Freestyle Photo now stocking J. Lane Dry Plates

[Nodda Duma]

For those of you who missed Freestyle Photo's email blast on Friday and/or who are not on their mailing list, Freestyle Photographic Supplies of Hollywood, California, is now stocking J. Lane Dry Plates in the most common sizes. Freestyle is great and the folks there are as enthusiastic about supporting film (and older!) photography as anyone. I'm excited because the photography community's accessibility to the dry plate photographic process keeps getting better and better!

Plates are available from Freestyle in 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10. For any other sizes, including custom, contact me directly.

Please see my newly-minted website at http://www.pictoriographica.com providing some background info, examples of dry plate photography, and sources from which you can acquire dry plates. You can also see examples of others' dry plate work on the Facebook group "Dry Plate Photographers".

Thank you for all the support and interest !

-Jason

 

[removedacct1]

Have you tried processing your plates in anything other than HC-110? Its not a developer I stock. How about Rodinal or PMK?

 

[Nodda Duma]

Hi Paul,

Plenty of people buying plates have had great results with Rodinal 1:50 for 5 minutes at 68F.

Personally, I use HC-110 for pretty much everything, hence my recommendation. I have processed plates in Dektol, PolymaxT, D76, and Selectol. They all work great, with varying effects on tonality (as you'd expect). Basically it's a slow, very fine grain emulsion with good contrast, if that gives you ideas of developers. One other consideration: During the dry plate era, many of the "mix your own" formulas were pyro variants.

Photographers being who they are, most people who buy my plates ignore my HC-110 recommendation and try their own stuff <grin>. Which is great! Rodinal seems to be the developer of choice so far. I don't recall anyone using PMK, but I'm sure it would be ok. I have yet to see poor results due to the choice of developer. It helps that you can develop by inspection under safelight (similar to print). Just keep the temperatures constant and under 68F.

Part of the fun of these dry plates, I think, is that we get to explore a new (to us) photographic media and figure out what kind of results we can get with modern developers. It's not new territory, although the choice of developers is different than the 1880s, and I often find search results for info including photographic journal entries from that era.. which is really cool IMO. They all have vaguely familiar discussions, similar to what we see on Photrio.


-Jason

 

[removed account4]

jason, can i call you mr eastman ?

 

[Nodda Duma]

jason, can i call you mr eastman ?

No, mostly because he's been dead by his own hand for ~eighty years now. I'd rather not follow *too* closely in his footsteps. I appreciate the sentiment, though!

 

[removed account4]

oops, i forgot the end of the story, mr lane..

 

[removedacct1]

Hi Paul,
Plenty of people buying plates have had great results with Rodinal 1:50 for 5 minutes at 68F.

-Jason

Thanks, Jason,
I'll try a few different things. Looking forward to this

Paul

 

[Nodda Duma]

Careful, Paul, they are fun and addictive!

 

[removedacct1]

Careful, Paul, they are fun and addictive!

But probably not quite as addictive as wet plate collodion negatives - literally addictive! (Ether vapors...)

 

[bdial]

I am very anxious to try mine out. Glass plates for my plate camera seems very apropos.

 

[Peter Schrager]

I am very anxious to try mine out. Glass plates for my plate camera seems very apropos.

Have fun barry...!!

 

[DDTJRAC]

For those of you who missed Freestyle Photo's email blast on Friday and/or who are not on their mailing list, Freestyle Photographic Supplies of Hollywood, California, is now stocking J. Lane Dry Plates in the most common sizes. Freestyle is great and the folks there are as enthusiastic about supporting film (and older!) photography as anyone. I'm excited because the photography community's accessibility to the dry plate photographic process keeps getting better and better!

Plates are available from Freestyle in 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10. For any other sizes, including custom, contact me directly.

Please see my newly-minted website at http://www.pictoriographica.com providing some background info, examples of dry plate photography, and sources from which you can acquire dry plates. You can also see examples of others' dry plate work on the Facebook group "Dry Plate Photographers".

Thank you for all the support and interest !

-Jason

Thanks.

Liked your website...beautiful!

 

[NortheastPhotographic]

So cool! I'm finally building a darkroom soon so I'll be able to use some!

 

[Nodda Duma]

So cool! I'm finally building a darkroom soon so I'll be able to use some!

Awesome! Let me know!