Wet Plate Beginner's Questions Thread

[lightfootwillwalkinthecat]

Thank you for that... Its good to hear because I'm leaning more towards glass...

[MajorGlory78]

Hello wet-plate friends,

I'd would like to update you on some of the progress I've made (thanks in part to your excellent feedback) and I hope you guys can help me with my last (but possibly most important) question.

Last time I posted, I mentioned I had issues with very fragile collodion. Almost any contact with water/developer/fixer would cause ridges, sweeps or both....Switching to a own-made and premade collodion with cadmium changed all that (both work fine). It is a much thicker collodion and although I still have to treat it with care and respect, it is much less fragile and now only the edges of the image are sometimes a bit rough (as is to be expected). At the same time I switched to a slower developer which is advertised as such and now I can easely watch my image appear over 40-50 seconds, so no rush there either. In short: I think I got the collodion and the developing down by now and I am getting the tones, detail and depth I am looking for.....

However one thing is driving me crazy and I can't seem to find a fix: My images are overall always way to dark! I doesn't seem to matter if I overexpose for ages. I can't seem to get the light into the image. Could it be that my lenses are blocking UV? Or blue? I use two Fujinon W 1:5.6 lenses with Copal shutters. One 150mm, the other 300mm. Judging by some expert websites both lenses are single-coated. I have checked the reflections in the glass elements under a lamp and only one color is visible, so that would seem to support the one-coating theory. Does this coating block UV? Would anybody have a clue? I mean, I know it's winter and light isn't at it's brightest these days but even on a cloudy day outside in the garden I should be able to get a proper image right? Exposure times of 20 to 30 seconds don't even work....And I am not doing portrait work, it's just simple still life shots, so I can expose as much as I want....

Hope to hear from you!

[paulbarden]

Can you show us an example plate, please?

Hello wet-plate friends,

I'd would like to update you on some of the progress I've made (thanks in part to your excellent feedback) and I hope you guys can help me with my last (but possibly most important) question.

Last time I posted, I mentioned I had issues with very fragile collodion. Almost any contact with water/developer/fixer would cause ridges, sweeps or both....Switching to a own-made and premade collodion with cadmium changed all that (both work fine). It is a much thicker collodion and although I still have to treat it with care and respect, it is much less fragile and now only the edges of the image are sometimes a bit rough (as is to be expected). At the same time I switched to a slower developer which is advertised as such and now I can easely watch my image appear over 40-50 seconds, so no rush there either. In short: I think I got the collodion and the developing down by now and I am getting the tones, detail and depth I am looking for.....

However one thing is driving me crazy and I can't seem to find a fix: My images are overall always way to dark! I doesn't seem to matter if I overexpose for ages. I can't seem to get the light into the image. Could it be that my lenses are blocking UV? Or blue? I use two Fujinon W 1:5.6 lenses with Copal shutters. One 150mm, the other 300mm. Judging by some expert websites both lenses are single-coated. I have checked the reflections in the glass elements under a lamp and only one color is visible, so that would seem to support the one-coating theory. Does this coating block UV? Would anybody have a clue? I mean, I know it's winter and light isn't at it's brightest these days but even on a cloudy day outside in the garden I should be able to get a proper image right? Exposure times of 20 to 30 seconds don't even work....And I am not doing portrait work, it's just simple still life shots, so I can expose as much as I want....

Hope to hear from you!

[MajorGlory78]

Good evening all,

I should have included some examples, that would have been the wise thing to do. However, after struggeling to understand why I had such a hard time getting the exposure right, I was afraid the lenses I bought might have a UV coating (which is bad for wet plate I've learned, as it is mainly sensitive to the blue and UV spectrum). So I decided to get a picture of the lens (to get all the numbers, names, serials etc.) and look it up online.....Then I noticed something....

it....had....a....daylight....filter....screwed.....in.....front....of....the....lens.....

Luckily not blocking UV, but blocking a lot of blue.....stupid me, never checked after buying the camera and lenses. But hey, I found it. Onwards we go (or so I thought). By now I ran out of collodion and since the opinions on pre-mixed ready made collodion are pretty straight forward me and my friend decided to mix our own. We did, had it ripen and started working with it. It worked fine! We were really happy. After a few days however we got really bad comets in our images (I will include examples this time). So we decided to filter everything we made ourselves (collodion, developer, fixer, silvernitrate bath). But the marks kept appearing. We bought a small bottle of ready made collodion and developer, simply to start ruling out possible causes. This improved (a lot!) but small comets remained. So, we filtered the silverbath again and did not try our own mix. We stayed with the ready made stuff. Still small comets keep appearing.

We can not pinpoint the exact cause. The collodion seems the most likely culprit, but we are still not sure. Any hints in the right direction would be much appreciated!

I hope to return the advice favor one day on these forums

These are minor:


These are terrible:


This one is the absolute worst:

[paulbarden]

Are you cleaning out the plate holder after every single plate?

[MajorGlory78]

Are you cleaning out the plate holder after every single plate?

We have two plateholders in use. One is indeed very dirty. We did not use that one for any of the images in my example. We did clean the other in between plates. At the same time: The images with the minor comets are made with the pre-mixed collodion. The ones with the worse comets (second and last image) are from the old batch of our own collodion. My fear is that we introduced dirt into one of the chemicals (most likely the silvertank). But, judging from your question I suspect your advice would be to thoroughly clean both plateholders, filter the silverbath(s) a couple of times (is standard coffee filter ok?) and (just to be sure) use the collodion with the cleanest results for now?

Thanks again for your knowledge!

[lightfootwillwalkinthecat]

Can I use cooking oil to practice pouring collodion on my glass plates ?
I'm having trouble getting it right and I don't want to waist collodion
or is there something better to practice with ? I tried water but it doesn't coat the surface like collodion.
Thanks for any advice...

[Two23]

Can I use cooking oil to practice pouring collodion on my glass plates ?
I'm having trouble getting it right and I don't want to waist collodion
or is there something better to practice with ? I tried water but it doesn't coat the surface like collodion.
Thanks for any advice...

Yes, but I would suggest pancake syrup. It's water soluble and easy to wash off and then dry so you can reuse over and over.


Kent in SD

[Two23]

(1) The images with the minor comets are made with the pre-mixed collodion.
(2)The ones with the worse comets (second and last image) are from the old batch of our own collodion.
(3) My fear is that we introduced dirt into one of the chemicals (most likely the silvertank). But, judging from your question I suspect your advice would be to thoroughly clean both plateholders,
(4)filter the silverbath(s) a couple of times (is standard coffee filter ok?) and (just to be sure) use the collodion with the cleanest results for now?

Thanks again for your knowledge!

1. Most likely a chunk of something fell onto the plate during or just after pouring. Example would be a bit of dried collodion from the bottle.
2. This is classic contamination seeping back onto the edges of the plate from a dirty plate holder. Clean the edges of the holders with alcohol with paper towel using scrubbing motion, and then go back with q-tip and distilled water forcing it into the corners and wiping them out. I clean the plate holder well with bit of paper towel after EVERY shot. Make sure it's dry. Same for edges of the dark slide. Also, there's a chance you are waiting too long to stick plate into the silver and it's drying out a little.. Mostly though it looks like contaminated plate holder.
3. Less likely the bath.
4. Coffee filter x2 is fairly good, but I follow up with a large sized (about inch in diameter) cotton ball poked down into the neck of the funnel. I filter through cotton balls until they come out clean.


Kent in SD

[cpjfox]

Howdy all, i’ve got some big plans for a wet plate project, but Initially i plan to master the technique at the tiny size of only 4 x 5”

Google has popped up with 4 main brands of plate holder prices ranging from $148 - $260 plus a bunch of freight in my currency (NZD).

My question, are they all equal? Chroma Camera / Lund Photographics / Zebra / Chamonix.

I would hate to get the cheapest (Zebra) and find it an impediment to my growth in this new (to me) format, if it’s really worth the extra $100 i’ll go for the Chamonix, it certainly looks more beautiful than the others, or maybe an even better brand exists that I haven't found yet?