Collodion - Wet Plate Images

[drewf64]

Today's wet plate negative (Collodion on 5x7 inch glass):



Made with a very beaten up old B&J Watson and a Voigtlander Petzval lens. Exposure was 8 minutes at f3.2

Lighting is exquisite, Paul!
Beautifully captured!

[AlexGard]

Hi Alex.
So, you can't buy Ethanol in your part of the world, even from scientific supply companies and the like?? There's nobody who can ship you laboratory grade Ethanol? Hmmm. Maybe try adding only 20% old collodion to the new and see if that helps.
Alternatively, one of the recipes for making negatives might give you a better tonal scale. I have used John Coffer's "#7 for Negatives" for making ambrotypes and found it quite good (it has two iodides and two bromides. Email me for a recipe: castlebravo "at" icloud "dot" com) But the Coffer #7 still calls for Ethanol and Ether, so I'm not sure that helps you.

Have you experimented with making a negative developer and leaving it on the plate for a minute? That might be worth exploring.

I can get undenatured ethanol but i require a permit from the Australian Tax Office, I think just because of our insane regulation on drinkable alcohol in general, and I need to keep a record of its storage and use as far as I know. The permit isn't impossible i just need to get a reference from someone who is a pharmacist, teacher, doctor etc. Too much hassle for me at this point and undenatured works fine. for the most part.

The idea of using a negative developer did occur to me yesterday, I could perhaps give it a try.

I'll shoot you an email later tonight. cheers

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[paulbarden]

8 minutes? Very low light?

Beautiful results

Thank you. And yes - it was after sunset and this room is quite shaded from the outside. In a span of 20 minutes you go from a 1 minute exposure to well over 7 or 8. This is a very slow material, as I'm sure you know.

[paulbarden]

Lighting is exquisite, Paul!
Beautifully captured!

Thank you very much! I've discovered there is a brief time at twilight when anything placed in this west window photographs like magic, so I use this often.

[AlexGard]

[Russ Fill]

A little Saturday afternoon back yard studios portrait setup. I managed to pull my kids away from the video games long enough to pose for me.
Chamonix 45H1 camera with a 5x7 back standard and bellows on it with a plate holder. 4 sec at 5.6 8 split.

[Punker]

Here are a couple 8x10s from yesterday. I was focusing on this bridge up in the mountains. Made a tintype and a plexiglass negative. The negative was an afterthought since I didn't have any glass, just the plexi (that ended up getting stuck in the holder and getting scratched by the darkslide). I used it to test a projection lens I just got.


Seneca Improved View 8x10, Kodak 8.5" Commercial Ektar f/6.3, Tutti Frutti mixed collodion, tintype


Seneca Improved View 8x10, Buhl Optical 9" (229mm) f/6.3, New Guy negative collodion, plexiglass negative

[Andrew Plume]

Bixby Bridge.................?

great work indeed

regards

Andrew

[Punker]

Bixby Bridge.................?

great work indeed

regards

Andrew

Thanks, Andrew! Bixby is on my bucket list for sure. Couldn’t find an official name for this bridge. It’s local to L.A. Best name I could find for it was Upper Big Tujunga Canyon bridge.


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[Tin Can]

Punker

Interesting subject with good plates!

We don't see that many like this