I live for danger....
How would you even be able to do anything in the dark without depth perception? Doing stuff in the daylight without depth perception is hard enough as it is.
I live for danger....That sounds very hazardous. Might be okay if you only hike in New Jersey or Massachusetts, but other places, at least some hikers routinely carry things to defend against bears.
Meanwhile, I've seen (presumably analog) IR goggles (yes, single sensor so no depth perception) on Amazon for around $100. You'd have to improvise a trap for the display light to avoid fogging with what doesn't go in your eye(s), but compared to what this stuff cost twenty years ago, this is cheap.
I've been making emulsion at home for about a year now and agree that glass plates are much, MUCH easier than film. I've tried the Dura Lar Wet Media film as recommended by @dwross2 in The Light Farm and found it exceedingly difficult to work with due to how thin it is and how badly it wants to curl while drying. Glass plates are dead simple to hand-pour and dry flat, and "feel" much more historically authentic.
How would you even be able to do anything in the dark without depth perception?
You'd get used to it.
I had almost no depth perception for several years in my early teens because there was enough difference in glasses lens strength between my right and left eyes that the image size difference limited my ability to fuse images. Fortunately, I grew out of this before learning to drive (getting contact lenses helped a lot, too, because they affect image size much less than glasses the same diopter strength). Also worth noting a fair number of people have (vision in) only one eye, or have a severe strabismus, or their brain simply ignores one eye. They get by.
You'd still be ahead of working in total darkness, after all, and most of us manage to handle film in the dark without excessive mishaps. Your hands will "remember" the height of your work surface, you know at a reflex level where one hand is relative to the other -- you might have too much fun with the first couple plates, but you'd hardly notice the lack of depth perception by the time you'd done a dozen.
Just need to learn to make emulsion...
You are talking about making your own Kodachrome, right?
DIY Film Coating Machine
Photo: Dark Orange An ex-Kodak chemist having managed to hand develop Kodachrome, decides to go one step further and make his own kodachrom...dennisrito.blogspot.com
"If they were doing it in a lab 50 years ago, you can do it in your kitchen today."- unknown
Well, they were making film since at the very least the 1800's, and I think we've had cameras for roughly (2500???) years. So, I've never seen anything on making your own film at home. It's always about making a homemade darkroom or red room or making your own cameras or what-have-you. So, as far as I've seen, film is just silver salts over some thin plastic. Any way to possibly make film at home?
Do you have a recipe?
Also, how do the glass plates fit in a 35 mm camera? Of course you can't roll one up into a film canister. It seems like it'd be hard to load it in a standard 35 mm camera in the daylight.
...although it is terribly slow (around ISO 0.5). I've played around with faster ammonia-based recipes too but they tend to be foggy and too low in contrast for me...
Wow, thanks.The paper negatives glass plates were alternative were Talbot's Kalotypes. Glass had several advantages over these, though it was a while before glass dry plates with gelatin emulsion appeared. The glass plates that first replaced Talbotypes were collodion, and they have incredibly fine grain (though they're also pretty slow, the fastest formula is around ISO 1 or 1.5 equivalent -- and they're blue-sensitive, a few formulae extending slightly into green). The first gelatin dry plates were only a little faster than wet plate collodion, but storability was a HUGE step forward.
I have no idea what the reciprocity characteristics even are for collodion
for dry collodion it would be different
Are glass plates grainy at all? I'd think so, but I've heard that they were developed as a less-grainy alternative to paper negatives.
Not necessarily. 50-70 years ago it was much easier to buy chemicals and some that you might need are restricted or unavailable today. I'm thinking of things like the heavy metal salts, such as mercury and cadmium that were used in emulsion making."If they were doing it in a lab 50 years ago, you can do it in your kitchen today."- unknown
I've been making emulsion at home for about a year now and agree that glass plates are much, MUCH easier than film. I've tried the Dura Lar Wet Media film as recommended by @dwross2 in The Light Farm and found it exceedingly difficult to work with due to how thin it is and how badly it wants to curl while drying. Glass plates are dead simple to hand-pour and dry flat, and "feel" much more historically authentic.
That sounds very hazardous. Might be okay if you only hike in New Jersey or Massachusetts, but other places, at least some hikers routinely carry things to defend against bears.
Meanwhile, I've seen (presumably analog) IR goggles (yes, single sensor so no depth perception) on Amazon for around $100. You'd have to improvise a trap for the display light to avoid fogging with what doesn't go in your eye(s), but compared to what this stuff cost twenty years ago, this is cheap.
He suggested Mr. Colt or Misters Smith and Wesson as defense against robbers. That was before ubiquitous credit card when hikers carried large amounts of cash for long journey. Don’t know if his advice would be necessary today when few would be carrying cash. Ranger never mentioned bears.
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