Comparison of liquid emulsions

[Falkenberg]

Is there any comparisons made between the different liquid emulsions ? Does anybody know if some of them are the same ? Made by the same supplier ? In Christopher James book he mentions Maco´s products and they have a primer and a hardener, that seems to be coupled closely to their own products. I have tried Fotospeeds and Tetenals liquid emulsions and they seem to be very identical.

[Ian Grant]

Most liquid emulsions are GD3 (approx) paper emulsions from manufacturers like Kentmere (SE1), EFKE, Foma etc. Some will come from the same original manufacturers.

Ian

[Falkenberg]

What is the difference between film and paper emulsion ?

[Marco B]

Maco (now called Rollei Black Magic RBM3) is actually a multi-grade liquid emulsion, very convenient. According to the documentation, it should give you about grade 1-4 if I remember well.

The emulsion is a chloride-bromide emulsion, Rollei also has a fixed grade emulsion, which is a bromide emulsion.

[gandolfi]

I have tried:
Teltenal "Work" emulsion
Kentmere SE1 emulsion
"Liquid light" (rockland?)
FOMA emulsion
MACO multigrade

They are very different in use and how thsy look! (and also in the pricing...)

TETENAL (one coating), fairly thin, but effective. beautiful black almost shiny surface. (but FAR too expensive)

KENTMERE SE1 is like hot cream in consistance. really easy to use (one coating). not too expensive. surface matt. (once we could get it in 5 liters quantity, and then it got real cheap, so then my favourite for teaching)

"Liquid Light" (long time since I tried this one..): expensive - difficult to apply to the paper (turned gray SO easily (could be my mistake) - VERY beautiful tones when successful.

MACO. (couldnt make it work!. didn't react well to filters.)

FOMA emulsion. only downside is that it requires two coatings. cheaper than most emulsions I know of, easy to coat evenly (plus side of two coatings) and very receptive to different developers. (one can use different developers as contrast controls). extreamly beautiful semi glossy surface with true blacks (if desired)
"Born" to be used as emulsion for Bromoil (whereas KENTMERE is HARD to use for bromoil)
My FAVOURITE.

most fun: make your own! can be done with only two chemicals - some gelatine and destilled water. And it actuslly can look really beautiful!

[jnanian]

a paper company called luminous used to make a liquid silver emulsion ...
it was rated asa 100. unfortunately that isn't made anymore,
so asa 1-5ish is about as fast as it gets ...

the difference between film and paper emulsion is film emulsion is pan-chromatic
it is made with special dyes which allow it to read and all the light ...
paper emulsions are orthochromatic, and only see
part of the light spectrum ( mostly blue and green light ).

[Falkenberg]

Does it make any difference when making glass negatives ?
Is there any panchromatic liquid emulsions on the market ?

Emil, I am almost sure that Fotospeed offers their liquid emulsion in whatever size You might need.

[Ian Grant]

Panchromatic emulsions can't be coated under normal darkroom conditions as they are sensitive to the full visible spectrum and red light. This is why B&W paper emulsions are sold.

Ian

[Jeanne]

I use Adox Adolux almost exclusively. Occasionally I make my own, too, and have have had very good results with a simple unwashed emulsion. A huge factor in any comparison is paper, I think. The best emulsion in the world will not be worth much on a difficult paper -- and a really easy paper can make the difficult emulsions spread beautifully.

[Marco B]

MACO. (couldnt make it work!. didn't react well to filters.)

This is not my experience with the MACO/Rollei Black Magic RBM3 Variable Contrast emulsion (also listed as LPE330). Are you sure you didn't accidentally use the non-variable contrast version? And also, for the record, I am using an Ilford Multigrade 500H on my enlarger, specially designed for B&W photography. Maybe it makes a difference compared to setting filters on a color head.

In my experience, the Rollei solution did respond to different grade settings, although maybe not as good as prefabricated multigrade paper, but I find that hard to compare.

I think Jeanne has it right, paper choice is maybe one of the most important factors in succesful usage of any emulsion.