Wet Plate Collodion questions answered here.

[Mark Sawyer]

Rock the plate as you drain the collodion off, so it doesn't all flow in the same direction. The phenomenon is called "corduroy lines".

[AlexGard]

If you’re making Old Reliable but omitting the additional Ether, then the Collodion is too thick and will not flow correctly. Why omit the Ether from the recipe??

Quite the opposite. The collodion is super watery. I noticed when mixing it the merck collodion is a lot more of a watery consistency than the scharlau collodion I usually get.

I can only get denatured ethanol. I have tried mixing old reliable with ether and denatured in the past and there seemed to be some clash between denatured and ether.

Etherless old reliable has never been an issue for me in the past.

Sent from my SM-S911B using Tapatalk

[Andros-zz]

Hello, friends and colleagues!
Please tell me why a white coating may appear on the surface of the plate after drying, which can be wiped off with cotton wool. I read that this happens from fresh collodion, from excessive alkalinity or acidity of the silver solution, from elevated temperature, or from a contaminated silver bath. I gradually changed all the parameters, but the white coating still appears. Please advise what else can be done to improve the situation.

[Coastie]

Alex,

I have found an Australian supplier of 95% proof alcohol.

It's not a cheap drop, but it might be worth it to try it and see if it helps?


https://www.harrisorganicwine.com.au...e-alcohol.html

[paulbarden]

Hello, friends and colleagues!
Please tell me why a white coating may appear on the surface of the plate after drying, which can be wiped off with cotton wool. I read that this happens from fresh collodion, from excessive alkalinity or acidity of the silver solution, from elevated temperature, or from a contaminated silver bath. I gradually changed all the parameters, but the white coating still appears. Please advise what else can be done to improve the situation.

Wet Plate Collodion images always have a powdery pale surface texture in areas of most exposure (whites), and this is normal. If you burnish the plate, you can easily remove this whitish surface layer, but it is a normal component of the wet plate image and (under normal circumstances) should not be wiped off before varnishing. This powdery surface material appears over the whole plate in areas of greatest exposure (none in the shadows, more in the brighter areas), as opposed to silver contamination, described in the following paragraph.

There is a secondary type of "white coating" that is described as Oyster marks, and this is the result of previously exposed silver being deposited on the plate from a contaminated plate holder. To avoid this effect, clean your plate holder every time, between plates, to remove any liquid silver nitrate from the holder. Oyster marks don't typically cover the whole plate, but instead are irregular marks around the edges of the plate.

This Reddit page shows an excellent example of Oyster marks on a plate.

Question: if you wipe this powdery surface coating off, do the brighter areas on the plate become very mirror-like? (Silver reflective) If so, then you are wiping off the normal surface coating that is inherently part of the image. It's normal. Don't worry about it.

[Andros-zz]

It was a very white coating on the entire surface of the plate, regardless of the exposure area. The problem was solved when I salted a new batch of collodion. I made inquiries in different places and came across the opinion that this happens when the collodion is overly aged, overripe. But my collodion was 2 to 4 weeks old from the time of pickling. For some reason he aged very quickly. Why could this be? The original collodion as a component was not very fresh (2020), but its age before salting hardly matters.

[ueli]

Hello everyone who sees this.
I've just shot my first three 4x5 wet plates, with odd results.

I used a custom built camera for this, which is just a cardboard box I glued together with dimensions of 4"x5"x6" and a plastic lens I bought on eBay glued to the front (see attached pictures). I also wrapped the back in black fabric once I had inserted the prepared plate, so I am confident that the light only enters through the lens. I glued the box to my tripod mount (hot glue so I can take it off when I'm done playing with it), so the camera was as close to a real large format camera as I could manage on a budget of $7 and a spirit of perseverance.

The first exposure was a success in my opinion, I could at least tell that it was working (which was unexpected). The first plate was exposed for about three seconds with two tripod mounted (with fencing wire) flashlights and an old DSLR flash serving as lighting. The second and third exposures were both confusing failures. The second was exposed for 30 seconds the same lighting conditions. The third was exposed for one second with the same two flashlights but no flash. Both of these latter two exposures came out completely black with very slight markings on them, but no clear indication that anything was actually captured like was present in the first one.

I am unsure how the second and third exposures could be so similarly wrong, as the only difference between them and the first exposure was time and lighting, which are of course important but I would expect to have gotten some more informative data from these exposures rather than nothing at all.

Here are some images of each of the three exposures.


above: The first exposure with the shape of the lens just barely visible, highlighted in red. (3 SEC., FLASHLIGHT + FLASH)


above: The second exposure, completely black with no signs (in my untrained eyes) that anything happened. (30 SEC., FLASHLIGHT + FLASH)


above: The third exposure, similar to the second as far as I can tell. (1 SEC., FLASHLIGHT)

Here are some images of the camera itself.


above: The inside of the camera as seen by the plate (hopefully). I don't fully understand how a real large format camera would work, I know this is a very simplified version of one but hope that I could get some somewhat legible exposures with it. You can see this profile was captured slightly in the first exposure.


above: The plate is loaded into the back of the camera and held with a pushpin and blind overconfidence.


above: The loading hatch is then closed and held there with a rubber band. The opening was originally intended to be the loading mechanism, but I ditched that idea.


above: The camera when fully prepped. The black fabric is placed around the back and held with sewing pins to keep it tightly wrapped so light can't get in.

I am a little confused! I didn't change the chemical process at all between the first exposures and the next ones, but the image doesn't come out at all the second two times... why? When creating the wet plate, I think I was successful in my collodion pour, I let it spread across the whole plate, poured off the excess, and then let it dry for about 30 seconds. Then I put it in my silver bath (8g silver nitrate/100mL water) for four minutes. After this, I made the exposure, then came back to process it. I put it in developer (1:3 developer:water) for 15 seconds, then put it in fixer (1:4 fixer:water) until the image appeared, which didn't happen for the second and third exposures. Is there a problem with my process? I used Bostick and Sullivan developer, collodion, and silver nitrate. I used Ilford Rapid Fixer and all the water was distilled. I am confused but hopeful, any help, advice, comments, or opinions would be much appreciated! I am determined to take a picture on a cardboard box, nothing will stop me (except my complete lack of money and soon time).

P.S., I don't know why the images are so small, hopefully they're visible enough.

[paulbarden]

Hello everyone who sees this.
I've just shot my first three 4x5 wet plates, with odd results.

I used a custom built camera for this, which is just a cardboard box I glued together with dimensions of 4"x5"x6" and a plastic lens I bought on eBay glued to the front (see attached pictures). I also wrapped the back in black fabric once I had inserted the prepared plate, so I am confident that the light only enters through the lens. I glued the box to my tripod mount (hot glue so I can take it off when I'm done playing with it), so the camera was as close to a real large format camera as I could manage on a budget of $7 and a spirit of perseverance.

The first exposure was a success in my opinion, I could at least tell that it was working (which was unexpected). The first plate was exposed for about three seconds with two tripod mounted (with fencing wire) flashlights and an old DSLR flash serving as lighting. The second and third exposures were both confusing failures. The second was exposed for 30 seconds the same lighting conditions. The third was exposed for one second with the same two flashlights but no flash. Both of these latter two exposures came out completely black with very slight markings on them, but no clear indication that anything was actually captured like was present in the first one.

Let's address your lighting first: "The first plate was exposed for about three seconds with two tripod mounted (with fencing wire) flashlights and an old DSLR flash serving as lighting."

Collodion has an ISO of about 0.5 to 1.0 ASA, so there's no way a modest DSLR flash and a couple of flashlights are going to render an image on collodion. People who do portraits using electronic flash use Speedotron packs with 4800 WS of power in order to get an image, and that is at least a couple orders of magnitude more power than what you're using. If there was something on your first plate, it was a development (or light leak) artifact, I can pretty much guarantee you that much.

You need to be performing your tests using daylight. I like the premise of your process and I think you're being very creative on a budget, but you need MUCH more light to get usable images on collodion.

[ueli]

Let's address your lighting first: "The first plate was exposed for about three seconds with two tripod mounted (with fencing wire) flashlights and an old DSLR flash serving as lighting."

Collodion has an ISO of about 0.5 to 1.0 ASA, so there's no way a modest DSLR flash and a couple of flashlights are going to render an image on collodion. People who do portraits using electronic flash use Speedotron packs with 4800 WS of power in order to get an image, and that is at least a couple orders of magnitude more power than what you're using. If there was something on your first plate, it was a development (or light leak) artifact, I can pretty much guarantee you that much.

You need to be performing your tests using daylight. I like the premise of your process and I think you're being very creative on a budget, but you need MUCH more light to get usable images on collodion.

Thank you very much for your response. I know very little about photography to be entirely honest. I really like taking pictures with simple cameras, but any more than that is beyond me. I had seen some videos of portrait photography with flashes and studio lights, and knew certainly that those were much brighter than anything I had access to, but didn't realize the degree of difference. I will try some exposures with sunlight. Good to know that it was just a weird artifact for the first exposure as well, and it gives me a little hope again to realize how completely underexposed the second and third attempts were and that I may just need to change that in order to get some interesting results. In the meantime I've made a ground glass panel with some valve grinding compound (not my idea) so hopefully this along with a sunlight exposure can get me some more substantial photographs. Thanks again for your recommendation.

[ueli]

Thank you very much for your response. I know very little about photography to be entirely honest. I really like taking pictures with simple cameras, but any more than that is beyond me. I had seen some videos of portrait photography with flashes and studio lights, and knew certainly that those were much brighter than anything I had access to, but didn't realize the degree of difference. I will try some exposures with sunlight. Good to know that it was just a weird artifact for the first exposure as well, and it gives me a little hope again to realize how completely underexposed the second and third attempts were and that I may just need to change that in order to get some interesting results. In the meantime I've made a ground glass panel with some valve grinding compound (not my idea) so hopefully this along with a sunlight exposure can get me some more substantial photographs. Thanks again for your recommendation.

Hello again. I tried implementing some changes with my process. First, I just tried sunlight exposure. Both my first and second attempts this time were in somewhat indirect sunlight (not optimal of course but it is easiest to just use what light I get on the balcony) and were for 30 seconds. I repeated the same test twice because the first time I may have had a small amount of light come in before I was ready. Neither of these gave any good results. This made me suspect that my chemicals may be an issue, so I remixed my fixer and developer according to the same ratios as before and was more careful this time not to contaminate either with the other during post-processing. I also tried an exposure in full sunlight outside for 15 seconds. This third exposure was also unsuccessful. At this point I am really not sure what the issue could be. Is 15 seconds really not enough? I've seen results online where even five seconds of direct sunlight results in overexposure, but of course these are with different lenses from mine. Beyond this point, my next attempt would probably just be a change in exposure time, maybe to 30 seconds, but I am not hopeful that this is really the only issue. I have tried 30 seconds with the old chemicals, and that also resulted in nothing at all.

Here are some pictures of the plates I wrote about:


above: Here are the first two plates, neither seemed to capture anything.


above: Here is what I was trying to capture with the lighting it had while the exposures were made.


above: Here's my third exposure, again nothing seems to have been captured, thought it is a lot brighter looking than the previous two. It was a picture of a flower outside, again I can't tell if anything was captured which doesn't make for a great photo.

I've practiced with a few more exposures, none of which worked or had anything worth mentioning (I forgot to take pictures before they faded away).

A few questions I have:
1. What is the optimal time for the silver nitrate bath? I've done four minutes each time, but maybe there's a problem here? I have very little silver nitrate to work with, I only ordered 10g because its so expensive, so my bath barely submerses the plate without constant movement of the container.
2. Am I supposed to be washing the plate off after the silver bath? I haven't done so at all, and even though I tap the plate a bit over the bath to get most of the liquid off, its still wet with a little silver nitrate mixture when I put it into the camera and during the exposure.
3. How long is the fixer stage supposed to last? I have been putting the plate into the developer for about 35 seconds (it says 30-40 seconds at 70°F on the bottle), washing it off, then putting it into the fixer for anywhere from 15 seconds to a minute. I have read that it is supposed to be until the image appears, but of course none do.

Those are about all the questions I can think of at this stage, I know there are calculators for exposure time, but they aren't very useful for me since I have no way to measure light level or any specifications for the lens I am using (ridiculous I know, but that's what a mysterious $7 eBay lens gets you).

Once again, any comments, advice, or anything to know I'm not typing into a void would be much appreciated . Also, would this be better posted as a separate thread about my cardboard adventure? I'm afraid to violate any unspecified etiquette, I have only ever lurked on forums before.