[alt-photo] Re: wet-plate collodion

[Jeremy Moore]

Bob, this last post has really confused me:

Are you wanting to use an enlarger or digital negatives to create positive
ambrotypes or are you wanting to use an enlarger/digital negatives to print
wet plate collodion negatives as positives on silver gelatin paper?

On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Bob Barnes <bb333 at earthlink.net> wrote:

> 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 who originally made WP negs.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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