Snapshots in Color

About a billion amateur snapshots are taken in the U. S. every year. The average photographer pays about 35-c- for an eight-exposure roll of film, another 65-c- for developing and printing. For $1 or less he gets eight black & white prints of his wife, his children, his friends, his garden, his sailboat, or whatnot.

Last week amateur photographers were promised they would soon be able to take the same pictures with their same cameras --but in natural color. All they need is a special roll of film for $1 and the services of a special developing agency which will return eight natural-color prints for $2 more.

Such an announcement came from the new Manhattan offices of Dufaycolor, Inc., new U. S. sales subsidiary of Dufaycolor Ltd., of London. Behind this film lay long years and millions of dollars of experimental work. Patient sponsors were London's venerable Spicers Ltd., makers of fine paper. The idea stems back to a crude geometrical color screen constructed in France 25 years ago by Louis Dufay. But so complex is the perfected method that some 500 patents were necessary to bring it up to the commercial stage. And it would not have been possible if the researchers had not had at their disposal the best modern panchromatic, high-speed, fine-grained emulsions.*

The Dufaycolor process owes much to a French engineer named Charles Bonamico, who worked out a way to cut fine, parallel lines on a steel roller--500 lines to the inch. The film is first dyed blue. It is then run through the roller which by means of a greasy resistant fixes the dye in a series of tiny parallel lines across the film. After bleaching and cleaning the film is dyed red and again put through the roller which this time fixes the second color in the minute spaces between the blue lines. Finally the film is dyed green but this time the color lines are cut lengthwise on the film by the roller. Because these three primary colors contain all the ingredients of white light, the final film is neutral grey to the naked eye. But under the microscope it is a brilliant checkerboard pattern containing 1,000,000 color filters to the square inch.

The amateur photographer takes his pictures on this film in the normal way, without any special lens or extra attachments. The Dufaycolor company does the developing by a reversal process which turns out a positive film. Color prints will be obtained by printing each positive three times on the same paper--once for each of the primary colors.

Dufaycolor is not the only film with the color screen applied directly on it. But because all color screens absorb some of the light they receive, all color films are "slower" than ordinary black-&-white film. Lumiere film, the oldest, which is coated with fine starch grains, is 60 times slower. Agfa, which uses a solution of chemically discrete color elements, is 30 times slower. Not having geometrical screen patterns, these two films are susceptible to small inequalities of color distribution which may show up when a cinema projection is sufficiently magnified. Not only does Dufaycolor not suffer from this defect but it has adopted such highly translucent inks hat it is able to state that its film is nearly half as fast as snapshot film.

Dufaycolor claims that its 35 mm. professional cinema film is fast enough to be used with existing lenses and lighting equipment. The British company is making this at the rate of 90,000 ft. per week, and U. S. distribution has been begun by E. Leitz Inc. and arranged for by Defender Photo Supply Co. (du Pont subsidiary). The 16 mm. amateur film is already on sale in Manhattan. A U. S. manufacturing branch has been incorporated in Delaware with an authorized capitalization of $10,000,000, is looking for investors.

In the May issue of FORTUNE, which has been experimenting with the film for some months, will appear two pages of Dufaycolor photographs of Manhattan's pushcart market on upper Park Avenue.

*Emulsion: mixture of gelatine and silver salt which surfaces the film. The action of light releases silver from the salt, darkening the film where the release occurs. "High-speed" means sensitive enough to require only a very short exposure. Panchromatic means sensitive to all colors.

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