Dry plate tintypes TAKE TWO! Giving Zebra dry plates a second shot... can I get it right this time??
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- Опубликовано: 29 окт 2023
- Ok so I didn't exactly do Zebra Dry Plate Tintypes the best showing last time out. And in the interest of supporting new and innovative additions to the analogue photography market, I'm going to give these plates a second chance. And I'm going to try harder. And I'm going to keep going until I actually get a decent image out of them. So... let us begin.
Spoiler alert - I get a good one, eventually. And I actually really like it, it's awesome. But it did take me two packs of dry plates to get there, and they're not cheap.
Could I do it again? Umm... maybe.
The thing with these Zebra dry plate tintype things is that the instructions are crazy complicated. They suggest compensating for UV light, shorter exposures in the summer months, longer in the fall and winter. They do offer specific compensation times, how many stops to allow for during these winter months, and also compensations for cloudy vs sunny days.
So I followed those, and they really didn't seem all that accurate. Perhaps it's because you just can't write a list of definitive compensations for the UV light on any given day... because it keeps changing.
The Zebra instructions all give compensations for indoor light. But I tried those too and, as far as I could tell, they were wrong too.
So, whilst I really really like the results I got here, I can't quite see any way to get to those results except by trial and error... and that's a pretty big problem.
Maybe I was over thinking this whole thing. That's definitely possible. I do have a tendency. And in fact, when I stopped compensating for this and that and the other, that was when I got the best results.
Aaaaaanyway. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
As always, big thanks to the most awesome camera maker in the whole world, Samuele at Stenopeika - www.stenopeika.com
And big thanks to Nejc (pronounced like 'Nate') at Zebra. He didn't send me the plates for free, I'm thanking him for all he does in furthering the analogue cause and coming up with new products and keeping us all going. Keep it up! - www.zebradryplates.com
I strongly recommend you head over to Nejc's site and try out some of his plates, they're good fun to use and can give you some amazing results!
That's all for now. Laters!
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About the Zebra plate adapters.....I used an olde wooden plate holder with the bar spring in the bottom. I ordered cheap plexiglass at 2mm thick, slipped them in, leaving the final space for the tintype thickness, and it worked. The plexiglass was about $8 US. Now I have to get up the nerve to try the tintypes. I have always used the 'pull out the dark slide one inch at a time' for test strips, because my exposures were all over the place. I tried the Lane tintypes and they always fell apart. The Rockland kit for me was difficult in the coating part. I finally got a small suction cup, stuck it to the back of the tintype, and dipped it in a tray of emulsion. Lift it by the suction cup, and then use the usual tipping to run off the extra emulsion. Just touch the tintype to the surface of the emulsion, don't dunk it or it will be on the back as well. This worked, but it was taking so long I never did expose them, and they were expensive. I hope the answer is the Zebra plates. Chemical come in a few days, and then using eveyone's suggestions here, I hope to begin. Exposure-wise, are these like a slide? Does a longer exposure make the image lighter or darker...? Thanks. Nyms.
These are essentially direct-positive, once you've done the ammonium thiocyanate additive dev, so more exposure = brighter image. These zebra tin types will save you all the hassle of coating, but they're not without their quirks! I have found it difficult to get it right. To give an example - I had two plates remaining from the pack, so I took them on a shoot recently, with all the knowledge I've gained from the two vids I've done, and I totally messed them up. Almost no visible image at all.
In my eyes they're not cheap, and for a process which I'm going to get wrong as often as I have, the cost is prohibitive.
However, if you're perhaps more attuned to the finer points of exposing these plates, including taking UV into account and being super precise with you exposures, I think others can probably get more from them. I've seen some amazing results posted online.
When you get it right, these plates are fantastic. I just can't seem to reliably get it right! But good luck with your efforts! Let me know how you get on.
GOOD job, teaching the next gen about 4x5, FANTASTIC, the best way of keeping this style of photography alive. (plus another advantage of this portrait subject matter, they are easily bribed with ice-cream, chocolate, etc. a reward for the end, making things run smoother).
Ha ha! I've actually resorted to paying them when I want to take photos of them! I figured I'm paying models to sit for me, so I should really offer the kids some extra pocket money... they are much cheaper than professional models too!
I bought them both Holgas for christmas, they're really enjoying it so far!
congrats mate great effort love these vids cheers
Cheers Paul! Hope you're well mate!
cheers mate yeah steady away ta @@the120ist
You certainly went the extra mile for this process! Really interesting video & I look forward to the future content.
Nothing more frustrating than a process which I can’t get to work. It eats away at me and I can’t leave it alone til I get it right!
Great to see you going through the process - I'd like to give this a go someday. Also, wonderful seeing your kids getting involved in the process!! My kids think its completely 'normal' to faff about with a large format camera for a portrait! 😆 (Though I'm on borrowed time...)
I'm on borrowed time too!! I've resorted to offering extra pocket money... the shame. But you be amazing how far 50p goes!
Glad you enjoyed the vid! Definitely give these plates a try. They're tricky, but very rewarding when you get there!
glad you got some good photos in the end i did keep thinking you were going to poke yourself in the eye with that bit of wood.
Ha! I basically did. But it’s a good method of getting myself in focus. If anyone knows of a better way, which poses less risk to one’s eyes, I’m all ears!
I am considering doing dry plates thanks for showing me how!
Definitely give these dry plate tintypes a go. The complicated instructions, giving different exposure compensations for different months of the year, and indoor etc., are daunting. I actually found i got the best results when I started to ignore those and go with my gut!
@@the120ist Good to know
Thanks for posting this video! I started with the Rockland tin type kit and couldn’t get a good even coating on the plates, so I bought some zebra plates to try out about two months ago. I captured one successful plate out of the 10. Mostly issues with darkroom light leaks, safelights and 3d printed film holder light leaks. I did get some variation in image color and couldn’t quite nail down what the causes were and you shed some clarity on that. I am planning to order some of Nate’s v2 4x5 holders and some more plates this week. The one plate from the first batch that did turn out was quite beautiful and If I get half of this next batch to turn out I’m gonna then go for some 8x10 plates :).
I'm getting all the same issues! Although my 3D printed plate holders seem pretty solid. Which design are you using?
I did that second pack of plates, and I then put them down for a few weeks, doing other things. Then I grabbed the last two when I was heading out on a shoot, and totally messed them up. Way underexposed. Pretty frustrating. They just seem so difficult to get right. Beautiful results when you get it right, but so much wasteage. Anyway, advice for you is maybe take better notes than I do, and make sure you refresh yourself on what works when you go to shoot the plates again!!
Thanks for the advice! Just got the plates and new holder in the mail today. Excited to try them out, but our weather is super frigid, and my darkroom is pretty cold, so I’m gonna have to wait a few days until it warms up. I can’t remember the exact design, but I 3d printed ones with lots of little magnets you have to glue in… I think the one plate that did turn out was shot on a lisco holder that I modified to tape in metal plates…. Yes, I also need better note keeping ;)
Quite enjoyed this, especially the bit with your kids. They did very well, all things considered! A couple thoughts based on my experience with my own plates and these scenarios. First, when I'm going to do a session like that, rather than trying to do a meter reading for each plate and doing the calculations each time, I'll burn a plate during setup -- take a photo of a static scene in the same light (e.g., just something sitting on the chair) by taking your best guess at the exposure (either meter or just sunny 16) and do a progressive exposure of the plate by pulling the dark slide out in roughly 20% or 25% amounts (depending on whether you want four or five sections to compare). I usually do a half or one stop under, estimated exposure, one over, two over. So you might do a series of 1, 1, 2, 4 seconds, pulling out the slide 25% each time. Then develop that plate, and choose the best exposure. That gives you a pretty good idea of the working light, and you can tweak up or down as you go, depending on whether the light is staying relatively constant or not. It sounds rather loosey-goosey I know, but I find it answers quite well most of the time and you spend a bit less time faffing about with the meter. Second, with respect to lights inside: flash does indeed work. The trick is figuring out how sensitive the plates are to your specific flash. I have a 500 w/s monolight that I've mostly sussed out with my plates, understanding how various modifiers affect the results. Can do the same with a speed light. Modifiers may (probably will) require more than one pop to get good results, unless you have a much more powerful monolight. Fortunately, these basic emulsions are so insensitive to warm light that it's OK to have a low level of light on all the time (doesn't have to be just safe lights, either incandescents if you still have any, or your LED lights set to a rather warm color) which is much easier on the sitter's eyes. Lastly, while Lee Lira is far more knowledgeable on this than I, I think the tone of the plates is tied to the size and separation of the silver particle "clumps" as much as other factors, which is greatly affected by exposure. I know this is true of historic printing processes (e.g., salted paper printing, etc.) so I expect it is here as well. Keep up the good work!
Yep. That’d be about the same as printing a darkroom test strip for exposure. Makes perfect sense. But I wouldn’t have thought of it in 100 years. I always like when I learn something new!
Some great info there, thank you! And yes, test strips... why didn't I think of that!!! That would indeed be a very sensible thing to do. Although I still stand by my lifelong hit-and-hope method....
Interesting that the hue may be linked to the exposure. That would definitely ring true with my results, although there was inconsistency in my development, due to inadequacies of my darkroom (outside, no heating, no access to warm water for temp regulation), so I'm introducing a lot of variables.
These plates, and this technique, are fascinating, and whilst I only intended to give them a go and move on to other techniques, I find myself daydreaming about projects I could get into with them. I have a few left over, which I'll use for some more testing, but there might be a long term project in the offing with these soon. Exciting!
Yep, didn't occur to me either! But so obvious when someone else says it!
@@the120ist Excellent, I'll look forward to more work with these at some point. Don't ignore the possibilities of negatives as well, including potentially reversal (something I've been meaning to try but haven't yet). Perhaps someday we can lure you into the world of making them yourself -- the control you get of speed and color sensitivity (should you want that) is nice, plus, even better, you're freed from worrying about sourcing film in any given size. It becomes only a marginal cost difference, and you can make plates for and shoot any size for which you can source a plate holder -- I've done up to 11x14, for example. And for pinhole, you can do anything you want. Come on, you know you want to try it. ;-)
@@RobertBrazile Ohhhh, you're not going to have to try very hard to persuade me into that! I'm creeping towards it as we speak! Not sure what country you're in but here in the UK one of our analogue stores recently closed down (Speedgraphic) and I snapped up a couple of bottles of Fotospeed liquid emulsion... so they're waiting for me. It won't be long!
Great video. Thank you for posting. The images that result look fantastic. I do wonder if you are focusing based on the film plane (not the overall camera position, not the front of the lens)? The difference will probably matter. Cheers from Canada.
one tip, for the latter indoor shoot, use a digital camera, with speedlight (this has a redeye reduction feature); fire the main lights with a light sensing diode switch, sensing the speedlight flash, for the main 4x5 exposure; that way the mirrorless fires the redeye flash, that keeps your eyes adjusted, then the "pop" of the main set is not as much a surprise, so you are more likely to keep your eyes open.
Good advice. I didn't really consider using speedlights for this, as I wasn't sure the power output would even get close. I'll be doing some experiments with flash and the black and white paper reversal process in the next few days, similar ISO, so will be interesting to see the results of that.
Shooting self portraits while trying to learn how to get a good exposure and learn the process is mad. Ha. You've got some serious drive. Well done.
I've been playing around with this process for about a year now, also learnt about it through Nejc, and I've noticed the hue in the final plate is affected by a number of factors:
Blue - areas of under exposure, or too high of a concentration of thiocyanate has acted too aggressively on areas with a thin deposit of emulsion (for example, towards the edges of the plate) before the developer has a chance to reduce it into silver.
Green - this one is fascinating. I did a project where I would develop the tintypes out in the open, I would hard stop the development with an acidic stop bath, open the development box and fix it right away with a very aggressive fixer doped with thiocyanate so that you can see the reversal of the image right before your eyes. And I noticed that when the plate is exposed to strong dose of UV light (e.g. direct sunlight) before the fix starts removing the halide, the final plate will have a very pleasant olive green tone.
I have made a few plates that has a mixture of blue, green and yellowish hues in different areas and those are my absolute favourite.
That is fascinating! It has been really exciting being part of a process where experimentation and learning is still out there. I guess that is true of a lot of photography, but this process seems to have some quirks you don't find in other processes. I love that those hues come out, and if you're able to control them, or at least predict them to some extent, then it could be possible to make some really unique images!
My only issue with this process in particular, is that those plates from Nejc are quite expensive for experimenting. Are you coating your own? Or buying the zebra ones?
@@the120ist I coat them myself, after watching Nejc's tutorial. I'm just the kind who won't be comfortable experimenting with it if every plate is going to cost me a few dollars. It's actually surprisingly easy to make you just need to invest in a few pieces of simple lab equipment and any darkroom that you can make silver gelatine prints in will work.
Another great episode. And kudos to you for keeping going until you succeeded. That process does sound quite complicated with multiple variables. Also a question: did you need to modify a film holder for this? Or do the plates fit in a regular one?
Thanks Steve. Not your average RUclips how to video.... how to not, perhaps!
I think all the instructions they give, and the month by month exposure compensations etc., actually make it more complicated than it needs to be. And most of the time there I was following the instructions and over-compensating for the conditions. Should have just followed my gut!
I've got plate holders for them, different to sheet holders because the plates are thicker. Glass plates are a lot thicker of course, I think about 2-3mm. These are about 0.5mm I think, still significantly thicker than sheets. I have a variety of plate holders, one which works with either glass or metal, one which needs adapters, and a couple which I 3D printed myself and have actually come out really good!
@@the120ist I figured the holders were a bit different. I wasn’t sure how thick the plates were, though. It’s all very interesting, but I think I’d end up pulling out whatever hair I have left with all the compensations with the UV, etc.
Also enjoyed seeing your kids participate. Mine used to do that. Maybe they’ll come back around to it in later years.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I've had the same thing happen with my Zebra plates. I'm sure they're fine, but I just can't seem to dial in the right lighting. Part of the problem is that I don't have a light meter (or digital camera) that goes down to ISO 2. When I use my iPhone app at ISO 2 they plates are either way over or under exposed. Someone told me to use a blue Colkin 80A filter on my iPhone when I get the meter reading and that would be much closer because Zebra plates basically use the blue spectrum. I have not tried it yet, but it makes sense.
Intersting idea, using a filter with your phone. I've definitely been having metering difficulties with these plates, and with other processes that need a low ISO meter reading. Same as you, only thing that goes down to ISO 2 or below is a phone app, and that's a bit hit or miss. I'm having to rely on my Sekonic meter, which goes down to ISO 3, and then some mental maths, which with my brain is a huge risk!!
The actual effect of UV light and orthochromatic processes like this one, is something I'm sort of delving into. Keep an eye out for a vid on that. I'm just at the moment trying to get hold of a spectrometer which will give me a full light spectrum measure, but which won't need a new mortgage! More on this topic coming for sure!
@@the120ist Awesome. I'll keep you updated on the blue filter and let you know if it works. I'm traveling for the next couple of weeks, but as soon as I get back I'll give it a try.
Interesting video. Thanks for sharing your experience! .I think I would also go for an intuitive process based on trial and error.
What artificial light source do you recommend? I saw some very good ones but not for less than 1000 usd.
I think you could probably use almost anything… it might just be trial and error to get the right exposure times. The dry plates are sensitive to blue light, so they’ll react faster to cooler tone light sources. Plus if your lights are not that bright it will still work, you’ll just need longer exposure times. Pretty sure you could get an exposure with just a plain old bedside lamp!
@@the120ist I thought it needed huge amounts of artificial light like wet collodion. Thanks for your reply!
Did you take in account the bellows extension?
EDIT: worked but it needs a lof of light. A ton of light
I just got a pack of the Zebra Tin Types, and its aleady prepared? No pouring Collodion or dipping in the Silver Nitrate bath holder? Just trake a photo and develop?
Yep, already prepared, no pouring. It's not actually a "tin type", it's not collodion based. It's actually a standard BW liquid emulsion, but developed using the additive. Gives a very similar look though! Enjoy.
@@the120ist Thank you for that explanation
How are you metering?