Making J Lane Positive Plates? (Famous Format Monobath?)

[m00dawg]

Hopefully those of ya'll that are on FB can perhaps report back? Can we entire Lee to maybe come over here and stop by perhaps?

[Tin Can]

I don't believe a MonoBath is best ever, it was used historically for expediency

Now another https://cinestillfilm.com/products/d...essing-at-home

https://emulsive.org/articles/darkro...ath-developers

https://www.photo.net/discuss/thread...ssette.341735/

[Nodda Duma]

Yeah I’m not necessarily a monobath fan, but that’s just how these developers came together as the easiest way to throw ammonia into the mix.

[m00dawg]

I'm all ears, Tin, if you have some thoughts but I think J is spot on here (I mean they are his plates )- it's only one of two known ways to get the ambrotype look with the dry plates as far as I know? The other one is, if I connected the dots correctly, something Lee is working on. And that may be superior to the monobath in quality, but this at least lets me experiment around. And between nothing and an experiment, I'll take the latter.

I normally don't like monobaths either. I'm an XTOL guy normally, though given the current state of that, may have to jump ship here pretty soon :/ but in this case, I have a very specific use case - trying to create something like an ambrotype and, though a lesser degree, the monobath would simplify things for my fairly specific use case.

When I'm dev'ing the dry plates as a normal negative, so far, I've been sticking to the recommendations, which is HC-110. I will test XTOL for funzies once I can get my hands on it again. But HC-110 worked great! Beautiful grain! I think I may be over-developing a bit but otherwise, it's great!

[urnem57]

This was interesting and along the same lines of this discussion, I think.
https://youtu.be/tbh3qQUXdzU

[Tin Can]

Yes interesting

I am not a chemist nor expert on wet or dry plates

I experiment

However I do prefer to vary one chem, process, tech at a time

Mystery solutions are always mysterious and mutable

A still existing problem, common to many photographers since the beginning of image making is intentional misdirection

Books do lie

and now we add in Photoshop and digital untruth in many online images we see, others some post in such low rez the image is mud

I still cannot get much REAL info on Gas Burst from members, so I do it my way

'show and tell'

Kindergarten competition

[m00dawg]

This was interesting and along the same lines of this discussion, I think.
https://youtu.be/tbh3qQUXdzU

Aha! I was trying to find where I saw someone doing reversal for plates and I think this was it. Super interesting!

[Tin Can]

My order of J Lane asa 25 black 8X10 glass just arrived

Most likely not to be used until mid summer

Thanks Jason

[m00dawg]

Woo that's awesome though! Hope you can share results, even if it's a ways off!

[m00dawg]

Been thinking about this while waiting for the monobath and dry plate holder (so I can stop using the Graflex one with a bunch of gaffer tape all over it ). For creating a positive in the field, if the ambrotype method doesn't quite pan out, I was thinking perhaps cyanotypes?

At least the time I did cyanotyping (with the sun) the exposure times were long enough not to need an enlarger and short enough to be just a few minutes. I was using pre-coated fabric though and haven't yet tried to coat onto paper yet. The issues here would be a consistent UV light source (or getting really good at estimating the sun) and water for washing.