Vedos

Here are my very first ambrotypes ever! Not exactly a great success… I seem to need some more practise in pouring collodion …

The images look somewhat low in contrast, there may be several reasons for this:

• overexposure
• light leaks in the camera (had a hard time removing & inserting the plate holder’s dark slide — the moisture from the dripping plate must have softened it somehow… while twitching it I may have enabled some light leak… the conclusion is that my wooden plate holder will not be good for this, I guess I’ll need to make another one from a modern aluminium/plastic holder)
• my chemistry and/or developing technique
• etc…

A pair of shoes (à la van Gogh ), my first try with the wet plate collodion. The 18×24cm plate was sensitized in silver nitrate for three minutes, exposed in camera for 12 seconds, developed for 15 secons, rinsed, and fixed for one minute.

The images here were shot with a Tachihara 8×10″ camera and a simple home-made f:6,7/400 mm lens. The lighting was with a Ianebeam 2000W halogen lamp.

The chemistry:
Collodion, solution approx. 4%, USP (Sharlab).
Iodizer, 3g cadmium bromide + 4g potassium iodide dissolved in 6ml distilled water — this mixture was added to a solution of 120ml Sinol (denatured alcohol) + 120 ml ether.
Working collodion (for pouring onto plate), Sharlab collodion + iodizer, 1:1.
The silver bath (for sensitizing the plate), 90g silver nitrate to 1000ml distilled water.
The developer, 15g ferrous sulfate + 14ml acetic acid + 18ml Sinol to 355ml distilled water.
The fixer, sodium thiosulfate, 20% solution.

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For cleaning and disinfection purposes we have two renowned products in Finland: Vim, a scourer for kitchens & bathrooms, and Sinol, which is basically ~95% ethanol (denatured alcohol). I’m intending to use a mix of these ingredients for cleaning my glass plates.

So, what I do is mix Vim and Sinol 1:1, pour a little pool of the mix on a glass plate, and rub it all over, by circular motions, with a cotton pad. Then comes rubbing with another dry pad, and a third one, until the plate is completely dry and clean. Both sides of the plate are getting similar treatment.

I then store the plates (18 x 24 cm) in a photo paper box, each plate separated by a sheet of paper.

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I mixed 90 grams of silver nitrate to 1 liter of distilled water to make the sensitizing solution for wet plates…

Measured its specific gravity (1.08) and determined the pH (around 4 - 5).

I’m keeping the solution in a plastic bottle in a dark and cool place… waiting for the first glass plate to be sensitized.

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Found another nice looking lens from a dump - it’s in a good condition, could be from an OHP or such…

So, I cleaned it and made a simple cardboard lens board to be able to use it on a view camera…

Tried to figure out the focal length and aperture… I put the lens on Tachihara 8×10 camera and made some viewing tests. The focal length seems to be 300 mm and the aperture about f:5. So, a nice and fast lens — and will easily cover 8×10, allowing quite a lot of camera movements too! I’m hoping to use it for wetplates some day.

By the way, the lens measurements were done with a view camera TTW (”Thru The Window”) , because it is so damn cold outside: -25 C / -13 F.

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Finally got my acrylic sheets — 5 mm thick and cut to sizes. All I had to do was glue the pieces together (with Acrifix 106 adhesive) to build my silver bath tank. The glue has now fully dried, and after the first tests the tank seems to hold water, with no leaks!

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