Printing Wet Plate Collodion or similar process using an enlarger??

[drgoose]

I am probably going to sound like a complete idiot but here it goes. Is there a way to expose wet plate collodion plates in the darkroom using an enlarger and some sort of negative film? I really don't have the time to do much large format photography let alone prepare wet plates in the field so I thought that this could be interesting way of ending up with an image on glass and have the convenience of shooting on traditional film. Also it would allow to produce images on wet plate that would otherwise would be impossible to produce (i.e. high speed photography, birds in flight, macro, etc)

Is this or something similar (different emulsion or base material) feasible? Is this plain stupid?

Thanks in advance.

Joaquin.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

You'd be better off doing dry plates. Wet plates will end up drying and require a HUGE amount of light to get enough. 4-5 seconds in daylight at big apertures means you'll have impossibly long exposure times in an enlarger.

Shoot slide film and have them developed in E6 process. Enlarge that onto dry plate material that you make yourself. Then you'll have a negative that you can contact print or scan.

 

[Photo Engineer]

There is no UV radiation to amount to anything in a conventional enlarger. Wet plate is mostly sensitive to blue and UV.

This is going to be a problem.

PE

 

[drgoose]

Sorry for my ignorance so basically other than silver gelatin all other processes would require UV light source?


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[drgoose]

So when exposing the wet plate in camera the image is made by the UV portion of ambient light?


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[Thomas Bertilsson]

So when exposing the wet plate in camera the image is made by the UV portion of ambient light?


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Yes. Wet plate collodion is almost entirely UV sensitive. Blue as well.

 

[drgoose]

Could a tintype be made by projecting the 35mm negative on to one on these?

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/1832016-Rockland-Colloid-Tintype-Parlor-Kit


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[Darkroom317]

I am doing dryplates and enlarging them. It is just like film but on glass. I am using AG+ emulsion from Rockland Colloid which is blue sensitive and has an ISO near 3.

 

[craigt]

Using an enlarger with wet plate can be fun. You can use any format slide film but obviously the larger the better. You can also create photograms and chemigrams. Others have even photographed images projected onto their computer monitor using wet plate. The variations are endless.

The short answer is yes, it can be done with wet plate (I've done it many times) but there's an easier way.

Wet plate collodion is an orthochromatic process so is MOST sensitive to the blue - UV end of the spectrum. However, it can see other colours as well. It can't see red's and has difficulty picking up some other slower wavelengths (but they're not all invisible). It would be best to contact print (in a manner of speaking) where you have a high amount of UV and blue light so you can reduce your exposure times (remember your plate is drying out). You can place your sensitised plate on a very shallow tray with a sheet of 2mm glass suspended above it (but very close to it). Lay your transparency film on that glass and place another sheet above it to keep it flat and prevent it from moving. Prepare all of this quickly under a safelight and then move it all out into the sunlight. Work out your exposure time according to:
a]the type of light you're using
b]the age of your collodion
It does usually require a bit of trial and error and might take you a couple of plates to get things working right. Once you've locked it in though, with similar conditions, others shouldn't be too far off the mark (cross your fingers).
Develop the plate under a safe light in your darkroom...stop, fix, wash, dry and varnish as you would for any other wet plate tintype/ambrotype/negative.

Not as easy as with dry plate but it can be done. Good luck!

 

[Andrew Moxom]

It is surprisingly easy to do enlargements onto black glass or tin using the wet plate process. I have done it using a Beseler 45 Universal S. To project onto tintypes. I had one specific 4x5 negative I liked the look of as a negative that I wanted to enlarge onto tin. Surprisingly, I got a relatively short exposure time of 30 seconds @ f5.6 I am considering taking this further and exploring doing milk glass images so I can print b&w or color images onto white opaque glass.

 

[falotico]

Collodion, of course, refers to the material which binds the silver halide crystals to the glass or other support. Collodion is a kind of glue made by dissolving cotton in nitric acid. It was used in early negative/positive photography such as most of the photographic negatives from the Civil War. Even though at the time gelatin was known and available (as well as other materials such as egg white or "albumen") collodion was used because it did not have an adverse chemical reaction with the principal halogen used in the emulsion, iodine. While the collodion is still wet it is immersed in an iodine solution and then in silver nitrate. This causes light-sensitive silver iodine crystals to precipitate out of solution and they form the basis of the collodion emulsion. But iodine will cause gelatin and other biological mediums to form hydrosols which are not soluble to other chemicals, which means the photographic negative cannot be developed. In short, you could not form a photograph with gelatin using an silver iodide emulsion. Even today iodine is used only in trace amounts in photographic emulsions.

Photographers used silver iodide emulsions because iodine was more common than bromine. But also, silver iodide was sensitive to more colors than silver bromide. Silver iodide could photograph greens and even such low frequency light rays as orange. But silver bromide only photographs UV and blue colors unless the emulsion is sensitized to green and red light.

I don't know if modern collodion processes use silver bromide or silver iodide. It would be worthwhile to produce a silver iodide collodion emulsion if you wanted to make the plate more sensitive to visible light.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Just as a historical note, Kodak developed a series of very high resolution high Iodide and pure Iodide emulsions which were never take beyond R&D.

PE

 

[CRhymer]

Yes, as others have said above, it works, and rather well. I have used B&W positives (6x6) in an Omega C760. I don't recall the exposures, but while one can't doddle, the plates were nowhere near drying out. Once it is set up and focused (on a un-coated plate with white paper on top or such like) it is a fairly quick move from the silver bath to the easel, compared with loading the plate holder, inserting it in the camera, getting the subject's attention to sit still, pulling the dark slide, lens cap, etc. Besides being able to capture moving objects on fast film, panchromatic film will give a quite different spectral result when "printed" onto wet-plate than a wet-plate in camera exposure. This can be quite noticeable in the "sky" part of the picture. It has been a few years since I did this. I was doing some testing, but I don't recall of what. It should be noted that one type of sheet film, one of the Tmax ones, IIRC, blocked some part of the UV, which was a problem for some alt-process contact printing work. I think Kodak may have changed that. It was much discussed at the time on the usual lists. I don't know if it would make a lot of difference in an enlarger with a tungsten light source.

Have fun!

Cheers,
Clarence

 

[falotico]

Were the Kodak iodide emulsions manufactured with gelatin or some other binding agent?

 

[craigt]

Potassium Iodide only collodion formulas were the the very first published by Archer and continued to be used through the middle of the 20th century (perhaps longer) in the graphic arts industry. The produced images of great density without depth to the mid tones. Therefore a bromide was introduced to the mix (when used for photographic purposes) to provide longevity to the unused solution and a greater range of tones to the final image.
Using an enlarger, is essentially placing a hot light source over the sensitised plate. The closer the light source the faster the drying.

 

[Lee Rust]

Would it help to use an LED or compact fluorescent light source? A quick search found this article that shows a significant spectral bump in the UV range for several styles of bulb that might fit in an enlarger:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/tec...scent-vs-led-ultimate-light-bulb-test#slide-1

The 'Ecosmart' brand seems to have the strongest UV or blue component.

 

[CRhymer]

Lee,

It might, but the UV may be absorbed by the enlarging lens and heat absorbing glass unless you have a special, very expensive UV passing lens (and focusing becomes problematic) IDK what the bandpass of the heat absorbing glass is. For the alt processes that strictly need UV, contact printing under sunlight, north facing actinic sky, UV fluorescent tubes, plate burners are really the only way to go. Contact frames still have a sheet of glass between the light source (which also may have a glass sheet) and the negative/print, but the intensity of the UV is usually rather strong, so it does not seem to be a big issue (much discussed elsewhere). However, since wet-plates can be made with an enlarger and regular tungsten enlarger bulb, perhaps anything that puts out more blue would help. I finally got my Superchromega D set up, so perhaps I will give it a go with blue light and see if it makes a difference.

So many processes, so little time.

Joaquin,

I take it you have not done wet-plate. I don't know if someone has mentioned this somewhat obvious point, but the density, contrast, range of the negative or positive used should match the ambrotype/tintype or wet-plate copy negative requirements, as in any printing. In spite of the fact that in the last few decades the number of wet-plate photographers has gone from a small handful to many, it still is a bit of bother to obtain the chemicals, mix the collodion, learn to pour good plates, sensitize, develop, etc. It is a lot of fun, but as said above, dry plates may be easier, especially if you buy the emulsion.

Cheers,
Clarence

added note: Remember, wet-plate can be done under a rather bright safe-light. With panchromatic emulsion your are, well, in the dark - could be an issue when you pour the plates.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Were the Kodak iodide emulsions manufactured with gelatin or some other binding agent?

They were never manufactured. R&D samples were made. Gelatin was used.

PE

 

[Lee Rust]

Thanks, Clarence.