Wet plate / artificial lighting

[jnantz]

Faster lens for a 20x24 camera, open to suggestions.
(I am actually experimenting with Wet plate ULF as a stepping-stone to dryplate and hoping that dry plate will prove to need less fancy lighting)

i have done dry plate work since the mid 1980s and found it to be
a piece of cake compared to the things i am learning / have learned about wet plate.
the only similarity between the two is using glass as a substrate,
unless you make dry collodion plates ...

good luck !
john

[cyrus]

i have done dry plate work since the mid 1980s and found it to be
a piece of cake compared to the things i am learning / have learned about wet plate.
the only similarity between the two is using glass as a substrate,
unless you make dry collodion plates ...

good luck !
john

Would luv to hear / see more about how you do this, John

[jnantz]

hi cyrus

i've dabbled with making my own emulsions, but it was easier to make+use
bottled emulsion in the end ( bottle of liquid light cost less than making it, and i was a broke student ).

i have made dry plates just like Mark Pedersen describes in the dry plate
page on alternativphotography . com it is pretty easy.
the hardest part is cleaning the glass. i use a foam brush, nothing fancy to coat
and while some may cringe ... it has worked fine for me ...

http://www.alternativephotography.co...-plate-process

i've coated upto 11x14 plates with good success and tiny ones that i enlarged from
and coated bigger ones ( greenhouse glazing ) that i enlarged onto, and then contact printed ...

i don't have many of those images scanned or rephotographed &c, and some of them
shattered into a million pieces, so i really can't show
you many examples of what i have done, but i can say it is a lot of fun and kind of addictive

these days, the best resource is probably the lightfarm.com
there are lots of experienced people, way more experienced and knowledgeable than me at the light farm ...
and they can show you examples of what they have done ...

[cyrus]

Cool what kind of lighting were you using and how long were the exposures roughly? Im trying to figure out if this is practical enough for i.door ulf.

[jnantz]

i was using natural light
and rated the emulsion at
about asa 1-5 depending on the light
and it was like a slowish photo paper when i projected onto it.

they say if you put a blue filter
over your meter you will get a sort-of accurate meter reading.

before you do it ULF you should do small glass
to make sure you won't have trouble.
if you don't sub the glass right, the emulsion lifts off and puckers.
but it can give interesting results just the same.

good luck !
john

[cyrus]

before you do it ULF you should do small glass
to make sure you won't have trouble.

That's what I'm doing indeed. I have experience with wet plate on and off for a few years mostly as a curiosity and then I tried dry plate gelatin a couple of times and noticed there were some similarities (in coating plate etc.) so I am back experimenting with it all but more seriously this time, to see which is most practical esp indoors with artificial lights.

[johnielvis]

hey---howz about olde arc type lights? anybody every try somethign like that---THEM ought to be hot enough...them old projector lights or what they used for movies back in the day when they had those very slow films?

I bet that's like the best to use if you can somehow adapt it to household outlets......maybe some kind of adapted arc welder????

I was thinking of getting an old theatre projector--them older ones used arc light...

I just checked---there'ssome 16mm projectors that use arc BULBS!!!! super brite! they say...there are replacements...THIS is where we should be looking---arc has GOT to be WAY hotter-uv than anything else out there.....

here's from the knowledgebase of wikipedia:

Xenon-mercury short-arc lamps have a bluish-white spectrum and extremely high UV output. These lamps are used primarily for UV curing applications, sterilizing objects, and generating ozone.

[cat3261]

I know this is old post but I am getting incredible results withn2 speedotron quad heads, 1 4800 watt head and 2 2400 watt heads, about 30,000 watts, you get real control, if you are going for sharp you can count the treads on all the clothes

[C. D. Keth]

hey---howz about olde arc type lights? anybody every try somethign like that---THEM ought to be hot enough...them old projector lights or what they used for movies back in the day when they had those very slow films?

I bet that's like the best to use if you can somehow adapt it to household outlets......maybe some kind of adapted arc welder????

I was thinking of getting an old theatre projector--them older ones used arc light...

I just checked---there'ssome 16mm projectors that use arc BULBS!!!! super brite! they say...there are replacements...THIS is where we should be looking---arc has GOT to be WAY hotter-uv than anything else out there.....

here's from the knowledgebase of wikipedia:

Xenon-mercury short-arc lamps have a bluish-white spectrum and extremely high UV output. These lamps are used primarily for UV curing applications, sterilizing objects, and generating ozone.

Remember there are models eyes to look after. All of those things put directly into somebody's eyes are pretty bad.

[jnantz]

hi again cyrus

not sure if you are still doing this project or not , olde thread resurected and all that...
seeing liquid emulsion/dry plates are blue sensitive ( and oldish liquid ligt gets faster with age from my experience ) it seems that blue lit/ tungston bulbs migh work ok .. i havent tried H2O2 steaming the finished plates
but allegedly it is an olde astrogrhers' trick to "hyper" the speed of the emulsion
(works with film at least) maybe if your plates are excessively slow ...
bulb,an/grey supply might have some ideas for filament bulbs so you dont have to have your sitter sign a waiver (blindness). massive light and uv probably isnt a good thing to
expose ones eyes to, thats why i just use full spectrum ( neodymium?) and the modeling bulbs in my monoblocks that i use when not doing available light -stuff...
ive made a ton of studio portraits with paper negatives and it seems to be the same stuff, maybe a stop or so slower?
i never hypered anything or used massive light output, just had my sitter/s sit still for a long time ...
good luck with your mamouth plates! i have been coating 8x10s again, metal too, but without a sub layer
and no worries of emulsion lift.or puckering. you need a very cold flat surface post-pour for shovelled gelatin to set
and as much as i hate the stuff .. hardened fixer.

john