Wet Plate Collodion questions answered here.

[paulbarden]

Thanks for the extra info Two23, and thanks for the nuance PaulBarden, don't worry, I think any honest given advice is useful. It is up to me to do my research on any risks concerning certain steps. I have read quite a lot about Wet Plate before and I have followed a local workshop here in the Netherlands before getting my hands dirty (litterally, despite the gloves ). Unfortunately I ran out of plates this weekend. I have tried 'cleaning' one or two when they where still wet, but no matter how properly I try to clean them, the Collodion won't flow properly on a used plate and the image does not seem to appear properly. So re-using plates was a no-go.

P.S. I know this sounds funny to non-dutch people (in fact, It even sounds funny to most dutch people). In some parts of the country 'Anne' is a guys name here. In my case it is

Hi Anne,
My apologies - it never occurred to me that Anne was sometimes a man’s name in some countries! I’ve not encountered this before. Sorry.

Reusing trophy plates doesn’t work very well, no. They clean off fairly well if you scrub the under hot water with a non-scratch kitchen pad, but you still have to wipe them very clean with 50/50 alcohol/ether to make them clean enough to reuse. However, by that point you’ve scratched up the black surface enough to make them “second grade”, so they’re really only useful for making test strips. Do you have access to plain glass? It takes extra work to cut and prepare glass, but the results are superior to trophy plate (better blacks, better tonal scale, imo). Glass is generally more readily available than trophy plate!

I’m glad you’ve studied the medium well, and done a workshop. There’s a lot to learn with this process, and the more you know at the start, the better your results will be.

Paul

[MajorGlory78]

Good morning all,

I have experimented with my safe-light and it doesn't seem to influence the images. So that is a relief. I think I was overexposing my images. This causes everything to act as a highlight which makes the image appear super fast. That is why I had to stop the development process so fast (within 10 seconds). I've done some further reading and I see that most wet-plate photographers expect a plate with good exposure to be developed between 15 and 20 seconds. Once I get my new plates, I will work on that. I believe that getting the perfect exposure (either by light-metering or by gut feeling) will be my biggest learning challenge in the coming period.

I have chosen to buy most equipment and chemicals ready-made and pre-mixed for now. In the future I do expect to mix my own chemicals (mainly from a cost perspective). Considering the many many variables I already have to tackle in the photographic process itself, that seemed wise. I got really lucky: The large format camera I wanted to buy on large a second-hand platform turned out to be from a wet-plate photographer (who sadly passed away), so a silver bath (black acrylic) and a fixer bath (same, but with a clear front panel) were included in the deal. I store my chemicals in the darkroom which is a bit below room temperature and (of course) pretty dark most of the time .

Thanks again for all your input. I will definitely share my work here once it is getting somewhere!

[Ichi]

Hello, I am not really sure if this is the right place to ask questions, but I ask anyways. I hope anyone who is knowledgeable and experienced could answer my question. It is about the shelf life of collodion.

Question:
Does the shelf life of mixed collodion vary depending on the plain collodion used?

I always mix a small batch of working collodion (Ostermann’s instant formula)

The sensitivity of mixed collodion was good and remained the same for three months (from April thru July this year).
In other words, I used up the plan collodion within three months and during that time, the speed didn’t change much. I tried to keep the bottle of mixed and half-used collodion bottles in my cooler with some ice packs.

In August I opened a bottle of new plain collodion and mixed a small batch of working collodion again. It was OK for the entire month of August, but I found the sensitivity started to deteriorate when I had a photoshoot in the middle of September. I would say it got slower about 1 stop.

It means the first working collodion lasted 3 months while the second working collodion lost its sensitivity in 1.5 months.

Is it possible to happen one plain collodion lasts longer than the other?

Side notes:
I always use the same plain collodion.
Cadmium bromide and potassium iodide are about 10 months old.
I used a premixed solution of ether and grain alcohol to make both working collodions.

Thank you in advance.

[paulbarden]

Hello, I am not really sure if this is the right place to ask questions, but I ask anyways. I hope anyone who is knowledgeable and experienced could answer my question. It is about the shelf life of collodion.

Question:
Does the shelf life of mixed collodion vary depending on the plain collodion used?

I always mix a small batch of working collodion (Ostermann’s instant formula)

The sensitivity of mixed collodion was good and remained the same for three months (from April thru July this year).
In other words, I used up the plan collodion within three months and during that time, the speed didn’t change much. I tried to keep the bottle of mixed and half-used collodion bottles in my cooler with some ice packs.

In August I opened a bottle of new plain collodion and mixed a small batch of working collodion again. It was OK for the entire month of August, but I found the sensitivity started to deteriorate when I had a photoshoot in the middle of September. I would say it got slower about 1 stop.

It means the first working collodion lasted 3 months while the second working collodion lost its sensitivity in 1.5 months.

Is it possible to happen one plain collodion lasts longer than the other?

Side notes:
I always use the same plain collodion.
Cadmium bromide and potassium iodide are about 10 months old.
I used a premixed solution of ether and grain alcohol to make both working collodions.

Thank you in advance.

My guess is that the second batch probably aged faster because the temperatures were warmer from August 1st on. (assuming you're in the northern hemisphere, and in a moderate-to-warm climate) Salted collodion ages faster in hot weather. It also ages faster if its exposed to light. Otherwise, there's no reason your collodion would age faster, if you're using the same materials, the same salts and the same recipe.

[Ichi]

My guess is that the second batch probably aged faster because the temperatures were warmer from August 1st on. (assuming you're in the northern hemisphere, and in a moderate-to-warm climate) Salted collodion ages faster in hot weather. It also ages faster if its exposed to light. Otherwise, there's no reason your collodion would age faster, if you're using the same materials, the same salts and the same recipe.

Many thanks for the helpful comments!
I am located in Tokyo and the temperature and humidity get high during summer. So as you wrote, the heat might have affected the second batch.
Actually, last week I mixed a third batch using the plain (raw) collodion that I used for the second batch, in the hope of saving at least the plain collodion. After mixing the second batch last August, 2/3 of the content was remaining, so I kept the lid tight and stored it in my cooler.
However, the speed of this third batch was almost the same as the second batch, 1 stop slower than the first batch.
Considering everything now, the plain collodion might have aged by the high temperature. I tried to change ice packs in my cooler every day but there were times when I saw the temperature inside the cooler was around 84°F! when I forgot to change...
What is the ideal temperature to store salted collodion and a once-opened plain collodion bottle?
Thank you!

[paulbarden]

Many thanks for the helpful comments!
I am located in Tokyo and the temperature and humidity get high during summer. So as you wrote, the heat might have affected the second batch.
Actually, last week I mixed a third batch using the plain (raw) collodion that I used for the second batch, in the hope of saving at least the plain collodion. After mixing the second batch last August, 2/3 of the content was remaining, so I kept the lid tight and stored it in my cooler.
However, the speed of this third batch was almost the same as the second batch, 1 stop slower than the first batch.
Considering everything now, the plain collodion might have aged by the high temperature. I tried to change ice packs in my cooler every day but there were times when I saw the temperature inside the cooler was around 84°F! when I forgot to change...
What is the ideal temperature to store salted collodion and a once-opened plain collodion bottle?
Thank you!

Have you taken into account that in the winter months, the changes in the quality of light (Assuming you are photographing in daylight?) will translate into much longer exposures. The amount of UV in winter light is much less, and so it takes longer to make an equivalent exposure. So, I wouldn't assume that your collodion is truly slower, even though its brand new. It could be the nature of winter light.

That said, plain (unsalted) collodion doesn't age like salted collodion. You can expect it to remain usable for years, even stored at 85F for periods. (not ideal, but not likely to shorten its life)

[Ichi]

Have you taken into account that in the winter months, the changes in the quality of light (Assuming you are photographing in daylight?) will translate into much longer exposures. The amount of UV in winter light is much less, and so it takes longer to make an equivalent exposure. So, I wouldn't assume that your collodion is truly slower, even though its brand new. It could be the nature of winter light.

That said, plain (unsalted) collodion doesn't age like salted collodion. You can expect it to remain usable for years, even stored at 85F for periods. (not ideal, but not likely to shorten its life)

Thank you very much for your answer. It is very helpful.
Sorry that I should have mentioned before but I use strobes for my portrait work (ambrotype), so everything, except for room temperature, is exactly the same for the August shoots and October shoots.
But it then just occurred to me that another thing that I would need to take into consideration is the temperature of chemicals, especially the developer.
Obviously, there is about a 10F degree difference between August and October.
I stick with the 15-second developing time no matter how fast or slow images appear. I now think that when it is cold, images don’t appear as fast as how they appeared when it was hot in summer, but I was just simply stopping the development after 15 seconds. That explains why the images developed with a cooler developer appeared darker than the images developed with a warmer developer, which made me think the salted collodion (2nd and 3rd batch) aged suddenly. I didn’t really pay attention to the temperature of the developer…but I guess the 10F difference might have caused 1 stop difference. How does my assumption sound to you?

Also,
Even if the bottle of plain collodion is opened and has been stored half full, it doesn’t age like salted collodion if the lid has been tightly closed.
Do I understand you correctly?
Also, do the other chemicals(Cadmium bromide, potassium iodide, ether, and grain alcohol) remain usable for years?

Thank you!

[MajorGlory78]

Hello fellow wet-plate lovers,

After two weekends of pouring, soaking, exposing, developing, fixing, cursing and yelling I am now getting my first workable images! I was still wondering about a few things and I hope you guys can help me answer those questions.



The image is not the kind of work I intend to produce, but the old camera was a willing (and most importantly, not moving) subject for today. I was wondering about the (mostly) tiny black spots on the image. They seem to be some kind of dirt. Where would this come from most likely? The silverbath? Or the fixer? (Or somewhere else?). And the second question is: What causes the 'flow' marks that are best visible on the right side of the image? I am not saying I find them ugly, they do seem to add to the image but since I want to do portrait work in the future, it would help if I new and understand things like that.

Thanks!

[paulbarden]

Hello fellow wet-plate lovers,

After two weekends of pouring, soaking, exposing, developing, fixing, cursing and yelling I am now getting my first workable images! I was still wondering about a few things and I hope you guys can help me answer those questions.



The image is not the kind of work I intend to produce, but the old camera was a willing (and most importantly, not moving) subject for today. I was wondering about the (mostly) tiny black spots on the image. They seem to be some kind of dirt. Where would this come from most likely? The silverbath? Or the fixer? (Or somewhere else?). And the second question is: What causes the 'flow' marks that are best visible on the right side of the image? I am not saying I find them ugly, they do seem to add to the image but since I want to do portrait work in the future, it would help if I new and understand things like that.

Thanks!

Excellent work, Anne. You're making good progress.

My guess about the black spots would be that its dust introduced into the collodion when you pour the plates. Your silver bath hasn't been used enough yet to have contaminants to cause those marks, so its more likely to be junk that gets on the plate as the collodion is poured. Its very difficult to avoid dust completely - its normal to have some marks like this on a plate. Consider the cleanliness of the environment where you pour the collodion and see if there is a cleaner (less dusty) place to do this operation.

[MajorGlory78]

Hi all,

Another day, another issue

I've learned a lot, which is good:

- I was rinsing to hard, this caused damage to the collodion
- Less developer means a more 'even' image
- The collodion I use seems to work best when measuring roughly for ISO 1 (I know the issues with metering in daylight depending on the amount of UV that is actually there or not). This is remarkable, because the manufacturer of the collodion claimes ISO 3-5. What could be the case is the fact it was very, very cloudy here the last days. Since clouds do seem to block a LOT of UV light, this might explain why my current images are working when treating them as ISO 1. On a sunny day, the ISO 3 claim could very much be true I guess?


But I can't seem to get the results I expect. The images that are good seem to be to dark to my eye. I will add two images to demonstrate what I mean:

The first image is direcly from my scanner (unvarnished). The image is pretty 'clear': Even tonality, details present, full of contrast. But I'd like to get the images less dark.


When working with digital, I would simply correct the curves, which (again, only to demonstrate) I have done in gimp. Which results in the second image:


What I don't yet seem to understand is: Should I expose longer? Or should I develop longer? I am hesitant to develop longer with the developer I use, because as we figured out earlier in this thread, as soon as I seem to hit that 12-14 second mark when developing this much feared 'fog' appears.....

I have tried both. As soon as I extended either the development time or the exposure time the jug lost all details or even 'vanished' against the background....

Any hints? Thanks again for your time!