Darkroom Course Tutor wants money for pinhole wetplate experiment in tea box

[Mustafa Umut Sarac]

My darkroom course basics tutor wants from us money to experiment in tea box pinhole wetplate camera in winter time. I said its impossible , she says ilford positive paper is 1ASA and she says wetplate is also 1 ASA and success is evitable. What do you say ?

 

[koraks]

If she wants to try it out if say it's up to her to perform the experiment. I don't think it'll work as the collodion will dry out during the long exposure.

 

[cliveh]

I would say any tutor should never ask for money from their students.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Why is a so called instructor doing experiments on their students time/dime?

They're supposed to know how to do stuff, and instruct others based upon their knowledge.

 

[MattKing]

Sometimes, particular courses have an extra material expense associated with them. If that is stated up front, and it's up to the prospective student to decide whether or not to register in that course, than that is fine.

 

[retina_restoration]

Been there, tried this and it's almost a guaranteed fail: the collodion will dry out and become insensitive long before exposure has been achieved.

 

[tcolgate]

Borut Peterlin has shown and explained 1hr wet plate exposures in one of his videos. I forget exactly what he suggests allows it to happen. . So it might not be impossible in the right circumstances.. I'd want to know that their process worked before paying hard cash though

(Basically I think he suggests that if your silver nitrate is older, you can let the plate dry for an hour without tonnes of fogging)

 

[RalphLambrecht]

My darkroom course basics tutor wants from us money to experiment in tea box pinhole wetplate camera in winter time. I said its impossible , she says ilford positive paper is 1ASA and she says wetplate is also 1 ASA and success is evitable. What do you say ?

I'm not sure I fully understand the issue. Still, if I remember correctly, the Ilford positive paper was around EI3 and EI1 with a yellow filter, which it needs because it is very contrasty without filtration since so blue sensitive. and with either EI1 or EI3, someone can certainly take pinhole images. The exposure times will be long but doable.

 

[koraks]

I'm not sure I fully understand the issue.

The issue is that this is really about collodion / wet plate. The tutor only mentioned paper negatives because they were supposedly similar in terms of speed. Which, btw, is a very problematic assumption since collodion is mostly sensitive to UV, so ISO speed ratings really don't apply.

 

[Donald Qualls]

I don't think it'll work as the collodion will dry out during the long exposure.

This is the first issue -- in winter conditions, exposure times even outdoors might exceed five minutes, which is on the edge of what can be done with wet plate due to collodion drying. High humidity might also cause blush as the collodion dries -- where condensation fogs the surface of the emulsion, producing an effect like fog.

The second issue is that while lab fees aren't uncommon and students in most photography instruction courses are expected to pay for their own materials (film, paper, sometimes chemicals), something as experimental as wet plate pinhole seems as if the instructor should at least demonstrate results before expecting the student(s) to pay out of pocket for a whole wet plate setup (glass, collodion, silver bath, etc.). I'd be more confident about this if it were either wet plate with a lens (even f/8 or f/11 can do the job in seconds of exposure) or pinhole with either film or paper, which is well known to produce results. I'd hope this material is optional for the course, or that there is the option to do the pinhole section with more modern materials.