Paper negatives for Conley plate camera.

[Dan Deary]

I have a vintage Conley 5X7 folding plate camera with what I believe is an 8 in F/8 Wollensak triple convertible Rapid Rectilinear with a Conley Safety Shutter(camera is in good shape with no pin holes and shutter works well too). Luckily it came with 5 plate negative holders. I am interested in trying paper negatives for the first time. I have read numerous threads on this so I have a basic understanding of the process. My issue is the plate negative holders. If I install 5x7 mat boards, painted flat black, aprox 1mm thick, to allow for the thickness of the glass, will that suffice? Or is that too thick? And how do you keep the paper flat? With double sided tape or with some other means? I have considered buying normal 5x7 holders but with this old camera I ‘m not sure if it will fit properly. I have also seen some recommend buying septums that would fit this plate holder but I’m reluctant to invest any more in this than I have as I don’t think at this time I will be shooting 5x7 film.

[Mark Sampson]

Try it and see! Paper neg is not exactly a high-resolution medium, so small differences in register may not amount to much.

[altb44]

I use paper negatives in book form holders in my camera. There were pieces of glass with black paper on it in the holders when I bought it, so I just left them in there, and sandwiched the paper between the dark slide and the glass. Seems to keep it flat and works great.

[Dan Deary]

I did utilize mat board as a substitute for glass plates. I decided to reject 2 sided tape to keep the paper negative flat and used a glue stick at all 4 corners on the mat board alone...not perfect but it worked to a degree. I used Ilford Multigrade glossy for my 1st try. I used a 00 multigrade filter in front of the lens. This exposure was early in the AM when contrast was low and I exposed at 6 ISO at f32(universal system) at 1 minute and 45 sec. I developed in Dektol 1 to 2, for 1 1/2 min. The image is a statue about 2 feet tall of a Chinese maid with plants and weeds in the background. I used Photoshop Elements 6 to invert the image and reduce the pixels for the web. Scanned image on an old Epson 2450 using VueScan. Didn't have to do much else. It actually came out better than I expected. Glad I can get some use out of this 100 yr old Conley.