Film emulsion doping breakthrough?

[Paul Schilliger]

I picked this information in the news a few days ago: A scientific team (french, I think) have found an additive (silver by-product) which, when added to the ph otographic emulsions (at1/10.000), makes them 10X more sensitive without affecti ng the grain! They said the technology will be applied to X-Rays films at first and then to photographic emulsions by the next three years. Mmh... freezing move ments (water falls, wind, people etc.) at 1/500 f22 on fine grain sheet films, s ounds nice! Has someone heard of too? (No, it's not a late fools'day hoax!)

[David_892]

In all seriousness I think I have heard about this somewhere as well, but is it not some thing to do with ants saliva or something connected with them?

[Kevin Kemner]

It is an ant saliva product but is only in preliminary development. I think I recall there were questions about emulsion stability and being able to produce a synthetic version which could be manufactured in quantity.

[bob moulton]

The company developing the additive is Agfa, I think. An article in the Chicago Tribume reported on this. Imagine 8x10 landscapes at 1/250 at f64. Wind, What wind? If only we all love long enough!

[Simon_443]

This was discussed in photo.net/photo last December; see

http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl? msg_id=000iIn&topic_id=photo%2enet&topic=

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[Simon_443]

Um, if that URL didn't work for others (it didn't for me), go to www.photo.net/photo > Original Q&A > Older messages > Film > "What is the story on 10x speed film?" (You'll have to scroll down a ways; it was posted on 12/23/99 and they're in reverse chrono order.)