Supplier of Glass plates

Ian Grant · Jan 26, 2022

I'm looking for anyone who can supply high quality reasonably fast Panchromatic plates, prefer machine coated. Is there anything coming out of Russia ?

Something similar or reasonably close to Agfa APX100 (which I have in 7x5) would be ideal, but as it's for 10x8 and larger grain size isn't an issue, coating quality and hardening is.

Ian

abruzzi · Jan 26, 2022

The only stuff I’ve seen are the J.Lane plates, but they’re not panchromatic, or ISO 100. I’d be curious if there is something like what you’re looking for.

Paul Howell · Jan 26, 2022

I don't know if any chip manufacture still uses glass plates, last plates I brought was in the 90s when Kodak made 4X5 in Tmax 100, even then expensive, paid like a $100 for 25.

Two23 · Jan 26, 2022

Only makers I'm aware of (and I do use dry plates) are the ortho plates from Zebra and also the ISO 2 & 25 plates from Jason Lane.

Kent in SD

Donald Qualls · Jan 28, 2022

There were still glass plates available with holographic emulsion as recently as a couple years ago, from a Russian manufacturer -- not Svema, but I've forgotten the name -- but not only would those be of limited (if any) use for regular photography, I don't have any idea if they're still available.

Edit: This just came up in another thread: a claim that Ilford does or can still supply glass plates (I guess you'd need to check their web site or contact their service office to check what emulsion, but if it's FP4+ you're in).

lantau · Jan 28, 2022

I noticed that Macodirect keeps selling APX100 glass plates (6x9), always with up to date exp date. Currently 4/2024. Is it like Silvermax, that they will print a new date when they box existing stock from climate conditioned storage, or is Agfa in Belgium still coating that?

Dirb9 · Jan 28, 2022

Donald Qualls said:
There were still glass plates available with holographic emulsion as recently as a couple years ago, from a Russian manufacturer -- not Svema, but I've forgotten the name -- but not only would those be of limited (if any) use for regular photography, I don't have any idea if they're still available.

Edit: This just came up in another thread: a claim that Ilford does or can still supply glass plates (I guess you'd need to check their web site or contact their service office to check what emulsion, but if it's FP4+ you're in).

Slavich Unibrom: https://www.slavich.com/holo_fg-red-green They're currently available from a few suppliers, but I have no idea how speed ratings and processing transfer from holographic to pictorial purposes. Ilford hasn't listed plates for a few years now (they used to list plates for holography and particle physics), but your guess is as good as mine as to whether they can still coat them.

Donald Qualls · Jan 28, 2022

Dirb9 said:
your guess is as good as mine as to whether they can still coat them.

If they could do it and still sell them at a profit (even if they were five or ten times the cost of sheet film the same nominal size, they could; there are still some applications where glass is better), they'd be in the catalog. Scale is likely the issue; even if the machinery to coat on glass is still usable, the batch size needed to be able to run in spec and put their name on the result is probably too big to sell through before too much of it expires (same reason so many film stocks went out of production during the rise of digital. and so few have come back for the "film resurgence").

From what I recall of the process to make a hologram plate, I wouldn't bet you could make a pictorial negative on them at all. I seem to recall that application needs high contrast, and then there's a bleach and swell step so that the resulting image is a phase plate, rather than a density negative. AND they don't need to be at all fast; lasers are very bright and nobody cares if you need to expose for multiple seconds or even a minute by the time your setup is steady enough for even a 1/100 exposure.

Craig · Jan 29, 2022

Ilford still lists glass plates, but both of them are only sensitive to blue light.
https://www.ilfordphoto.com/specialist-products/coated-glass-plates

Donald Qualls · Jan 29, 2022

Craig said:
Ilford still lists glass plates, but both of them are only sensitive to blue light.
https://www.ilfordphoto.com/specialist-products/coated-glass-plates

When I follow that link, I get "We can't find products matching the selection." Perhaps they're not offered in the USA?

Ah. Google found the L4 plate series, used for direct radiographic exposure (i.e. by alpha, beta, and proton radiation, not primarily x-ray), with equivalent ISO speed about 1 to 1.25 and blue sensitive only. The PDF document for those says "NB: In the USA, ILFORD Photo scientific products are distributed by Polysciences Inc. Further information can be found at www.polysciences.com."

No wonder they don't show when I search Ilford for them. Totally useless for the OP, however, at about 1% of the desired sensitivity and blue sensitive only. J.Lane has a more directly useful product (ISO 25 ortho).

Nodda Duma · Jan 29, 2022

Ian,

You can get panchromatic plates by soaking orthochromatic plates in a pinacyanol chloride solution. I’ve been tinkering with this recently. John Hilty has done it for his autochromes, and Denise Ross goes into detail on her website as well. Ron Mowrey posted here about it in the past.

Can’t help you with machine-coating plates tho. My hand-coated plates are pretty consistent, although my primary coater who is very good is going off to college so I have to train a new coater. The new coater’s coming up to speed, although she still works slow.

I doubt the big guys will ever make plates for general photography again. There’s no real money in it. Hell, *I* don’t make anything more than beer money from them, that and give a handful of high schoolers cool jobs.

Donald Qualls · Jan 29, 2022

Nodda Duma said:
that and give a handful of high schoolers cool jobs.

Well, with any luck, you're also inoculating them with the silver halide virus. A well established infection will last a lifetime, and may have some value in immunizing against digital...

Well, pinacyanol chloride. Bromocresol was the yellow dye for ortho (found in some yellow food coloring), right? Not Yellow No. 5, it was Yellow No. 2 or 3 as I recall...

Nodda Duma · Jan 29, 2022

Bromocresol won’t do anything for spectral sensitizing.

https://www.photrio.com/forum/attachments/early-sensitizing-dyes-doc.38293/

Donald Qualls · Jan 30, 2022

Ah. Memory's the second thing to go...

Eosin or ertythrosin was what I was trying to remember.

MarkS · Jan 30, 2022

FWIW, Kodak hasn't offered TMX-100 in plate sizes since the late 1990s. That was the last 'normal' emulsion that they offered in plates.... IIRC the plates cost 10x the equivalent sheet film.

Romanko · Feb 24, 2022

Ian Grant said:
Is there anything coming out of Russia ?

Hi Ian,
As far as I know glass plates made by Slavich in Russia are not panchromatic and have a cut-off at 580 nm. I am not sure if they are still produced.

AgX · Feb 24, 2022

They make panchromatic plates too. But not intended for pictorial use.

Romanko · Feb 24, 2022

I contacted Slavich regarding their photographic plates (ПФН-01Т). They are still produced and currently available. You can even buy them straight from the factory in Pereslavl'. (~20000 km from Sydney).

AgX said:
They make panchromatic plates too. But not intended for pictorial use.

Slavich produces a lot of technical plates for use in microscopy, spectroscopy, holography and other applications. I could not find any panchromatic plates on their web site. If you can find the model(s) of such plates that would be great. I always wanted to try them in my 9x12 Fotokor.

Donald Qualls · Feb 24, 2022

Plates intended for microscopy and spectroscopy should be panchromatic and pretty high resolution. Whether their other properties (emulsion speed, for instance, or available sizes) are useful to us is another question. And there's the question of minimum orders and shipping for something as fragile as, well, glass.

Romanko · Feb 24, 2022

I don't expect minimum orders to be an issue here but shipping and payment have always stopped me from buying film/plates/chemistry from Russia.
The standard sizes (in mm) are: 90х120, 90х240, 130х180, 180х240. The speed is "slow" as expected.

Donald Qualls · Feb 24, 2022

"Slow" isn't a show-stopper, most people put their plate cameras on tripods anyway, and I've shot ISO 12 film hand held without problems (f/5.6 at 1/50 in "Hazy" conditions).

90x120 is exactly what a 9x12 camera should expect (9x12 sheet film is a millimeter or two smaller to fit in a sheet metal film sheath that fits in the plate holder). I expect you'd be on your own for development times, since most scientific plates are likely to be developed to much higher contrast than we want (but then so is Copex Rapid and I've used that with good results).

Paul Howell · Feb 24, 2022

If you live the U.S or EU I don't think you will be order anything from Slavich any time in the near future. Then again not sure if plates are on the list of sanctioned goods.

Ian Grant · Feb 24, 2022

I'll wait until things subside and Putin is gone I have contemplated a coating line as a collaborative project in the past, making the emulsion itself isn't an issue, It's something I did for work for over a decade. The reality is I don't want the hassle I'd rather make images I may have to take a different approach, make film inserts an order via Ilford's ULF program.

Ian

AgX · Feb 25, 2022

Romanko said:
Slavich produces a lot of technical plates for use in microscopy, spectroscopy, holography and other applications. I could not find any panchromatic plates on their web site. If you can find the model(s) of such plates that would be great.

PFG-03C

But they are not intended for pictorial photography. In contrast to the late Agfa plates.

grat · Feb 26, 2022

PFN-01T Technical negative photographic plates are designed for portrait, landscape, architectural, product and other technical shooting in black and white photography.

Although those apparently max out at 580nm, so they're not full panchro.

Supplier of Glass plates

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