Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/526

Rh is the intensity of the light in powers of -2, and the ordinates show the percentages of chemical action produced. If the chemical action remained the same when the intensity of light was reduced, E remaining the same, each of the curves would be shown as a straight line at the height of 100, which is the transparency of deposit with the unit of light. As it is, they show diminishing percentages as the light intensity is diminished.

6.

Thus, when the intensity of the light is reduced to of the original, and the time of exposure is prolonged 64 times, the useful energy expended on a lantern plate is only 50% of that expended when the light and time of exposure are each unity. In the cases to which the diagram refers, the light used was a standard amyl acetate lamp, and the unit of intensity taken was this light at a distance of 2ft. from the plate, and the unit of time was 10 seconds. The lamp being moved to 16 ft. from the plate, gave an intensity of the unit, and the time of exposure had to be increased to 640 seconds, so that E was the same in both cases. Further, it was found that when the times of exposure on different parts of the plate were successively doubled, light at a fixed distance being used for one series, and altered for a second series, the slopes of the curves of transparency (i.e. the gradation) were parallel to one another. This investigation is of use when camera images are in question, as the picture is formed by different intensities of light, not very different from those of the amyl acetate lamp, the time of exposure being the same for all intensities. The deductions made from the investigation are that with a slow plate the energy expended in chemical action is smaller as the intensity is diminished, while with a quick plate the variation is much less. As a practical deduction, we may say that to obtain proper contrast in a badly lighted picture it is advisable to use a slow plate.

. 7. Scale of Intensities in Powers of 2 Effect of very Intense Light on a Sensitive Salt.—Another investigation was made as to the effect of very intense light on sensitive surfaces. In this case a screen of step-by-step graduated opacities was made use of, and palates expose through it to the action of lights markedly differing intensity, one being that of the amyl acetate lamp, another that of the arc light, and a third the light emitted from the spark of a Wimshurst machine. The exposures were so made that one of the opacities produced on the plate from exposure to each source of light was approximately the same. The unit of intensity of light is, of course, in each case widely different. The slope of the curve due to the spark light is less steep than that due to the arc light, and the latter, again, is much less steep than that due to the amyl acetate lamp. A further investigation was made of the effect of increasing the time of exposure when the intense light was diminished, and it was found that with all plates the useful chemical energy acting on a plate was least with the most intense light, but increased as the intensity diminished, though the time was correspondingly increased. This is the reverse of what we have recorded as taking place when a comparatively feeble light was employed. Further, it was proved that the variation was greatest in those plates which are ordinarily considered to be the most rapid. It follows, therefore, that there is some intensity of light when the useful chemical energy is at a maximum, and that this intensity varies for each kind of plate.

Intermittent Exposure of a Sensitive Salt.—The same investigator has shown that, if a total exposure is made up of intermittent exposures, the chemical action on a sensitive salt is less than it is when the same exposure is not intermittent. It was also proved that the longer the time of rest between the intermittent exposures (within limits) the less was the chemical action. We may quote one case. Exposures were first made to a naked light, and afterwards to the same light for six times longer, as a rotating disk intervened which had 12 apertures of 5° cut in it at equal intervals apart, and 720 intermittent exposures per second were given. The plate was moved to different distances from the light, so that the intensity was altered. The apparent loss of exposure by the intervention of the disk increases as the intensity diminishes, the ratios of the chemical energy usefully employed of the naked light exposure to that of the intermitting exposures beings:—

These results appear to be explicable by the theoretical considerations regarding molecular motion.

Eject of Monochromotic Light of Varying Wave-lengths on a Sensitive Salt.—It has been a subject of investigation as to whether the gradation on a plate is altered when exposures are made to lights of different colours; that is to say, whether the shades of tone in a negative of a white object illuminated by, say, a red light, would be the same as those in the negative if illuminated by a blue light. Abney announced that the gradation was different; and, quite independently, Chapman Jones made a general deduction for isochromatic plates that, except with a certain developer, the gradation was steeper (that is, the curve shown graphically would be steeper) the greater the wave-lengths of the light to which the sensitive salt was subjected. For plates made with the ordinary haloid salts of silver Chapman Jones's deduction requires modification. When monochromatic light from the spectrum is employed, it is found that the gradation increases with wave-lengths of light which are less, and also with those which are greater, than the light whose wave-lengths has a maximum effect on the sensitive salt experimented with. Thus with bromo-iodide of silver the maximum effect produced by the spectrum is close to the blue lithium line, and the gradation of the plate illuminated with that light is less steep than when the light is spectrum violet, green, yellow or red. From the red to the yellow the gradation is much the steepest. Whether these results have any practical bearing on ordinary photographic exposures is not settled, but that they must have some decided effect on the accuracy of three-colour work for the production of pictures in approximately natural colours is undoubted, and they may have a direct influence on the determination of star magnitudes by means of photography.

Reproduction of Coloured Objects by means of Three Photographic Positives.—Ives's Process.—A practical plan of producing images in approximately the true colours of nature has been devised by preparing three positives of the same object, one 