It’s official ... photographic dry plates are no longer obsolete!

If you may indulge my nerding / engineering out for a moment..

It’s official...dry plates are no longer obsolete!

The newly revised draft of ISO/DIS 14548:2021, “Photography - Dimensions of Glass Plates” has been released for review by the public, including updated dimensions for photographic dry plates.

The major update since 1998 is the addition of Annex A , “Non-standard plate sizes” that I wrote to collect and preserve standard dry plate dimensions in general photography (ie the stuff dry plate photographers have been shooting) *of relevance for all the holders available today*. So dimensions for dry plates which work not only with antique holders but also newly made holders from Chamonix, ChromaGraphica, and all the others out there. In capturing these dimensions in the standard, manufacturers of new dry plates and/or dry plate holders can ensure proper fit....very similar to what is done for sheet film and sheet film holders.

The main section of the standard addresses use for holography and astronomic photography, and didn’t support the needs of dry plate photography. I reached out to ANSI/ISO in 2018 to provide information relevant to our burgeoning revival of dry plate photography. Three years later, after heavy ISO-org internal review, edits, corrections, etc, out spits the draft.

So photographic dry plates are now officially recognized by the ISO standard community!!

Available from iso.org by searching ISO 14548

You should write these people and get them to update their site:

https://obsoletemedia.org/photographic-plate/

SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET!

Kino said:

You should write these people and get them to update their site:

https://obsoletemedia.org/photographic-plate/

SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET!

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lol. Now *they* are obsolete

As a standards guy... I applaud this accomplishment!

Congratulations!
I am duly impressed, very cool on getting your input accepted.

Pretty cool!

I was involved with editing some standards connected with forensic examinations of evidence several years ago - it felt like it took f o r e v e r . Well done!

Congratulations, Jason!

Nodda Duma said:

The newly revised draft of ISO/DIS 14548:2021, “Photography - Dimensions of Glass Plates” has been released for review by the public, including updated dimensions for photographic dry plates.

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To "review by the public" is this text:

This International Standard specifies the nominal sizes of photographic glass plates, together with cutting dimensions and their tolerances. It also specifies the nominal substrate thicknesses and their tolerances.

1 Scope
2 Normative references
3 Conditions for measurement of dimensions
4 Dimensions
4.1 Cutting dimensions
4.2 Substrate thickness
5 Squareness
6 Package marking

Table 1 — Preferred sizes of plates
Table 2 — Recognized sizes of plates
Table 3 — Substrate thickness of plates

Not quite. Anybody familiar with ISO standards understands “public” = “those who pay for a copy of the standard”. The draft was approved by the governing oversight committee (a long process) and released last week.

giant thumbs up!

Nodda Duma said:

Not quite. Anybody familiar with ISO standards understands “public” = “those who pay for a copy of the standard”. The draft was approved by the governing oversight committee (a long process) and released last week.

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Of course I know that. But that is not what I understand by "review of the public".

Anyway, your endeavours on this niche within a niche of photographic standardaization is welcome. And I am surprised the ISO even bothered with such.

My dad used to sit on a bunch of ISO committees, chairing a few...not photography related but I am sure the process is similar. Congratulations on getting this through, I know how long the process can be.

Nodda Duma said:

Not quite. Anybody familiar with ISO standards understands “public” = “those who pay for a copy of the standard”. The draft was approved by the governing oversight committee (a long process) and released last week.

Click to expand...

one of the things about the standards process is that the entire cost of running the standards organizations is paid for by selling copies of the standards. I recall being shocked one time when their was one standard that I was supposed to be familiar with it work. I had a 6 page booklet on my desk, which I read in about 10 minutes. I then went online to try and find the actual Standard, and found that the pamphlet on my desk not only WAS the entire standard, but had cost my employer about 400 Dollars for each copy.

each of the experts who attend the Standards meetings, are expected to arrive they without compensation (although generally the respective employers foot the travel and accommodation cost) this is why when folks refer to standards, you seldom see the standards documents. Our technical librarian had a cabinet right near his desk with all the Standards that were relevant, and would watch with the corner of his eye when you consulted them.

Standards writing and update is a coalition of the willing. Many companies support these efforts by funding their employees time and travel. It’s a HUGE investment. Some folks involved in these committees actual self-fund... volunteer.

The cost of standards can indeed be expensive, some of the biggest “whiners” about that are multi-billion dollar corporations with multi-million dollar government contracts. It’s the small companies who are trying to get into business to leverage innovation that I feel sorry for.