Silvered pressure plate

[Steve Ricoh]

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I’m tempted to bid on a cheapo camera and take the pressure plate back to plain reflective metal, or possibly a plastic toy camera, such as a Hola or Diana, and spray the pressure plate ‘silver’. I’m interested to see how much halation it would induce. All in the interest of ‘art’ of course.

What do you reckon, would be subtle or a whitewash of light?

[Chuck Albertson]

You'll likely get some sort of effect. When they shot Oppenheimer on XX b&w film, they had to replace the IMax camera's chrome pressure plate with a (custom) black plate. Apparently, the bounce-back from a chrome plate is blocked by the Remjet backing of color cine film, but tends to shoot through the backing of conventional b&w film, like XX.

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[250swb]

There isn’t a pressure plate in a Holga, Diana etc in 120 because you need to be able to read the frame number on the backing paper. If you wrapped the pressure plate of a 35mm camera with cooking foil you could use almost any camera without modifying it, and with foil you’d have a satin silver and highly polished side to choose from. Not sure about scratches though but you could test the principle before stripping off the black.

Edited November 14, 2023 by 250swb

[pippy]

22 minutes ago, 250swb said:

...Not sure about scratches though...

Scratches, presumably, were they to become manifest could all be part of the "Art". Sounds an interesting project; please keep us informed of any developments...

Philip.

[Steve Ricoh]

52 minutes ago, Chuck Albertson said:

You'll likely get some sort of effect. When they shot Oppenheimer on XX b&w film, they had to replace the IMax camera's chrome pressure plate with a (custom) black plate. Apparently, the bounce-back from a chrome plate is blocked by the Remjet backing of color cine film, but tends to shoot through the backing of conventional b&w film, like XX.

Definitely encouraging as I happen to have some Double X in the fridge, waiting for some bright light. Thanks for replying. 

[Steve Ricoh]

31 minutes ago, 250swb said:

There isn’t a pressure plate in a Holga, Diana etc in 120 because you need to be able to read the frame number on the backing paper. If you wrapped the pressure plate of a 35mm camera with cooking foil you could use almost any camera without modifying it, and with foil you’d have a satin silver and highly polished side to choose from. Not sure about scratches though but you could test the principle before stripping off the black.

Actually I was thinking of the Diana Mini (35mm) which I believe has a black plastic pressures plate, however I could be wrong.

Tin foil, as it’s called, also came to mind, but I’m not sure I’m that artistic. 

[Steve Ricoh]

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10 minutes ago, pippy said:

Scratches, presumably, were they to become manifest could all be part of the "Art". Sounds an interesting project; please keep us informed of any developments...

Philip.

Another thing I do is to to ditch the lens hood and aim about 30 to 45 degrees to the sun to induce reflections. For a while I used the Oly Pen F 1:1.4/40 without a lens hood, mainly because one wasn’t supplied when purchased. Got some lovely piping across frames and gorgeous halation. 

[250swb]

You could smear some Vaseline on it (the lens) and make it all soft focus as well.

[Steve Ricoh]

Tangential to the discussion about silvering the film pressure plate, god damn Foma for ending supply of Foma Retropan 320, a film without an anti-halation layer. 😡

[Anbaric]

How about the CineStill colour negative films? They are Kodak movie films that are designed to be used with Remjet backing to stop halation etc., but CineStill supplies them without the Remjet. The result is strong halation around light sources:

https://richardhaw.com/2019/07/07/review-cinestill-800t/

[Steve Ricoh]

Cinestill 800T has rather nice halation in the red layer, as the linked article demonstrates. But in the region of £20 / roll it would have to be reserved for those special occasions.
Good blog from Richard Haw, thank you for bringing it to my attention.
BTW, a ‘silvered’ pressure plate would probably enhance the effect.

[AZD]

Perhaps you could use thin aluminum tape, the kind used for sealing vents and ductwork. It is large enough to cover the pressure plate with one piece, and probably thin enough to avoid any physical interference. 
 

I have an old Argus C3 with a shiny stainless steel pressure plate, and it does cause halation. Between that and the triplet lens it is fairly easy to recognize a C3 image among my snapshots.

[Steve Ricoh]

2 hours ago, AZD said:

Perhaps you could use thin aluminum tape, the kind used for sealing vents and ductwork. It is large enough to cover the pressure plate with one piece, and probably thin enough to avoid any physical interference. 
 

I have an old Argus C3 with a shiny stainless steel pressure plate, and it does cause halation. Between that and the triplet lens it is fairly easy to recognize a C3 image among my snapshots.

Brilliant idea, thank you.

[Einst_Stein]

On 11/14/2023 at 9:39 AM, Steve Ricoh said:

I’m tempted to bid on a cheapo camera and take the pressure plate back to plain reflective metal, or possibly a plastic toy camera, such as a Hola or Diana, and spray the pressure plate ‘silver’. I’m interested to see how much halation it would induce. All in the interest of ‘art’ of course.

What do you reckon, would be subtle or a whitewash of light?

Back in school, I have shot B&W glass plate films with (almost) perfectly reflective back plate. The purpose is to get color images. It worked.

The principle behind is that the refleted wave fromi the back would interfere with the front coming wave, and form interference layers with quarter wavelength distance. Imaging with a normal film, the exposure would create vertical (along the depoth of film) "poles". With reflective back, the "pole" would become plates. To view the picture, the light injeted to the film would be refleted out, but the silver layer would cause interference accoring to the wave length and become color images.

In theory, it would be a color image of the original scene. But what happened to me was skewed color. The layer distance was deformed due to temperature and other chemical effects, that the distance does not rpeserve the original .quarter weave length.  This was probably the earliest unsuccessful "color film" principle (century old). 

 

 

[willeica]

1 hour ago, Einst_Stein said:

Back in school, I have shot B&W glass plate films with (almost) perfectly reflective back plate. The purpose is to get color images. It worked.

The principle behind is that the refleted wave fromi the back would interfere with the front coming wave, and form interference layers with quarter wavelength distance. Imaging with a normal film, the exposure would create vertical (along the depoth of film) "poles". With reflective back, the "pole" would become plates. To view the picture, the light injeted to the film would be refleted out, but the silver layer would cause interference accoring to the wave length and become color images.

In theory, it would be a color image of the original scene. But what happened to me was skewed color. The layer distance was deformed due to temperature and other chemical effects, that the distance does not rpeserve the original .quarter weave length.  This was probably the earliest unsuccessful "color film" principle (century old). 

 

 

Sounds like the Lippmann early colour process which used a reflective surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippmann_plate

 

William 

 

 

 

[Einst_Stein]

2 hours ago, willeica said:

Sounds like the Lippmann early colour process which used a reflective surface.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippmann_plate

 

William 

 

 

 

Thanks for finding out the original source. It's too long ago, i can't find it. 

[willeica]

32 minutes ago, Einst_Stein said:

Thanks for finding out the original source. It's too long ago, i can't find it. 

If you search on 'Lippmann colour process' you should find material which might be helpful. Dr Hanin Hannouch at the Weltmuseum in Vienna and Jens Gold at the Preusmuseum in Oslo have done a lot of study on Lippmann's methods. Lippmann used mercury which would not be allowed today, but researchers have been seeking safer modern options. Gabriel Lippmann received a Nobel Laureate in 1903 for his research on colour photography. I have been told be a friend who is a prominent optical scientist that the research done by Lippmann is still of relevance today in respect of 'light field' camera technology.

William 

[Einst_Stein]

10 minutes ago, willeica said:

If you search on 'Lippmann colour process' you should find material which might be helpful. Dr Hanin Hannouch at the Weltmuseum in Vienna and Jens Gold at the Preusmuseum in Oslo have done a lot of study on Lippmann's methods. Lippmann used mercury which would not be allowed today, but researchers have been seeking safer modern options. Gabriel Lippmann received a Nobel Laureate in 1903 for his research on colour photography. I have been told be a friend who is a prominent optical scientist that the research done by Lippmann is still of relevance today in respect of 'light field' camera technology.

William 

I forgot the name of the process. Thanks for remind me. I studied it when I also studied the other lens design method, such a  Newton ring lens.  Another color photography I had explored was putting a Color Filter grid on top of B&W film that mimics the digital sensor. It does create much cleaning color pictures than the normal color films. 

It is amazing how people thought of such processes.