Zebra Tinplate

[PatrickMarq]

This is my first Tinplate, happy with it.
But I have lost a lot of detail in the shadows, I also made a Ortho 80 and there my exposure is good.
The Zebra Tinplates has a ISO of 2, is this behaviour normal or is my exposure for the Tinplate wrong ?



Thank you
Patrick

[jnantz]

Hi Patrick
I've never used the zebra product, that's why I held off commenting in your post ( I can't take another public scolding ! )
but .. I've used both the rockland and my own emulsion to do these, and this is a sweet exposure + image!
It's a finicky process sometimes, and using non panchromatic paper emulsion is tricky because it is almost like it has a variable ISO
meaning depending on the blue light and time of day and situation, the ISO might be 1 or 3 or 1/2 or ...
the shadows can be inky ( because there's nothing on the emulsion and it's the plate showing through ) ... I hope you have fun with it !
Which developer are you using ? The rockland developer, one found in the Darkroom Cookbook, or one of the ones that Lee L. invented ? Either way, it's really beautiful!

John
ps. if you bind emulsion to glass instead of a plate, you can develop it with the same developer you will get an image like this on glass .... . careful, it's addictive

[PatrickMarq]

Thank you for the response and the kind review, I have used 510-pyro with Amonium something :-)

I do now a lot of Zebra dryplates also and with quite good results, been thinking about using the Amonium stuff to make positive on glass. As I don’t have a darkroom and it’s not possible to build one, I’ll buy the plates from Zebra.

Yes I believe it can be addictive, now I must wait until the rains are over. The last few month not a lot sun here.

[Tin Can]

Good to know

I will try ZEBRA TinType soon

Excellent image Patrick

[diagonale-du-flou]

I'm not familiar with the process, but I am familiar with long exposures.
With long exposure times, the Schwarzschild effect can occur between shadows and highlights in the same image, resulting in blocked shadows, even with correct exposure.
This can be partially compensated for by pre-exposing the film.
Personally, I pre-expose in these conditions to zone I - 3 Ev, and this enables me to regain a little detail in the shadows, at the cost of a slight reduction in contrast.

but even with blocked shadows, you made a beautiful image !

[shelby_wright]

I think this is a good exposure, even more so for an early effort! Collodion has a lower dynamic range than film, and it's notoriously difficult to meter for.

This will only work if you have a means of developing on site (see below), but if you want to ascertain exposure, you can do a test plate (essentially an in-camera darkroom test strip).

Stop the lens down to around f/16, and then do a 2s exposure with the darkslide fully out. Push it 20% in and do another 2s exposure, push in another 20% and do 4s, then 8s, then finally 16s on the last 20% of the plate. Develop and fix and you'll have a selection of exposures to choose from, just remember to add them together. Here's an example test plate from last month.

You might also be interested in this comparison video Borut Peterlin made recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAhhe_c8Yig&ab_channel=BorutPeterlin

Thank you for the response and the kind review, I have used 510-pyro with Amonium something :-)

I do now a lot of Zebra dryplates also and with quite good results, been thinking about using the Amonium stuff to make positive on glass. As I don’t have a darkroom and it’s not possible to build one, I’ll buy the plates from Zebra.

Yes I believe it can be addictive, now I must wait until the rains are over. The last few month not a lot sun here.

Cloudy, overcast days are actually the best for shooting collodion outdoors, you get nice diffuse light.

It's not at all difficult or expensive to make a basic portable darkroom for doing 4x5 wet plate in the field. I've seen people just use an old suitcase and drape their dark cloth over it when they need to use it, I've even made one out of a plastic tub, bungee cord, and ~4m length of blackout fabric. There is also the turnkey solution of the Ilford Pop Up Darkroom.

[PatrickMarq]

thank you, the youtube channel was quite informative

[jnantz]

I think this is a good exposure, even more so for an early effort! Collodion has a lower dynamic range than film, and it's notoriously difficult to meter for.

This will only work if you have a means of developing on site (see below), but if you want to ascertain exposure, you can do a test plate (essentially an in-camera darkroom test strip).

Stop the lens down to around f/16, and then do a 2s exposure with the darkslide fully out. Push it 20% in and do another 2s exposure, push in another 20% and do 4s, then 8s, then finally 16s on the last 20% of the plate. Develop and fix and you'll have a selection of exposures to choose from, just remember to add them together. Here's an example test plate from last month.

You might also be interested in this comparison video Borut Peterlin made recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAhhe_c8Yig&ab_channel=BorutPeterlin



Cloudy, overcast days are actually the best for shooting collodion outdoors, you get nice diffuse light.

It's not at all difficult or expensive to make a basic portable darkroom for doing 4x5 wet plate in the field. I've seen people just use an old suitcase and drape their dark cloth over it when they need to use it, I've even made one out of a plastic tub, bungee cord, and ~4m length of blackout fabric. There is also the turnkey solution of the Ilford Pop Up Darkroom.

that was a great video !
I haven't heard of many people ( maybe 3 in 20 years! ) using dry collodion plates, it's great to see people mastering these old techniques, cause sooner or later it's just going to be people like Zebra and Jason and other small companies along with people doing these things on their own ..

mr peterlin's suggestion ( and yours ! ) of overcast days is spot on, it's like shooting chromes in many respects, sometimes too much difference between white and black doesn't play well with photography..
it's interesting he spoke of UV, I thought it was mainly blue light with paper emulsion, it was news to me, I love learning new stuff ..