How many wet plate holders to get?

[Ales']

Im about to start shooting wet plate, missing holders, How many shoud I order? Is one good?

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

One is enough. Unless you have a whole tribe of assistants coating, sensitizing, loading, and processing your plates, you cannot possibly shoot wet plate fast enough to use more than one holder at a time.

 

[retina_restoration]

Yep, you can only use one holder at a time, so one is all you'll need!

 

[Donald Qualls]

One is enough. Unless you have a whole tribe of assistants coating, sensitizing, loading, and processing your plates, you cannot possibly shoot wet plate fast enough to use more than one holder at a time.

This. You have, at most, about fifteen minutes to coat, sensitize, load, expose, unload, and develop the plate, and until the plate is in the drying rack and you've coated and sensitized the next one, you don't need another plate holder -- and once you're done processing, well, looky there, there's an empty plate holder. Just a quick wipe/check for stray collodion, and it's ready to use again..

 

[koraks]

I've always worked with just one, but I can imagine someone might want a spare in case you drop/break one somehow. Never happened to me, but esp. if you're working with models I can see how it would be nice to have a spare sitting by so you don't get to waste anyone's time.

 

[Ales']

Sorry for stupid questions, but 15 minutes is more then enought to take several exposures, i immagine that I can sensitize in a tray let say 2 plates, and then shoot couple of shots in sun light wide open, so pretty short esposures. I used to shoot 10 frames of 8x10 film in 45 minutes, with 4x5 it shoud be faster. I am missing somethink. 15 minutes is more like 3-4 shots before I need to start developing

 

[koraks]

Give it a try and report back.

I've never seen a wet plate photographer do it the way you propose, not have I done it myself that way. There are apparently good reasons for this, but I think you need to find out/experience them yourself.

Start with one holder, then add more if you see the need to. I doubt you ever will.

 

[retina_restoration]

Sorry for stupid questions, but 15 minutes is more then enought to take several exposures, i immagine that I can sensitize in a tray let say 2 plates, and then shoot couple of shots in sun light wide open, so pretty short esposures. I used to shoot 10 frames of 8x10 film in 45 minutes, with 4x5 it shoud be faster. I am missing somethink. 15 minutes is more like 3-4 shots before I need to start developing

At 75F your plates will dry out in less than 15 minutes, rendering them useless. At 80F that time will be half that or less. I think this idea of "shoot multiple plates then develop" will not be a viable approach to the process.
Once you've actually started making plates, I expect you will see how impractical it would be to shoot multiple plates at a time. Remember, each plate has to be in the silver bath for about 3 minutes, then lifted out, the backside dried and the plate loaded into a holder. That will take a minimum of five minutes per plate, and that's not including the time it takes to pour the collodion! If preparing each plate from start to loading into the holder takes a minimum of 8-10 minutes, then by the time you've got the second plate ready in the holder, the first one is potentially already dried out to the point of being unusable. Never mind 3 or more! You simply don't have enough time to fuss with multiples.