also got the lowest noise results with the basic Pyrochrome developer, with its lower pH, and went back to good old Kodak D-19 (also sodium carbonate alkali based) instead of the JD-4/TJ-1 on the Harman.
What is also great is watching the color shift as the replay angle of incidence is altered, putting a color to the Bragg angle equation! And the black box is also very clever.
Congratulations on a job well done!
PS: Were you at MIT this past summer?
"We're the flowers in the dustbin" Sex Pistols
Exhaustive testing
Thanks! :-]Ed Wesly wrote:Wow! Very impressive and fastidious work! It does show the increase in sensitivity that TEA does generate as you set out to prove!
It seems so for reflection. However, I also don't like the TEA step. I also did not test transmission yet.Ed Wesly wrote:Your report also shows how superior the BB plates are compared to the Harman Technology.
Contrary to Harman product sheet, I did not use stop bath after development and iodide bath. I'll give it a try.Ed Wesly wrote:It also confirms that the recommended developer for the material, JD-4, (which is called TJ-1 in the Harman literature) is a bit too aggressive and causes a lot of fog, as evidenced in your page 18.
I was surprised as well. I like this JD-4 process as it is the cheapest process I know (and quite safe for schools).Ed Wesly wrote: But there is a surprise on page 19 with the noise going away simply by changing to the copper sulphate based JD-4 bleach over the Fe EDTA!
Literally the next door at Burton-Conners's. I've been there with my girlfriend, the first door to the left from yours. :-]Ed Wesly wrote:PS: Were you at MIT this past summer?
I made 20+ tests with BB640 and different TEA concentrations and different bleaches. I will wait about a week and add it to the report. Stay tuned!
Petr