Conversion yields of some photographic emulsions and related factors

A method is presented for the determination of the effective average projected grain diameter (d^) using visual analysis of enlargements of Kodak Tri-X Pan and Kodak Royal-X Pan emulsions. Each was exposed to three light sources of color temperatures 6100°K, 2850°K, and 2040°K, and was developed in Kodak developers HC-110, DK-50, and D-19 for 5, 8, 12, and 20 minutes at 68°F. For 5- to 20-minute developing times, dA was determined, from a total of over 12,000 counts, to be from ~ 2.1 to ~ 2.4 yu for both films. A method for calculating the conversion yield-q (number of grains to total number of quanta focused on the emulsion) is derived. The value y is a function of film density (D); it was found that rj first increases and then decreases, and a theory which explains this behavior in connection with grain formation is proposed; that is, 77 is the result of a superposition of an increasing and a decreasing function. The first is caused by the fact that a photographic nucleus made up of three silver atoms has a lesser probability for development than a four-atom nucleus, where with the increased exposure (number of quanta per unit area), the ratio increases in favor of the latter, resulting in an increasin