Your favorite type of lens for wet plate collodion photography?

[brandon13]

My favorite lens for 8x10 is a 16 inch f4 Dallmeyer 3a because I like to get close. Second favorite is a 14 inch Heliar for 3/4 portraits. On 11x14 I shoot a 5d. It's a bit slower but I like the 19 inch FL.

[Jay Decker]

Most wetplates you see today are a poor facsimile of the quality of those done in the 1800s. I don't know why, but many of the plates today are dark, low contrast, with tons of flaws. Yes, even including the swirl, which until 10 years, was considered a flaw and always avoided by the photographer. Today's rebellion against digital perfection causes many to never learn proper wetplate technique, and they are very happy with quite poor plates. I've been trying for 8 years to get perfect, flawless plates like the old masters, and rarely attain it. But I want to use the same lenses they did. To to answer your question, my favorite type of lens for wetplate is early American Petzval portrait lenses.

I like this point.

Glad to hear someone thinks wet plates with pour imperfections, incorrect exposure, and poor development are not cool and an aesthetic!

When learning to pour plates I kept thinking that if Carleton Watkins could pour perfect mamouth plates in a tent while photographing in the Columbia River Gorge, then I should be able to learn how to pour a decent whole plate on a piece of enameled aluminum that I justed pealed the protective plastic off of in my darkroom.

Just because a wet plate photograph is a handmade artifact does not mean that it has to have imperfections to provide evidence that it was made by hand. There is enough evidence left in the actual artifact from the process for someone to determine it is handmade.

What makes the photograph have emotional impact is it content of which wetplate aesthetic can be a component. I do not think that a few oysters would add anything to Alex's plates...

Henk
11x11" tintype
Dallmeyer 3A wide open at f4