Your favorite type of lens for wet plate collodion photography?

[Jay Decker]

Started pouring wet plate collodion recently. Tried different lenses along the way, and to my surprise, some of my favorite lenses with film don't translate well to wet plate.

Has anyone else found this? What are your favorite lenses types with wet plate collodion?

[Petzval Paul]

Petzval!Petzval!Petzval!

[Mark Sawyer]

It depends, I switch back and forth, Petzvals, RR's, Triplets, and Tessars mostly, but sometimes a multi-coated Plasmat. Lately I really like the look of an old uncoated Tessar shooting out through a dirty window. As I noted elsewhere, I don't like soft lenses on collodion, (although I love them for conventional silver prints). The soft lenses and collodion process both have strong signatures, and they seem incompatible to my eyes. The Petzvals often have strong signatures, but get along fine with collodion. Go figure...

[Jay Decker]

Petzval!Petzval!Petzval!

Yeah, Yeah... the Petzval's are great, particularly like the 3A, 3B, 4D, and the old Voigtander. But, the Eidoscope, one of my favorites on film, doesn't seem to like collodion - neither does the Verito...

[Jay Decker]

... Petzvals, RR's, Triplets, and Tessars mostly, but sometimes a multi-coated Plasmat.

Thus far, the most pleasing are the Petzvals, Portrait Euryscop (RR), Heliar, and Xenar (a Tessar formula). Haven't tried a Triplet yet... thanks for the suggestion!

[Craig Tuffin]

I like to use a selection of lenses from old petzvals to modern plasmats but really change them according to the 'feeling' I'm trying to create in the shot.

My favourite lens by far is my 18" Cooke Knuckler but it's far too large to use anywhere else but in my studio.

I used to agree with you in regards to SF lenses and ambrotypes/tintypes (I think wet plate negatives look terrific with SF lenses when salt or albumen printed) but recently put my Eidoscope to the test and was happy with the result as an ambro.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/3993469...in/photostream

[Petzval Paul]

Although Petzvals, RR's and the like seem to be well-suited to wet plate, I have had some success with SF lenses when making negatives. Collodion positives and SF lenses don't seem to get along well, although I recall a View Camera cover by Jody Ake (IIRC) that was an ambro shot in soft focus that was just terrific. I guess you have to really be very careful not to blow out the highlights, which is all too easy to do anyway. Jody's portrait proved that it is possible to make a great image with an SF lens, but in the hands of someone with enough experience and patience. My experiments with SF ambros were not so successful.

[goamules]

I shoot medium fast petzvals mostly with wetplate. The really fast ones with the very narrow depth of field are harder to get the focus right, especially when exposures are several seconds. I'd rather use an F4 or F5 petzval and get it right, it with just a little more exposure time. Sometimes I really like Tessars and the contrast of a Dagor works well when the collodion is fresh.

[eddie]

Most of the aperture controlled sf lenses do not easily yield pleasing positive Images on wet plate......but they do if u make a negative and then print the neg.

[Jay Decker]

Most of the aperture controlled sf lenses do not easily yield pleasing positive Images on wet plate......but they do if u make a negative and then print the neg.

Does anyone know why images taken with aperture controlled Soft Focus lenses do not look good as wet plate positives (with a few exceptions such as Craig's example)?