opticman

I shoot my 4x5 plates in my Speed Graphic..you just need a plate holder to accommodate the glass thickness.

An article that Petapixel ran last month on the dry plates that I spontaneously stumbled into selling at the beginning of the year. Dry Glass Plate Photography is Back Freestyle Photo, Blue Moon Camera, and Argentix.Ca in Canada all sell my dry plates now. I thought those of you with plate cameras in your collection might be interested to know.

Ben it could be that your older oak holders are half-plate size (4.5" x 5.5" for tin-type, and 4.75" x 6.5" for plates), or possibly Cabinet Card size at 4.5" x 6.5".

A scan of an example plate.

For those of you who'd like to try dry plate photography but the process of making and coating your own emulsion is just too intimidating, I would like to announce that I have begun offering for sale newly-made dry plates, otherwise known as glass plate negatives. The plates are of the correct historical thickness (~0.050"), and the emulsion is of "normal" spectral response, with a typical sensitivity that I've tested to be about ISO 2 (you can shoot it at faster speeds, but I haven't explored that aspect much). As such, you can tray develop it under a safelight. The emulsion is virtually grainless, and has a very nice balance of tonality and contrast. Different developers give different results.. I've settled on the higher contrast of HC-110 Dil B but it still maintains a nice tonality. Developing by inspection also opens up a whole new variable to explore which is not often available when developing negatives. Recommended developing instructions are provided on the packaging, and I think you'll also enjoy experimenting with the plates. I've spent several years perfecting the coating technique, and the plates have come out nice enough and consistent enough in quality that I can dare offer to share them with others, but keep in mind that these are hand-made, which provides a certain ... character ... to the final product. In most cases, however, it is a pleasing effect, and I have made some very nice enlargements which have been put on display in local galleries, public buildings, etc. Many of the prints that are seen in my etsy shop (see below) are worth looking at as examples of dry plate photographs I have taken. Plates are offered in all sizes: I have a handful of stock offerings, and can otherwise coat any size you want. The largest I have coated for customers are 12"x20" plates, and the smallest I have coated are 35mm "test plates" that I make to test emulsion batches. Prices scale with the size of the plate, and are priced to cover my material costs and a little extra to stock my beer fridge. I've been selling these for about a month. To meet the demand, I've created an Etsy storefront where you can place an order for plates. There are also examples of prints there as well, enlarged from glass negatives that I've shot and developed. https://www.etsy.com/shop/Pictoriographica I also set up a facebook page so that folks interested can follow along as I continously develop improvements or new variations. Pictoriographica Thanks, Jason

Update: So after posting here, I spent most of Holiday vacation making plates to keep up with the subsequent demand. I estimate 40+ boxes of plates have been sold in the past 10 days, mostly in 4x5 but other sizes as well including custom orders as large as 12"x20". I've been making emulsion like crazy and scrambling for glass and boxes for packaging (I've never stressed out about boxes before). I am in the process of setting up listings on my Etsy storefront to make it easier for people to place orders, and I can also be contacted for specific requests. So it's been pretty awesome that there's so much interest in dry plates... that type of process has been the red-headed step-child of alternative process photography for a long time. https://www.etsy.com/shop/Pictoriographica While searching, I stumbled across information about that Kickstarter last year that the poster above mentions. I didn't even know they existed. It's too bad because they met their threshold and there were a lot of folks interested in plates that they disappointed. In any case, I'm an optical engineer (lens designer) who was making plates for my own use up until two weeks ago, and instead of a nice relaxing holiday was busy meeting the surprising demand. My wife is happy that I can cover cost of my photography hobby, at the very least. A win-win all around! -Jason

When I went through security in early October, they were hollering about pulling out all electronics larger than a cell phone. Since my cameras I had with me were all pre-electronic (1890s-1950s), I left them in the bag. They made me pull them out and run them through the scanners separately. When I pointed out they were antique cameras and had no electronics whatsoever, they said they still had to come out because "the bags block the view through them." TSA is an insult to the intelligence of all people.

Hi, I've been making and perfecting dry plates coated with my own emulsion for a couple years now, using them to create photographs and prints that have been popular locally. You can see some in my gallery here. The emulsion is ~ISO 2, and has a normal sensitivity (sees UV and blue) with a very old-style look. The plates can be tray developed under a safelight similar to developing prints (except I use HC-110 Dil B), so no special equipment is needed. I posted classifieds (not here) to sell some boxes of spare plates to others to use, and they sold surprisingly quickly with inquiries about whether I had more to sell. In light of that, I figured it might be fun to see how interested people are in trying out plates or have tried them with a "normal" slow, virtually grainless emulsion such as you'd use in the late 1880s. So I set up a poll. I shoot 4"x5", but I'm sure other folks shoot other sizes. If newly made dry plates were available , would you be tempted to try them out?