B&W Films for S.E.M. Photography

I found myself alone in a new area of Photography then. Seems like the great photographers didn’t have a SEM (or know how to use one) and the scientists using SEMs were not photographers (not at all). I had been a photographer since I was 9 years old. But now I needed to get better and refine my art. So I studied Ansel Adams’ books on THE NEGATIVE and THE PRINT. I took a good while of making prints to get really good, but getting a good negative came a bit easier for me.

I started off using Kodak Plus-X but ended up using Ilford FP-4, developed in Acufine in later years. Plus-X was good but too often there were little pieces of emulsion that would flake off. The ilford didn’t do that and has a bit more gentle contrast curve. Occasionally I would even use Polaroid PN55 which would give an instant print as well as a decent negative.

1980