1848 Daguerreotypes Bring Middle America's Past to Life

These daguerreotypes by Charles Fontayne and William Porter, on September 24th, 1848 at 1:55PM, are phenomenal!

Their daguerreotypes can be looked at at 30x and still look crisp, according to the authors of the article! Incredible for a photograph taken 162 years ago. Check it out yourself: goto the website I link to, which has the article about these masterpieces and their restoration, and drag the little blue box around one of the plates. A view on the right at 10x shows you the detail level.

I'm not so sure about the 30x claim, I think 10x is really about the limit on them from what I see, but still phenomenal for 162 years ago.

thanks for posting this. very cool!

I love seeing stuff like this. The detail is excellent, because it is on a polished metal plate. Thanks for the link!

I wonder...does that give better detail than say you get from a high resolution film like Adox Pan 25 (~330 lp/mm or so, I think) or Kodak Aerographic Panatomic X-II (400-500 lp/mm)?

Instead of silver particles suspended in gelatin, the image is formed on a silver plate. Now, here is the problem: polishing that plate! You can see on the 10x magnification all of the polishing marks. If the plate is polished into a real mirror, then of course you will get better resolution. But you won't be able to print from it!