latest effort

[totalamateur]

Here are 3 of the remaining 4 plates from the last batch- one came out nearly printable!
GF in front of house - F16 / 4 seconds - LR metered 1/20 at ISo 100 at F8. I'm pretty proud of this one.
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...o/IMG_9921.jpg

Lid to Grandpa's customized BBQ grill, came out good, but not the best subject. F16 - 5 seconds - SLR metered F 8, 1/90 ISo 100

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...o/IMG_9919.jpg

View from my backyard - total mush. Plate will be recycled in the next batch.
http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...o/IMG_9920.jpg

So the density does not appear to be all that great - I'm thinking this is likely due to dilution during the wash. Presently I squeeze my emulsion through a piece of fishnet stocking, which I think chops it up too fine, resulting in too much water on the surface. Looks like I'm getting light leaks from somewhere too. All easy things to fix next time.

[Photo Engineer]

Not too bad for first efforts. Keep it up!

PE

[Athiril]

Looks good. My first attempts will never be posted here. They are far worse than you might imagine!

Do they happen to be clean and clear glass plates? ...Sounds like my first roll of b&w when I wanted to see what would happen if I used laundry bleach on it >.>

[Photo Engineer]

No, they were paper negatives and as such should have been better than a glass plate at that stage of my work but they were not. And, the emulsion itself was horrible. 'Nuff said?

PE

[Emulsion]

Great results! What is your guess at the ASA/ISO?
Cheers,
Emulsion.

[totalamateur]

Well, my SLR metered 1/20 in the shadows at F8, ISO 100, so my 4 second exposures were 6 stops slower. I shot F16 for most of these - so the film speed was 5 stops slower than ISO100 - so that would be ISO ~3 as best as I can figure.

Nothing ever appeared blown out, though probably is partially an issue due to low density. I had one plate that was clearly exposed to brod daylight that didn't turn totally black.

On the other hand the darkest part of the frame in #9921 was the portion underneath where my GF was sitting, and this appears to have detail, so I don't think that I underexposed the shadows. I cannot understand why the green grass appears so underexposed, when it was in broad daylight, and my front door, which is in shadow - and painted dark red to boot - appears to have about the same density. I would think that the dark red door in the shadows would have the lowest density of anything in the frame.

I generally take to long road to a short thought. I figure my ISO was 3 or a tad less.

For those of you that know (so much) more than me - about when do I need to start worrying about reciprocity failure?

Thanks.

[dwross]

On the other hand the darkest part of the frame in #9921 was the portion underneath where my GF was sitting, and this appears to have detail, so I don't think that I underexposed the shadows. I cannot understand why the green grass appears so underexposed, when it was in broad daylight, and my front door, which is in shadow - and painted dark red to boot - appears to have about the same density. I would think that the dark red door in the shadows would have the lowest density of anything in the frame.

You're looking at the recording characteristics of 'color-blind' emulsion. You'd see something similar with ortho emulsion. It's why old b&w photographs of women often show them with black lips. It's the film's take on their fire engine red lipstick. It wasn't until pan film that colors were recorded in ways we now consider 'normal'. A bit more info here: http://thelightfarm.com/Map/DryPlate...latePart5b.htm

Three cheers for your progress! Congratulations.
d

[totalamateur]

Well, I used up the last bit in the jar I kept in the fridge for 2 weeks to shoot some test shots lit with Grandpa's old GE Super 8 movie light.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...o/IMG_0080.jpg
F7.7 @ 1.5S SLR metered 1/30 at f16 ISO 100

The density is low; but this batch of plates seemsto be a little more fine grained- I think it's due to the developer haveing been mixed and aged a bit more - the first few frames were developed immediately after I mixed the D-76 up. Also maybe due to a thinner coat of emulsion.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...o/IMG_0079.jpg
F16@ 2 secs. I think I was being over-optimistic on my previous ISO 4 estimate - probably more like ISO 1 or 2

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...o/IMG_0078.jpg
F32@12 seconds - There's a pumpkin and some red and orange blocks in this one that the film couln't see, and has nearly the same density as the black leather background.

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/i...o/IMG_0077.jpg
THis is the "wasabi" slide -

After the mercury developer forum that somehow got into possible sushi addenda, I thought, what the hey, and mixed in a bit of Wasabi to the last plate. I learned the following:

Warm wasabi emulsion in a small darkroom makes said darkroom nearly uninhabitable. I thought I was going to choke on the fumes several times.

It gave no apparent increase in speed whatsoever. (or fog)

Wasabi is not nearly finely ground enough for emulsion making, as it left spots everywhere

Oddly enough, the blacks are a much darker tone, and it looks like the contrast is a little higher. The Wasabi frame was also shot at F32 , 12 seconds, and like the frame before it, developed 20 minutes in full strength (but I think nearly exhausted) D-76.

Question time!
Do ya'll get about 12 frames of 8X10 plates out of a liter of D-76 before it's time to replace?
Is it normal for the developer to result in finer grain as it ages?
Do the higher density areas on plates (that are made better than mine) ever approach being opaque?

Thanks everybody!