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Deteriorated nitrate negatives are easy to identify, but nitrate negatives in good condition are almost visually indistinguishable from other types of transparent films. There are four ways to identify nitrate negatives.
16 sty 2018 · Nitrate negatives usually deteriorate in just a few decades, making them an extremely unstable storage medium. As they deteriorate, the image begins to fade and the negative turns soft and gooey, causing it to weld itself to whatever it’s stored with, resulting in the loss of the image.
Photographic negatives are made of an image-forming substance or emulsion, which is coated onto a base or support. The bases found in the Genthe collection are either glass, nitrate film (nitrocellulose), or safety film (cellulose acetate).
HISTORY OF FILM-BASED PHOTOGRAPHIC NEGATIVES. Eastman Kodak pioneered the first practical use of flexible, transparent film in 1889. This nitrate-based film had a strong tendency to curl and was extremely flammable. In 1903, this film was refined, incorporating a thicker nitrate film base and a gelatin coating on both sides.
This Technical Bulletin provides a comprehensive look at photographic negatives on plastic film bases made up of cellulose nitrate, cellulose acetate and polyester, and covers issues related to material composition, mechanisms of deterioration, access, handling and storage.
Nitrate refers to a group of early transparent plastic film supports that were most common between 1910 and 1950. Created as an easy-to-handle replacement for heavy and awkward glass plates, gelatin film, and paper negatives, nitrate film was used for still photographic negatives and transparencies, as well as motion picture film.
There are three broad types of film-base photographic materials: cellulose nitrate, the cellulose acetates, and polyester. These materials have been used as a support for negatives, positive transparencies, motion pictures, microfilm, and other photographic products.
