[alt-photo] Re: wet-plate collodion

[Bob Barnes]

thanks, Etienne....I do PT/PD now... I have an Ambrotype and I am  
hopelessly infatuated,
but not to the point of doing it, "in camera" if you would please  
excuse the horrendous legal pun.
PS what about proportional intensifiers, like Selenium?
Bob




On Apr 13, 2010, at 5:08 PM, etienne garbaux wrote:

> Bob wrote:
>
>> I am asking for advice about about starting wet-plate collodian and
>> Ambrotypes.
>> I would appreciate any advice, links, on-list as well as off-list.
>> I am very interested in printing wet-plate
>>  on my  Omega DXL enlarger. I have a 4x5, an 8x10 as well as a large
>> antique studio camera, and I do want advice
>> about finding or adapting wooden film holders, but I am very
>> interested in enlarging or digital negs.
>
> Wet-plate collodion ("WP") tends to make negatives with a  
> substantially longer density range ("DR") than the exposure scale  
> ("ES") of most enlarging-speed printing materials, and IME the  
> process does not respond well to "minus" development (the usual  
> technique for reducing the contrast of film negatives).  You have  
> choices -- for example, you could make printing masks for the  
> collodion negatives, but punch presses tend to make a mess out of  
> glass plates (<g>) and achieving alignment manually will make you  
> want to go make daguerrotypes over an open dish of hot mercury in  
> an unventilated tent.  So, my advice would be to focus on solutions  
> other than enlarging wet plate negs.
>
> On the other hand, I don't much see the point of making wet-plate  
> collodion negatives just to scan them or print them on enlarging  
> materials -- there isn't much "look" to WP negs, aside from the  
> long DR and blue [only] sensitivity (which can be duplicated with a  
> blue filter).  Of course, "just to do it" is a perfectly legitimate  
> justification.  However, may I suggest that you also take up Pt,  
> albumen, or collodion paper printing while you're at it?  Those are  
> the printing media that were in use by the folks who originally  
> made WP negs.
>
> Best regards,
>
> etienne
>
>
>
>
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