[pure-silver] Re: silver in b&w films

From: "Dana H. Myers" <dana.myers@xxxxxxxxx>

Janet Cull wrote:

Hello,

At our Thursday night film group, a man came from the close-by camera
club which is mostly digital shooters.  He came to talk to the
newbies about elements of a good pic; composition, lighting,
exposure, etc.  When he was asked about archivalness (is that a
word??) of his prints he said that b&w prints from today's films are
not really archival.  He said that eventually, in light, b&w film prints
will also fade.

He said today's b&w films don't really have silver in them.  It
seems I've heard that about the t-grain films (is that what you call
TMax?) or that maybe the silver is reduced.  Is that so across the
board with the new b&w films?

He said when "pan" was removed from the
names, at that time the silver was either removed or reduced.

Is this so?  Thanks.


Let's take this one part at a time.  First of all,
conventional B&W film - the stuff you process in B&W
developer - still forms the image from silver like it
always did.  Silver content varies between films, and
T-grain films are reputed to have less total silver
content, but the film is generally as archival as
ever (note that archival qualities for B&W film are
dominated by how the film is processed and stored).

Now, *prints* are potentially a different story.

Conventional B&W papers - the kind you develop in
B&W paper developer - still forms the image from
silver like it always did.  Again, conventional
B&W papers are just as archival as ever (again,
dominated by how the print is processed and stored).

It's also true that many labs don't make prints on
B&W paper; they make monochrome prints on color paper.
Color paper forms the image from dyes, with varying archival
quality.

The archival qualities of the paper and film are completely
independent.

As far as I know, dropping the word "Pan" from
film names had nothing to do with removal of
silver or reduced archival qualities of film.

Sounds to me like this "expert" is mistaken.

Dana


All correct, especially the last sentence!
Some modern B&W films are designed to be processed in C-41, standard color film chemistry. These films are sometimes called "monochromatic" and are basically color print films with no color. The negatives do have the orange mask so that they can be easily printed on one-hour machines.
There is also monochromatic paper designed to be processed by RA-4, the standard color print chemistry. Like the above film, this is just color print paper without any color to it. It will respond equally well to color or B&W negative film, so color negatives can be optically printed as B&W prints and developed in an RA4 machine.. This paper has little use in a modern one-hour machine, because the machine scans the negative and 'light-jet' (squirts three colors of light at the photo paper, line by line, just like an inkjet printer) prints the image. The machine can be set for making B&W prints from a color negative onto a standard color paper with the push of a button, usually called "Desaturate %"
Color film and paper still uses silver to form the image, but the silver is removed in the processing. You can take a roll of common B&W film such as Tri-X and develope it in C-41 chemistry, if you leave out the Bleach step. If you don't omit the bleach step, you will have a nearly clear strip of film, as the silver will be removed. (The negatives will also be thin and low in contrast, additionally, C-41 fixer is not that active, so a long fixer time will be required.)
Kodak's Endura RA-4 paper is rated at 100 years in room light and 200 years in darkness. Kodak's rational on that rating is that people will have a portrait on the wall for a couple years, replace it with a newer one and put the older portrait in an envelope in the closet; so the life might be 5 years in light and 190 years in dark.
The word "PAN" in the film name referred to "Panchromatic" or sensitive to all colors. Previously, film had decreased red sensitivity and was called "Ortho". When both Pan and Ortho films were in use, portrait studios had two kinds of makeup available in a 'cake' form, one type for ortho films and one type for pan films. The "pan-cake" was a more natural (compared to the ortho-cake) look. (Perhaps Richard K. can elaborate more on this?) 

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