Newbie Formula?

[EASmithV]

I was wondering if you all had a really easy, dead-simple to get wrong formula for emulsion making that you recommended to newbies. I have been looking through other people's results and I am quite impressed with what they have accomplished.

I want to get into simple emulsion making, and I don't want to have to deal with too many different materials at first.

Any ideas?

*Edit* forgot to mention I want to make dry plates

[dwdmguy]

Bumping up and looking forward to an answer as well......

[Jerevan]

At the www.thelightfarm.com, under Dry Plate Photography, there is a simple one, which I some good day will try out...

[jnanian]

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum229/...us-things.html


have fun!

john

[Christopher Walrath]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.167 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

Bumping and waiting for Denise.

[Kirk Keyes]

No need to bump. Denise will swing by.

Certainly give her formula a try. She does a good job of describing how to do it and her formulas work well.

[Photo Engineer]

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum229/...us-things.html


have fun!

john

I think that this Kodak formula is a good place to start.

However, there can be a steep learning curve in getting a good dry plate so don't get discouraged.

PE

[dwross]

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9000/4.6.0.167 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

Bumping and waiting for Denise.

Hopefully with more info than Godot.

It's been my observation that the difficulty of making dry plates has become horribly inflated in modern legend. All of us in traditional photography take far more complexity in stride. Loading cameras with film, and getting that film developed and printed in a chemical darkroom, not to mention any of the alternative processes, is every bit - if not more - challenging.

The barrier to doing seems to be in the mind, not in the technique. Kevin's recipe (http://www.thelightfarm.com/Map/DryP...PlatePart3.htm) is an excellent place to start. Don't bother with the thymol. You won't let your emulsion sit around long enough to go bad . The other two recipes on TLF are only incrementally more complex.

Make every step as simple as you can in the beginning. Each time you make a recipe, one more piece of the puzzle will fall into place. A good example is glass preparation. To start, smooth your plate edges just enough to avoid cutting yourself. You'll get a bit of emulsion pullback from any chips, but you'll still get a good feel for the emulsion. Later, you can add some sanding pads and make better pieces of glass. http://www.thelightfarm.com/Map/DryP...PlatePart4.htm. The additional steps needed for increasingly 'perfect' results will flow naturally from the learning process. I'm not particularly fond of the connotation of 'steep learning curve'. There is actually not that much that you have to learn to get started. As with all crafts, practice will make the process easier and the product better.

One note of opinion: Pour-coating is a great way to get started, but only a few people will become proficient at coating a good plate that way. This is the real root of the 'It's hard!' reputation dry plate has. The folks who have an extensive background in wet plate pouring are miles ahead. Kevin pours a very nice plate because of all his wet plate collodion practice. I would never in all my years get that good, so I devised a coating system that works for klutzes (that would be me) http://www.thelightfarm.com/Map/DryP...latePart4a.htm. The mechanics couldn't be simpler and anyone with access to a flat lapidary glass grinder can customize their own.

The best of luck and fun,
Denise

[EASmithV]

So your saying that for materials I need to buy (at least, I'll probably overbuy);

10g gelatin
8.5g KBr
10g of AgNO3
Jug of Distilled water

Is that all I need? How many plates will this coat?

Do I need to add the Hypo in? What is the purpose of it? And is a 0.02% soloution what I'd normally mix up for a film rinse? Can I substitute with Permawash?

[Kirk Keyes]

That's a good start - and you can get all of them from the Photographers Formulary.

What size plate are you interested in?

Hypo solution - You mix up a 0.02% hypo solution and then add 1 ml of that solution to "Solution A". A 0.02% solution of hypo is made by dissolving 0.2 g hypo into 1000 mls of water.

"Hypo" is sodium thiosulfate. Hypo is not Permawash. Permawash is a washing aid. Hypo is also not Hypo Clearing Agent, another washing aid, which you seem to have it confused with.

The sodium thiosulfate is a source of sulfur which is used to increase the film speed of the emulsion.