Sensitometry

File:H&D curve.png

Page 10 of Raymond Davis, Jr. and F. M. Walters, Jr., Scientific Papers of the Bureau of Standards, No. 439 (Part of Vol. 18) "Sensitometry of Photographic Emulsions and a Survey of the Characteristics of Plates and Films of American Manufacture," 1922. The next page starts with the H & D quote: "In a theoretically perfect negative, the amounts of silver deposited in the various parts are proportional to the logarithms of the intensities of light proceeding from the corresponding parts of the object." The assumption here, based on empirical observations, is that the "amount of silver" is proportional to the optical density.

Sensitometry is the scientific study of light-sensitive materials, especially photographic film. The study has its origins in the work by Ferdinand Hurter and Vero Charles Driffield (circa 1876) with early black-and-white emulsions. They determined how the density of silver produced varied with the amount of light received, and the method and time of development.

Details

Plots of film density (log of opacity) versus the log of exposure are called characteristic curves, Hurter–Driffield curves, H–D curves, HD curves, H & D curves, D–logE curves, or D–logH curves. The overall shape is a bit like an "S" slanted so that its base and top are horizontal. There is usually a central region of the HD curve which approximates to a straight line, called the "linear" or "straight-line" portion; the slope of this region is called the gamma. The low end is called the "toe", and at the top, the curve rounds over to form the "shoulder".

Different commercial film materials cover a gamma range from about 0.5 to about 5. Often it is not the original film that one views but a second or later generation. In these cases the end-to-end gamma is approximately the product of the separate gammas. Photographic paper prints have end-to-end gammas generally somewhat over 1. Projection transparencies for dark surround viewing have end-to-end gamma approximately 1.5. A full set of HD curves for a film shows how these vary with developer type and time.

See also

• Film speed
• Densitometry
• Leon Warnerke aka Władysław Małachowski, inventor of the first practical sensitometer in 1880.
• Hurter and Driffield
• Julius Scheiner - Scheiner sensitometer
• Henry Chapman Jones - Chapman Jones plate tester
• Josef Maria Eder and de - Eder-Hecht neutral wedge sensitometer
• Spectral sensitivity
• Zone system

External links

• Basic Sensitometry And Characteristics of Film (Kodak undated)[1]
• A memorial volume containing an account of the photographic researches of Ferdinand Hurter & Vero C. Driffield ; being a reprint of their published papers, together with a history of their early work and a bibliography of later work on the same subject. (Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain 1920)