Do anyone knows how to make black and white polaroid film ? They are extremelly expensive for me and it would be great fun to prepare their emulsions and experiment with them.
When you say "Polaroid", I'm assuming that you're referring to an "instant" film that can be developed on the spot.
I agree that that would be really cool. but I'd imagine it would be incredibly difficult, especially for a positive emulsion.
I experimented with "instant" developing stuff once, using resin-coated paper as the photosensitive material. I'd discovered earlier, accidentally, that a sodium hydroxide solution would result in incredibly rapid development of the image on the paper; I assumed this was due to the incorporated developer interacting with the NaOH and water.
I made a mixture of water and sodium hydroxide, and something to make it into a paste (I do not recall what it was). I sealed this into a pod at the end of a paper and plastic setup that I made, put it in a camera, took a picture, and ran the whole thing through a set of rollers (my old old Kodak instant camera). After about 30-40 seconds, an image was visible, though obviously not fixed.
I'd think that something like that could be done with your own developer-incorporated emulsion, but its just an idea. There's still the issue of fixing the image ...
It is funny to learn to dublicate the chemical recipes of Polaroid. I am an archaeologist and I prefer to analyse a culture with its original methods.
If I am not wrong , they call it industrial archaeology. I want a print very similar to ansel adams prints from 60 years ago.
As you know after 200 years , there will be men who will want to learn these recipes.
We have to document them before polaroid off.
And
I am sorry about small format positive negative bw polaroid film. They say , it was hard to find the necessary chemicals.
Lets list :
We want same recipe Ansel Adams used.
We want same recipe with BW PN Polaroid film.
I am sure there are papers about it. I looked to us patent office and there are registered 3000 patents on polaroid. There was 3 patents on Edwin Land.
There are many patents on manufacturing special chemicals.
May be moderator can help ,
The polaroid developer is in a pod that contains a thickener, carboxy methyl cellulose or the equivalent, and sodium or potassium hydroxide at a pH of about 12 - 14. I don't know the rest of the ingredients, but one of them is a silver halide solvent to assist in nucleation and formation of the positive image from the negative original.
This is probably spelled out in the original patents by Land.
Polaroid Company gave their archives to Harvard and I sent a mail regarding correspondance between Ansel Adams and the company.
I am looking for an individual researcher who will research in the lab documents. I do not like university archives or foundation archives. Generally , there are no university staff for research and they invite you to do everything yourself. This can be seen at Rolls Royce , Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Getty Archives. Generally there are millions of microfiches and individual researchers want 50 dollars per 50 pages. I looked to polaroid company web site and there is even no e mail address of company for to ask pn 55 formula or its location in the archives.
I read these developers contains exotic chemicals .But I hope I find them at aldrich catalog.
It is very exciting to learn the comments of AA on a print If there is polaroid prints traffic between AA and polaroid. By this way , it will explain what he was thinking on a print , emulsion or developer at research and development stage. And it is interesting to read how polaroid staff reacts to these messages with chemical mixes.
Well , it will take time and money but it worths .
Best ,
Mustafa Umut Sarac
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Go to the US patent web site and search for polaroid patents granted to Edwin Land, or use www.freepatentsonline.com for searches.
A google search might start you off, as well as searches of SPSE journals where Edwin Land published first. I have read some of his papers and heard him speak on this. Also, George Eastman House has this sort of thing in their archives.
If you're going to be browsing through old (pre ~1970) patents, patent to PDF is an indispensible tool. Otherwise, you're going to be going [very slowly] through really really really large TIFF images.
Three key advantages (over the .gov site) I have found are:
-Can easily save as a .pdf
-No .Tiff plugin is required
-Searching before the 1970's is now very easy!
The Polaroid processes are diffusing processes. Colour dyes migrating in their colour materials (with exception of that grid system); Silver salts migrating in their B&W processes.
The latter is the more modern version of what is called over here Silver-Salt-Diffusion-Processes and employed in several instant processes. The basic ideas were gained in 1940 by Agfa and Gevaert R&D people (Weyde/Rott) independently of each other. (Thus decennias before their merger.) As far as I remember a developed but unfixed paper by accident coming in contact with fixing agent and another plain paper formed the initial cause for further research in on case.
In the Polaroid B&W process a heavy metal plays a significant role in the recipient in reducing the silver migrated as salt from the unexposed parts of the developed negative.
It’s quite annoying doing this APUG thing without sufficient literature at hand. Besides those patents most of it is written in Dutch or German.
But in case you are seriously interested, pm me and the next time I’ll dive into those boxes of mine filled with books, I’ll try to find something of interest to you.
How to_BW Polaroid Emulsion 
Linear Mode
