Plate holders

Plate holders arrived from England, two of them. They fit the 12x15 camera. Well, they will fit it with a little fussing. They are both most exactly the same size, being just a little larger here and there. A little sanding, glue, tape, a hinge, paint inside, well, more than a little fussing is required. Beggars can't be choosers. You just can't get holders this size very often. They are older and more beat up than the nasty 10x12 what needs work. Very well. Glad to have 'em both.

The 11x14 puddle pusher may work for 12x15 plates if a dowl rod is inside the glass tube and the ends of THAT rod are built up with tape. Anything larger is a special order and costs much more. I can try to make what I got work.

Three new 19th century books were downloaded from Google books. Now I've got to read three web sites and three old books. No problem. One book has plans on how to construct drying cabinets for plates or for papers. Just what I need. The source is the article written by Ms Ross for The Light Farm located in Articles.

A Pot to pour plates with

My sister in law was showing us how to clean our noses, when I said, "Hey, wait a minuet, where did you get that Pot?" I thought it would be perfect to pour emulsion out with. Since I havn't been able to find one in Thrift Stores, I went over to the local Whole Foods Store and got one. It is called a NETI POT, breath easier. www NetiPot dot org. HA, it is even from my state, PA.

That web is HUGE

There are three different webs that I am studying, not just one. You can get to number two and three of them from the one, The Light Farm. The links are in the big box, under the line, at the bottom. Emulsion Coating Wells is part of The Light Farm since it is just one page. That there are three webs and not one was a revelation to me. The Light Farm is the largest of the webs, but the other two are each a good size. Everything has to be sorted out before I start studying. Sorting is studying. I have to know what I need to know. Denise W. Ross Photography is another web. That one is first for me but was last that I found. I bought a print of that image of the forest path, "Hope". The third web is The Original "Adventures in Emulsion_Making" blog

1. http://thelightfarm.com/

2. http://dwrphotos.com/

3. http://dwrphotos.com/blog/EmulsionResearch.htm

Now she's off learning more about something new and surely another web is in the making.
I'b best start on the first page of one of these three and go through to the end several times over. Hand coloring is very interesting to me so perhaps I'll read everything in drwphotos first.

follow along on my web site

It has been a while since my last post. Please follow along on my web site:
http://www.studiocarter.com
Denise has sent me her old favorite emulsion well that is 10 inches wide inside. Great. Now I can finish fixing up my oldest and roughfest Vaageeswari 10x12 camera. It has a ground glass holder with loose corners. Brass corner brackets were purchased. A dremmel was purchased and it has a kit with very thin drills. Brass may be polished and screws may be installed.
Chrome Alm, Hard Gelatin, Hardener Fixer, and a new bottle of emulsion were purchased.
I want to work in the darkroom again.

Densities of negatives

A 10x12 light table was purchased in order to see densities of different negatives at the same time. The photograph was made with a Canon and a basic lens. Edges of the table are less light so six different 4x5 glass plates don't photograph as well as they could, but they can all be seen together.

This marks a point of change. New work will soon begin. Getting glass to accept emulsion, exposing it correctly (?), developing it, drying and so on was the goal and it has been met.

New work will begin soon. A drape must be made inside the light tight darkroom door so I can leave plates out to dry. Larger plates must be learned how to be coated. The ultimate is 12x15, some day. And then I'd like to shoot and develop some more 4x5s, perhaps even make a contact print instead of scanning them all the time.

Strip Bracket Test

Bracketed Strip Test, f 16 @ 1 second each. A bright sunny day but not brilliant dry air, a slight haze, and it was humid. It was the same time and the same kind of sun as the last shot the day before. However, the Weston meter said 100 instead of 200; it may be inconsistent, I don't know. The Luna Pro, from the subject, pointed at the camera was 21. (That wasn't done right the first time). This file is not enhanced or touched up in any way. The negative is 4x5, glass plate, Liquid Light, Dektol 1:3, but development took 6 minuets. The plate was dried two full days and no prewetting had been done prior to developing. It developed by inspection, the edges got dark first and much later the center areas. I developed it until it showed the darker steps, one side was darker and there was tone in the other areas. The other plates were still damp when I developed them. This plate is the best pour so far. The camera was the Bender, and the lens 210 f 5.6 Caltar.

What is the correct exposure? What is the ISO? The middle one is f 16 @ 4 seconds. It looks dark.

More accurate measurements of the light need to be made. Fresh emulsion needs to be used. This batch had been heated up many times. It is too soon to determine exact ISO.

Exposure of Liquid Light emulsion

What is the ISO or ASA or speed of Liquid Light emulsion? Well, I got a pretty good picture at f8 at 1 second on a almost brilliant sunny day of average subject. The Sunny Sixteen Rule was applied to those factors. As it turns out, a brilliant day is 200 or 20 depending on which light meter you use. It does not matter what ISO you have to work with; all meters and cameras and lenses are based on this Rule: brilliant sun is gaged at f 16 at 1 over the film speed for the shutter. So, if you have 200 as the bright sun as on a Weston light meter, and 400 for a film speed, f 16 falls on 1/400 second for exposure. Lenses must be focused on infinity. Anything closer will cause the bellows to be extended farther, decreasing light intensity by the square of the distance. Infinity focus is required to start with in order to determine exposure using the Sunny Sixteen Rule.

My daylight and exposure fit the above information perfectly. ISO was ... the lowest setting on any light meter at hand. Get a Weston 715 just for the dial, the cell does not even need to work. Light was 18.5 on a Luna Pro or one block lower than 200 on the Weston. It looks like I'll be using the old Weston meter again.

The other part of the equation is developing the exposed plate in the darkroom. This is also standardized. Dektol is used, diluted 1:3, one part Dektol to three parts water. Mix according to directions on the package to get the one part. One minuet is used as a time. 69 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature throughout. Agitation is minimal. Kodak Fixer is used to both stop the development and to fix. A small amount of Fixer is put in a tray and used as a stop bath for 30 seconds. The fixer tray has more in it and is used for at least 2 minuets. If milky white is observed in the plate, then longer time is required to remove it. 5 minuets of wash in water is all that remains. Plates are stood on edge on a paper towel to dry. Drying can take one hour to all day depending on how thick the emulsion is, dryer air and more of it speeds things up. I place the completed dry plate in a sealable plastic bag.

Washing comes first, Calcium Carbonate or Barkeeper's Friend are enough with a tap water rinse to get the emulsion to stick. I scrub the powder with a brush and a little bit of water over the plate in a tiny tray. Lots of tap water cleans it off. That is all that is needed.