latest effort

Well here are my two latest panes (pains?)

First is a pond behind my house, F16 3 seconds, Kodak 137mm on a Eastman 8x10

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii261/mrexplodo/IMG_9914.jpg

The emulsion was way to thick on the left side of the plate, I developed 14 minutes in d76 (undiluted) and left it in the fix for too long, I think it would have been a lot more dense otherwise. It also seems underexposed to me. You can definately see the effects of the small image cirlce of that 137mm on an 8x10.

The next is my GF on a couch in front of the blinds. F11 with a 54Gn flash about 6 feet from her. Totally underexposed. I left it in the developer for 22 minutes to try and bring out some detail, but to no avail.
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii261/mrexplodo/IMG_9904.jpg

The emulsion was PE's SRAD, minus the ammonia, plus .1/.3 gold/sulfur mg per mole of silver. All in all, I'm not too irritated with the results. I metered a 1/10 second exposure with an slr for the pond shot @ ISo 100, F16, so I think I probably landed around ISO 1 or 2. for my emulsion. Next batch I will actually get some ammonia that doesn't turn my silver nitrate into brownish sludge. On one hand, I don't have to adapt my darkroom technique to working with home-made emulsions. On the otherhand, these two frames make the 5th and 6th negatives I've ever developed, so all in all, I'm happy I got something.

I've got 4 more frames to shoot, plus enough emulsion in the fridge for 6 more frames, so hopefuly now that I have a better idea of the speed I have, I can get a little better exposure on the next few tries.

Great results, looking forward to seeing how the next photos turn out. Keep up the excellent work.

Emulsion.

Looks good. My first attempts will never be posted here. They are far worse than you might imagine!

It just takes time and practice. Soon they will be higher in speed and better in uniformity.

PE

It's always nice to hear that there are people out there doing these things! You are not alone . Keep going!

We will finally tomorrow morning start making our next one..!

totalamateur said:

Next batch I will actually get some ammonia that doesn't turn my silver nitrate into brownish sludge.

Click to expand...

You remembered to add the ammonia until it precipitates the silver as the brown sludge and then add a bit more until the sludge pretty much redissolves, right?

PS - you got better results than my first try!

I added ammonia until it cleared up, but there was still a precipitate at the bottom, after adding twice the volume to the solution. I was using crappy ammonia, and at a dollar a gram for AgNO3, that was a $14 mistake. Not again. In retrospect it's pretty stupid to use $2 ammonia, when everything else is photo formulary or bostick sulivan. ISO 2 is good enough for a batch of proof - of concept shots and for me to learn to use a view camera, and dark room technique. Next batch will have good AgNO3 and NH4, and I will dilute and calculate my sulfer and gold well ahead of the mix, so I end up with the proper ratio (instead of .1/.3mg per mole, when I wanted 1/3 - dang decimals places)

Oh - and if anyone can critique the development - let me know - I take no offence to any advice.

Use 100 mg/mole of Silver with the SRAD. If you use Gold, then use 1/3 the weight of Gold that you do Sulfur.

Finish time for me is 1 hour at 60 C. I used 11' at 68 F in D76 for development and Kodak hardener fixer with a stop.

PE

Thanks for the comments and help -

Because I screwed up other parts of the recipe, I figured on using a bare minimum of gold/sulfur (thought I meant to use more than I actually did) just because I didn't know what I was making, and didn't want to fog it.

I over developed everything because It became aparent pretty quickly that I had underexposed everything. It didn't do much, I'd read something about "Push" developing, which I understand is a way to get a little more out of a bad exposure, but I now understand that it's not going to help more than a half or 1 stop.

It's no joke that practice makes all the difference. I can't wait to finish learning from this batch and get to the next one.

So in the future - 33/100 mg gold and sulphur, decent ammonia, - 11 minutes with undiluted D-76. hardening fixer.

I use kodak products exclusively just in case PE owns stock.

Looks great to me. Keep up the good work!

Jeff

Here are 3 of the remaining 4 plates from the last batch- one came out nearly printable!
GF in front of house - F16 / 4 seconds - LR metered 1/20 at ISo 100 at F8. I'm pretty proud of this one.
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii261/mrexplodo/IMG_9921.jpg

Lid to Grandpa's customized BBQ grill, came out good, but not the best subject. F16 - 5 seconds - SLR metered F 8, 1/90 ISo 100

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii261/mrexplodo/IMG_9919.jpg

View from my backyard - total mush. Plate will be recycled in the next batch.
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii261/mrexplodo/IMG_9920.jpg

So the density does not appear to be all that great - I'm thinking this is likely due to dilution during the wash. Presently I squeeze my emulsion through a piece of fishnet stocking, which I think chops it up too fine, resulting in too much water on the surface. Looks like I'm getting light leaks from somewhere too. All easy things to fix next time.

Not too bad for first efforts. Keep it up!

PE

Photo Engineer said:

Looks good. My first attempts will never be posted here. They are far worse than you might imagine!

Click to expand...

Do they happen to be clean and clear glass plates? ...Sounds like my first roll of b&w when I wanted to see what would happen if I used laundry bleach on it >.>

No, they were paper negatives and as such should have been better than a glass plate at that stage of my work but they were not. And, the emulsion itself was horrible. 'Nuff said?

PE

Great results! What is your guess at the ASA/ISO?
Cheers,
Emulsion.

Well, my SLR metered 1/20 in the shadows at F8, ISO 100, so my 4 second exposures were 6 stops slower. I shot F16 for most of these - so the film speed was 5 stops slower than ISO100 - so that would be ISO ~3 as best as I can figure.

Nothing ever appeared blown out, though probably is partially an issue due to low density. I had one plate that was clearly exposed to brod daylight that didn't turn totally black.

On the other hand the darkest part of the frame in #9921 was the portion underneath where my GF was sitting, and this appears to have detail, so I don't think that I underexposed the shadows. I cannot understand why the green grass appears so underexposed, when it was in broad daylight, and my front door, which is in shadow - and painted dark red to boot - appears to have about the same density. I would think that the dark red door in the shadows would have the lowest density of anything in the frame.

I generally take to long road to a short thought. I figure my ISO was 3 or a tad less.

For those of you that know (so much) more than me - about when do I need to start worrying about reciprocity failure?

Thanks.

totalamateur said:

On the other hand the darkest part of the frame in #9921 was the portion underneath where my GF was sitting, and this appears to have detail, so I don't think that I underexposed the shadows. I cannot understand why the green grass appears so underexposed, when it was in broad daylight, and my front door, which is in shadow - and painted dark red to boot - appears to have about the same density. I would think that the dark red door in the shadows would have the lowest density of anything in the frame.

Click to expand...

You're looking at the recording characteristics of 'color-blind' emulsion. You'd see something similar with ortho emulsion. It's why old b&w photographs of women often show them with black lips. It's the film's take on their fire engine red lipstick. It wasn't until pan film that colors were recorded in ways we now consider 'normal'. A bit more info here: http://thelightfarm.com/Map/DryPlate/CurveControl/DryPlatePart5b.htm

Three cheers for your progress! Congratulations.
d

Last of the batch

Well, I used up the last bit in the jar I kept in the fridge for 2 weeks to shoot some test shots lit with Grandpa's old GE Super 8 movie light.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii261/mrexplodo/IMG_0080.jpg
F7.7 @ 1.5S SLR metered 1/30 at f16 ISO 100

The density is low; but this batch of plates seemsto be a little more fine grained- I think it's due to the developer haveing been mixed and aged a bit more - the first few frames were developed immediately after I mixed the D-76 up. Also maybe due to a thinner coat of emulsion.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii261/mrexplodo/IMG_0079.jpg
F16@ 2 secs. I think I was being over-optimistic on my previous ISO 4 estimate - probably more like ISO 1 or 2

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii261/mrexplodo/IMG_0078.jpg
F32@12 seconds - There's a pumpkin and some red and orange blocks in this one that the film couln't see, and has nearly the same density as the black leather background.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii261/mrexplodo/IMG_0077.jpg
THis is the "wasabi" slide -

After the mercury developer forum that somehow got into possible sushi addenda, I thought, what the hey, and mixed in a bit of Wasabi to the last plate. I learned the following:

Warm wasabi emulsion in a small darkroom makes said darkroom nearly uninhabitable. I thought I was going to choke on the fumes several times.

It gave no apparent increase in speed whatsoever. (or fog)

Wasabi is not nearly finely ground enough for emulsion making, as it left spots everywhere

Oddly enough, the blacks are a much darker tone, and it looks like the contrast is a little higher. The Wasabi frame was also shot at F32 , 12 seconds, and like the frame before it, developed 20 minutes in full strength (but I think nearly exhausted) D-76.

Question time!
Do ya'll get about 12 frames of 8X10 plates out of a liter of D-76 before it's time to replace?
Is it normal for the developer to result in finer grain as it ages?
Do the higher density areas on plates (that are made better than mine) ever approach being opaque?

Thanks everybody!