m00dawg
10-Jul-2022, 08:36
I've been looking at wet plate again. Thinking about finally starting to order some of the staple items so I can finally make progress on working up to giving it a go. Among the first things is the sensitizing box. I assumed nearly everyone uses a box but while scouring videos and info, I see a few folks using a tray? I would have thought the box is "safer" (but I guess safe is relative depending on the other chemicals some folks may opt to use, and as well that most of the chemicals are explosive...) but I was curious as to the thoughts there. The sensitizing boxes seem to be rather expensive for what they are. I'm sure I could make my own but not sure I could do a better job than just buying one for the time tradeoff and folks that sell boxes already know what they are doing :) But it, as well as a holder, seem to be the two biggest cost points to getting things going.
Secondarily, I had planned to use lithium-based collodion. It seems folks like UVP have pre-made ones that are listed as "fast" which is a nice bonus (UVP3). It seems most lithium collodions do not last as long but I think that's an ok trade-off to avoid the cadmium. When I was looking into all this before, I was able to find good info on the differences between cadmium and lithium-based collodion but haven't been able to find those again. I do have a collodion book around here somewhere which I think explains it. I'm not sure where I put it :) so I'll need to start tearing the house apart to look for it.... in the meantime, any quick takeaways I should be aware of?
I wanted to avoid both cadmium and potassium-cyanide. I know those opinions are far reaching, but for now those are boundaries I have given myself especially for if/when I start mixing my own collodion from scratch. I actually rather like the cooler more neutral tones anyway.
The main concern was speed. I'm used to J Lane dry plates which I usually expose around 1 ISO which seems to be the "faster" of the collodion speeds?
As an aside, J Lane's plates are lovely! And I do plan on continuing to use those. I was mostly looking at tintype portraits for wet plate where I can shoot them here at home and develop in my darkroom shed or where I can eventually have a portable darkroom. I'll continue to use dry plates for landscape and when traveling where I just don't want to (or can't) tote around a portable darkroom. In fact I find dry plates are certainly safer but they dramatically extend the time it takes to iterate (which can also be costly when buying pre-made plates). This was one issue that has kept me from exploring ambrotypes more on the dry-plate side.
Secondarily, I had planned to use lithium-based collodion. It seems folks like UVP have pre-made ones that are listed as "fast" which is a nice bonus (UVP3). It seems most lithium collodions do not last as long but I think that's an ok trade-off to avoid the cadmium. When I was looking into all this before, I was able to find good info on the differences between cadmium and lithium-based collodion but haven't been able to find those again. I do have a collodion book around here somewhere which I think explains it. I'm not sure where I put it :) so I'll need to start tearing the house apart to look for it.... in the meantime, any quick takeaways I should be aware of?
I wanted to avoid both cadmium and potassium-cyanide. I know those opinions are far reaching, but for now those are boundaries I have given myself especially for if/when I start mixing my own collodion from scratch. I actually rather like the cooler more neutral tones anyway.
The main concern was speed. I'm used to J Lane dry plates which I usually expose around 1 ISO which seems to be the "faster" of the collodion speeds?
As an aside, J Lane's plates are lovely! And I do plan on continuing to use those. I was mostly looking at tintype portraits for wet plate where I can shoot them here at home and develop in my darkroom shed or where I can eventually have a portable darkroom. I'll continue to use dry plates for landscape and when traveling where I just don't want to (or can't) tote around a portable darkroom. In fact I find dry plates are certainly safer but they dramatically extend the time it takes to iterate (which can also be costly when buying pre-made plates). This was one issue that has kept me from exploring ambrotypes more on the dry-plate side.