Altview@aol.com
Tue, 16 Feb 1999 02:42:33 -0500 (EST)
The issues you raise are so complex on so many levels regarding your
aspirations it is difficult to know where to start. First mistake is to start
with a lens without knowing the size in which your glass plate and
subsequently your final image wants to be. Modern lenses are notorious for
having small image circles and often make for poor or inappropriate choices
for many large format image makers, especially those working in alt process. I
have written an article that was published in the Jan/Feb 1998 issue of View
Camera on large format lenses and the sizes they will cover (8 x 10 to 20 X
24) as well as some lenses made much earlier in photographic history that will
exhibit unusual and often beautiful image qualities. Much of the look of
Watkins and O'Sullivans work came from the lenses they were using, not just
from the process. In fact, it may be the optical quality of their work that
interests you and not wet plate itself. First step is to decide what size you
want your finished image to be. This will somewhat be determined by the film
holders available. I have seen numerous dry plate holders, in fact have
several in my inventory, but have never seen a wet plate holder or what they
look like. They may be the same, I'm not sure. There are perhaps some people
in the country who may have access to this information as to where to acquire
holders that will work for wet plate. It will be the film holder and their
availibility which will determine your next step, which is the size of the
camera it needs. From that point a lens will need to be selected. In my
opinion, if you are going to go to all of the labor to make wet plate images,
and then to print them in platinum, the choice of a modern coated lens seems
to me to be contrary to the whole idea.
Secondly, to design a camera to take images of this sort is an extraordinarily
complicated and difficult process. To state that you intend to build your
camera out of aluminum shows a complete lack of understanding of the complex
requirements a camera is asked to do, unless you are doing pinhole, then
anything can work as a camera. The first is weight. Much of the reason cameras
have traditionally been built out of wood is its amazing workability and
lightness. As probably the only professional wooden camera restorer in the
country (see View Camera Mar/Apr 1995) as well as designer and manufacturer of
my own view cameras, I do bring a little experience to this discussion. Making
your own camera from scratch is indeed an enormous and rewarding challenge,
but requires extensive knowledge of camera design, how to achieve its
different functions (focus, rise and fall, swing and tilt), material
availibility, optical tolerances, and many other issues too extensive to go
into here. My advice is to find an older camera that is usable or is fixable.
I have amassed an extensive body of knowledge of old cameras and lenses and I
am at your service if I may be of any further help in your quest.
FYI, I am in the last stages of restoring a mammoth plate camera from the
1880's, one of only two I am aware of in the country. The mammoth plate camera
(18" X 22") was one of the cameras used by both Watson and O'Sullivan. The
mind boggles at the physical requirements necessary to operate such a camera
under the conditions they did. My camera weighs in at 37 pounds, so I imagine
theirs was similar. This is, of course, without tripod and lens. I hope to
have my film holders ready by the spring. The thought of making Pt/Pd prints
from this size negative is extraordinarily exciting and can't wait for my
first print to be done. Hope to have some ready for APIS this summer.
By the way, it tickles me immensely to have this board named after me :-).
Thanks to you all.
Patrick Alt
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