Quote Originally Posted by basiltahan View Post
Sensitize by inspection.

Does anyone do this? With different temperatures and emulsions, plates sensitize at different rates. Two questions:

1) What should an adequately sensitized plate look like?
2) Is there any truth to the fact that over sensitizing (is this even possible?) can cause issues during development?
I know it's not considered ideal but I always sensitize by time. 3-5 minutes. I don't have an adequate enough light in either of my darkboxes to check by inspection. To check by inspection, remove the plate from the bath and notice if the silver nitrate flows off of it in one smooth sheet. The plate will also appear milky white. If you see little legs of silver nitrate or it looks oily, chances are it hasn't had enough time. For my area of the world 3 minutes does it in 99% of cases but if it's cold out I'll go up to 5 minutes. All collodions should sensitize the same way in the same time. No harm will likely be done to your plates hanging out in the bath up to 10 minutes.

Oversensitizing would be like leaving a plate in the bath for 10 minutes or more. If it stays in too long your plates will fog. Not sure what effect it has with the developer when that happens. It very well may be that the developer itself fogs the oversensitized plate. If you leave an aluminum plate in too long, say more than 30 minutes or an hour, maybe longer, the silver nitrate will start to dissolve the plate and it will mess up your bath.