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General Discussion : Wet Plate Collodion Photography Forum
Wet Plate Collodion Photography Forum
MY FIRST WETPLATE PHOTOS
Posted by:
deltafour ()
Date: October 09, 2013 01:10AM
Holy crap!
I thought I would never see this day where I could finally take some photos.
The easy and cheapest part was the chemicals.
It was all the little extra stuff that took the most time.
Tell you the truth if I knew it was going to be this much work getting it all together I probably wouldn't have ever done it
It"s one of those things that all the effort and money put into this hobby I couldn't stop now, I had to see it through
I didn't care how the photos turned out. I think they are to dark.
So here is the final product.
Any tips or help would greatly be appreciated
[www.cwreenactors.com]
What I used was trophy plate, a Brownie Camera and put it on the largest f stop and held the shutter open between 3 to 7 seconds.
It was around 6pm with the sun out
I am thinking because the brownie has such a small lens I should have left the shutter open longer? !
Developer for positives I used ferrous sulfate and the fixer is Sodium Thiosulfate
When I poured the developer on, I was watching the highlights appear (which was cool to see ) But I didn't know how long I should have used it.
Do you use it until most of the white is gone or do you stop just as the image is starting to appear
Then I put it 2 water baths to stop the developer.
When I poured the fixer on, the image started to appear (talk about the cool factor seeing that happen )
Now do you stop until all the milky white is gone. Because some parts of the image got real dark so I put it in water to stop it.
Then used a hair dryer on the hot setting to dry the plate (which worked great)
Oh and another thing trying to pour Collodion on a 3x4 plate was not easy, let me tell you.
I did the waiter method and I poured enough collodion to where it almost touch both sides width wise.
I tilted it corner to corner per JC manual but the collodion wouldnt flow in some spots.
It flowed around certain spot creating a circle that the collodion didn't cover
I even wiped the surface with a paper towel but still did it on most of the plates I tried to pour.
Thanks
Carl
I thought I would never see this day where I could finally take some photos.
The easy and cheapest part was the chemicals.
It was all the little extra stuff that took the most time.
Tell you the truth if I knew it was going to be this much work getting it all together I probably wouldn't have ever done it
It"s one of those things that all the effort and money put into this hobby I couldn't stop now, I had to see it through
I didn't care how the photos turned out. I think they are to dark.
So here is the final product.
Any tips or help would greatly be appreciated
[www.cwreenactors.com]
What I used was trophy plate, a Brownie Camera and put it on the largest f stop and held the shutter open between 3 to 7 seconds.
It was around 6pm with the sun out
I am thinking because the brownie has such a small lens I should have left the shutter open longer? !
Developer for positives I used ferrous sulfate and the fixer is Sodium Thiosulfate
When I poured the developer on, I was watching the highlights appear (which was cool to see ) But I didn't know how long I should have used it.
Do you use it until most of the white is gone or do you stop just as the image is starting to appear
Then I put it 2 water baths to stop the developer.
When I poured the fixer on, the image started to appear (talk about the cool factor seeing that happen
)
Now do you stop until all the milky white is gone. Because some parts of the image got real dark so I put it in water to stop it.
Then used a hair dryer on the hot setting to dry the plate (which worked great)
Oh and another thing trying to pour Collodion on a 3x4 plate was not easy, let me tell you.
I did the waiter method and I poured enough collodion to where it almost touch both sides width wise.
I tilted it corner to corner per JC manual but the collodion wouldnt flow in some spots.
It flowed around certain spot creating a circle that the collodion didn't cover
I even wiped the surface with a paper towel but still did it on most of the plates I tried to pour.
Thanks
Carl