Amazing Ken
This is Ken. He appears here as a farmer, but in real life he is a print salesman.
I chose to back out and get some additional focus as well as some wonderful Petzval lens distortion on this shot.
8x10 wet plate collodion tintype
6-second exposure with two CFL banks and daylight
11.25" Voigtlander Petzval lens from 1857 (wide open at F4.6)
Kodak Master View 8x10 camera
---------------------------------------------
About Wet Plate Collodion:
Wet plate collodion is a 19th-century photographic process invented in 1851. It was the third photographic process (Daguerreotype was the first, Calotype was the second), and used throughout the Civil War. Wet plate collodion was the most popular form of photography from the 1850's into the 1870's.
Wet plate collodion is a process of hand-coating a plate of glass or metal with salted collodion and then sensitizing the plate in a solution of silver nitrate, making the plate light sensitive. The plate is then transferred (in a darkroom) to a light-tight holder, and then to a nearby camera while still wet. The image is exposed using a view camera (of any size). Exposures need a lot of light, and the plate is only sensitive to UV light (no reds or yellows) and has an ISO of less than 1 (yes, one).
After exposure, the holder is taken into a darkroom, the plate removed, and a developing solution poured over the plate. It is then hand developed, stopped, and rinsed. At this point, the plate can be taken out of the darkoom. The image appears as a negative until a fixing agent poured over the plate turns it into a positive. For an ambrotype (wet plate collodion on glass), the silver is a creamy color, so the image appears as a negative if viewed against a bright white and a positive if viewed with a black background. Ambrotypes can be made specifically for use as glass negatives as well (for contact printing). For a tintype (on metal), the plate is pre-coated with a black background, and the final collodion image appears as a positive. The final step of the process is varnishing the plate to protect the silver from tarnishing.
Amazing Ken
This is Ken. He appears here as a farmer, but in real life he is a print salesman.
I chose to back out and get some additional focus as well as some wonderful Petzval lens distortion on this shot.
8x10 wet plate collodion tintype
6-second exposure with two CFL banks and daylight
11.25" Voigtlander Petzval lens from 1857 (wide open at F4.6)
Kodak Master View 8x10 camera
---------------------------------------------
About Wet Plate Collodion:
Wet plate collodion is a 19th-century photographic process invented in 1851. It was the third photographic process (Daguerreotype was the first, Calotype was the second), and used throughout the Civil War. Wet plate collodion was the most popular form of photography from the 1850's into the 1870's.
Wet plate collodion is a process of hand-coating a plate of glass or metal with salted collodion and then sensitizing the plate in a solution of silver nitrate, making the plate light sensitive. The plate is then transferred (in a darkroom) to a light-tight holder, and then to a nearby camera while still wet. The image is exposed using a view camera (of any size). Exposures need a lot of light, and the plate is only sensitive to UV light (no reds or yellows) and has an ISO of less than 1 (yes, one).
After exposure, the holder is taken into a darkroom, the plate removed, and a developing solution poured over the plate. It is then hand developed, stopped, and rinsed. At this point, the plate can be taken out of the darkoom. The image appears as a negative until a fixing agent poured over the plate turns it into a positive. For an ambrotype (wet plate collodion on glass), the silver is a creamy color, so the image appears as a negative if viewed against a bright white and a positive if viewed with a black background. Ambrotypes can be made specifically for use as glass negatives as well (for contact printing). For a tintype (on metal), the plate is pre-coated with a black background, and the final collodion image appears as a positive. The final step of the process is varnishing the plate to protect the silver from tarnishing.