Reverse developing Glass Dry Plates to direct POSITIVE | Advanced Film Photography | Foma Emulsion
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- Опубликовано: 26 янв 2021
- In this week's video I tried to coat my own dry plates and reverse develop them to direct Positive! This is a bit more advanced film developing technique but many of you alternative photography lovers wished to see how it's done. I was experimenting for over three weeks trying to get the perfect combination of emulsion thickness and development. After more than 25 plates later it still is not perfect but I learned so much. This video is packed with information and first hand tips. I show you how I coat the glass with a thin layer of emulsion, expose it and reverse develop to positive including all 11 steps and chemistry. I hope you enjoy it :)
If you would like a written form of this video check out my detailed Blog post: lostlightphotography.com/reve...
If you would like to spare some effort and just shot you can buy ready made hand coated glass dry plates from the official Zebra Dry Plate Store: zebradryplates.com
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▪️DARKROOM GEAR:
Hand Coated Glass Dry-Plate made by me: www.etsy.com/listing/83215991...
Developer: Ilford HC-110 (Dilution B)
Fixer: Adox Adofix Plus
📷 GEAR I USED TO MAKE THIS VIDEO:
Lumix LX 15
Canon EF-m 15-45mm
Lumix LX15
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Nejc, I'm a former demonstrator for darkroom products (Durst amateur enlargers in the U.S.) and I must tell you that your instruction / demonstration videos are some of the most informative, concise and comprehensive I've EVER seen on youtube. I hope your viewers notice this and archive them ...and support you! Anyway, please continue the excellent work.
Thank you for the kind words. I try to be as detailed as possible and understandable at the same time. Basically all the videos I make are made in a way I wished to have when I was starting out :)
@@lostlightart6064 In that case, I'm very happy that the videos you saw when you were starting out were apparently bad! ;o)
@@chickenitsa Not necessarily bad but you had to watch a few to gather all the informations 😉
@@lostlightart6064 Yes, I was only [half] joking. But that's why I used the word "concise" in complimenting your videos. Too many other videos take way too long to get to the essential information (or, sometimes don't even get to it!), or we feel that the youtuber we are watching is just trying to show off, in some way (his or her equipment, darkroom, haircut...). Again, I hope that other viewers will recognize how the straightforward, "down to business" quality about your videos help in learning something more quickly (even your corresponding captions and graphics .. and editing.. are good). Your videos are -or should be!- a good standard to compare others to.
I've done a couple rolls of modern film by B&W reversal with dichromate bleach -- essentially your process, but without the hand coated glass plate (and on panchromatic material, so the first development was done in a daylight tank).
I used print strength Dektol (1+1, as I recall) with a little thiosulfate added for first developer -- faster working than HC-110, mainly, though with 35 mm Tri-X I think it also helped with final grain by preferentially developing the coarser halide crystals (to then be bleached away).
The option does exist to separate the thiosulfate from the first developer, too -- develop, stop or wash, bleach, wash, clear, then put the plate into a similar strength of hypo solution and watch for the thinning of the least of the least dense parts of the milky halide. The trick is to stop as soon as max-bright areas go fully clear (thus preserving some halide to develop in what I think of as Zones VII and XI). When the plate looks right, wash, then give the reversal exposure, second developer, stop/wash, and fix as usual.
I haven't gotten to try this method of "lightening by inspection" because my old darkroom got closed down just after I'd licked the conventional reversal process, but I have some ortho film on hand now that I plan to use to verify that this works. I think it will make it much easier to get the final positive "just right". I also plan/hope to use acidic copper sulfate followed by ammonium hydroxide for bleach -- not carcinogenic and (I think) safe for my septic tank (certainly safe for city sewer systems). Good ventilation is a must here, but I believe this will be much safer than dichromate and won't soften the emulsion the way permanganate bleach does.
Very nice and helpful. I'm going to try this!
I am glad I stumbled onto your website. Your presentations are informative, easy to understand, and inspirational. Well done.
Thanks Charles 😊
Amazing! Amazing! It is great!
Dude! You are absolutely the best to watch. Thank you for all the great videos and saving me so much money from failed plates.
Thank you a lot. Glad you are enjoying my Videos :)
Great video. I played with this a couple years ago. Get a chemistry hot plate. You can place you glass plates on the hot plate and heat the glass evenly before applying the emulsion. You can also put the glass plate back on the hot plate after coating and let the emulsion level itself out. I was trying to use a different bleach but ran into a lot of issues with emulsion coming off the glass or poor bleaching.. It looks like you got a great system going.
amazing! *asking for a tutorial of lithograph photography (lith prints) please*. i would appreciate it.
thank you for this video, very interesting
Thank you for watching 🤗
As always, an informative and creative video Nejc. Excellent information for everyone to follow and nothing secretive. A great video. You must be getting tired of me telling you what a great job you're doing but continue to inform us on various techniques and processes.
Cheers from Canada.
I love it so I will definitely continue! Thanks and cheers from Slovenia 🤗
Outstanding
Thank you Rob!
another great video, thank you. Is there a way to complete this process with maybe less toxic chemicals available at home?
Super interesting!
Thanks 😊
For extra adhesion and ease of wetting (so the emulsion runs smoothly) you can run a blowtorch flame over the glass just fast enough to "chase" the condensation, don't over heat, the plate should not heat above 60 C°. Its crazy the difference it makes, this is used industrially to make surfaces hydrophilic so coatings stick its called flame surface treatment or plasma surface treatment in case plasma is used instead.
Great video. Thanks for sharing :-)
Thank you 🤗
Is there an approximate ISO setting that I can use to set aperture and shutter speed? Great work by the way!
Just discovers a cache of old Kodak materials amongst my late grandfather’s things including bellows, Kodak cine C-mount lenses, and some truly awesome measurement tools. Thanks for sharing. Your enthusiasm encourages me to get started with it.
Ps Do you do much with developing your own medium format film? If so, what techniques do you employ?
Vsa čast! Tako za natančne in jedrnate videe kot za metodično izpopolnjevanje procesa. Edino bojim se, da sem se nalezel navdušenja nad starimi tehnikami :D
Hvala Janez. Ja hitro se lahko nalezeš :D
Spin coating record player would make great video! I would really like to see that.
The heated slab worked for me, cold at one end. A glass surround that was raised by a paper thickness or two let a scraper glass apply a smooth coating. A large heating pad under is next
Thanks for sharing Michael!
Thank you for very instructive videos. - I see you rated the emulsion at ISO 1 indoors, and then I wondered if you used the reciprocity data for fomapan 100 or something similar?
Hey WayUpNorth. To be honest I have been exclusively shooting dry plates for the last 6months and yes with dry plates there is a reciprocity error but because of the fine grain emulsion it starts to show with exposure over a minute and more. With modern more sensitive films reciprocity because noticeable at much shorter speeds ;)
One suggestion on the spin coating: a technique I have used for Niepceotypes is from Mark Osterman: use a valve from an engine mounted in a hand-driven "eggbeater"-style drill, which allows good control over the speed. Double-stick tape will hold the plate to the surface of the valve. You will want to put the spinning plate inside something to contain the excess emulsion being flung off. I would expect the coating to be very even, but a bit thin without a great deal of care.
Thank you Robert. I am concerned that the plate will also have to be heated somehow or the emulsion wil gel to quickly?
@@lostlightart6064 perhaps. I went from heating my plates on a warming tray to coating them on room temperature plates with little trouble, but never tried spin coating with gelatin. But if you’re concerned, an inexpensive food warming tray (I bought mine off eBay for $25) set to low with a towel on it will do a nice job of keeping up to 8 plates or so warm and ready to go. One other thought: I have found thin coatings to be rather susceptible to halation, to the point where I was experimenting with anti-halation coatings. But I found that if I just left more emulsion on the plate the problem subsided. Takes longer to dry, but this is a process that calls for patience anyway...
@@RobertBrazile Yes I mean the problem may not be just in the thickness but also in the density of the emulsion. Maybe I need to dilute the emulsion down a bit so it can develop all the way thru despite being a bit thicker...
Great video, thank you for sharing. Will an emulsion with hardener not work with this process?
Thanks. No because chemicals wont be able to get to all the exposed silver ;)
I'm in the process of buying everything I need for dry plates, do you think I can replace the kodak developer with 510 pyro? I'm trying to keep costs down & I already have this.
One questione, the bleach bath is only commercial bleach (NaClO)? and wath is the composition of the clearing bath?
Hello, txs a lot; i have used decades ago "liquid light" emulsion; sometimes the emulsion has cracked ,after few months, for what reason,? cheers
i have no experience, but i can imagine, that a vibrating (maybe heated) plate, those for laboratory use, would help you to coat your plates evenly.
great video! question, where do you buy your commercial photo emulsion from? I can’t seem to locate anywhere. thanks!
If I dont make my own I buy it from Foma.cz
Hi Nejc,
Thank you for this tutorial, can't wait to try reverse developing on my own.
Just a question though, about the bleach bath : I know Potassium Dichromate is forbidden now in Europe (impossible to buy here in France), do you know if I could use any other chemical ?
Thank you and keep up the good work !
I actually just went through the comments and saw you already answered to a similar comment, my bad.
@@pierremartial5621 i didnt find it! what is the answer?
Thanks for this! Just to clarify do you mean hypo clear for the clear bath?
No its a clearing bath with sodium sulphite
For spin coating a salad spinner (used for drying washed salad leaves) might be a cheap solution.
Nice
Thank you 🤗
It would be great to see such plates projected in a large theater. Do 4x5 slide projectors exist?
Yes that would be cool. I think they should exist knowing that magic lanterns were big thing at some point in the history...
In Foma Emulsion do you apply the complete hardener to the emulsion and later you melt it or is the hardener applied only to the final melted emulsion prior to sentisitze? I ask since i didn't see you apply it before coating. Nice idea to warm the plate
Adding Hardener is not necessary and with direct positive plates it is not recommended. Otherwise for negative plates hardener is added to the melted emulsion right before coating
Hi! do you know if this glass is valid to use in an enlarger as paper? Thanks for sharing your knowlegde!
Yes its possible so theoretically you could make a positive image on glass out of a negatve glass dry plate
@@lostlightart6064 I was also thinking if it’s possible to use a 35mm and expose it on a glass plate using enlarger. I’m guessing the process would be very similar?
Did you find the time to give a try to the spin coating ? I would love to see it applied in this field, I tried it once in a white room for wafers. :)
I did with very bad results as the emulsion is to thick. If you dilute it down coatings are better but there density is gone! I tried many different ways anx came to a conclusiom that spin coating is not the way to go 😉
Have you looked at using a paint drawdown bar for even coating?
No but I will thanks 🤗
can the chemistry be reused? Or was your mixture the amount of chemistry per plate? Thank you.
Pretty much all of them can be used quite a few times 😉
Thanks for sharing this. I just want to know what ASA is the applied emulsion?
Thanks. ISO 2
@@lostlightart6064 I Appreciate it mehn!
Nejc did you have not encounter problem when you applied your emulsion directly without any subbing? Because I am going to try to use Liquid light emulsion.
@@reynaldocastaneda4712 No. All you need is a clean glass!
@@lostlightart6064 thanks Nejc
Very interesting video. I'm experimenting with a similar process, I'm working with citric acid and hydrogen peroxide as my bleaching agent. I just finished fixing the shutter for my camera and getting first images from it, so not quite as far as your experiments, but I'm glad to see I'm not the only one with such ideas
Yes I have to try peroxide bleach as well as its much safer to use! Are you usinf film or?
@@lostlightart6064 no I'm doing glass plates
@@allensmithphotography good stuff mate. We should connect then to share our findings 😉
@@lostlightart6064 that'd be awesome. Up until now I've been researching. Only in the last couple weeks have I been able to do actual hands on. I'm actually doing some coating tonight. Cutting the plates this afternoon
Very interesting, but the sulfuric acid and dichromate make that not a usable process in my home. Citric and peroxide are harmless enough if those work out. And what is the clearing bath?
Hi Nejc, loving this process to get positive plates.....as a wet plate worker I display mounted ambrotypes on the wall! Just a question on the bleach phase. You state 2g of 98% sulphuric acid which I can get in the UK but only in liquid form! How much do you suggest I add to the potassium dichromate to make the working solution of 300ml? Thanks in advance.
Hey Tom. I actually weigh 2g of liquid acid and it worked great so far 😉
Hi TomLee, where can you get 98% sulphuric acid in the UK? Best regards Scott
@@LScott97 Hi Scott, sorry I didn't follow up the process because I couldn't get sulphuric acid! I did however come up with my own solution to getting positive plates. ruclips.net/video/hDh8vV-Ln1Q/видео.html
Can the dry plate be varnished like a collodion wet plate to protect the image?
Yes
I'm curious. If you were to underexpose the plate and put it on a black backing, or just coat a black plate, would it appear to be a positive like a tintype/ambrotype?
Hey Josh. Interesting thinking that crossed my mind as well but I have to disappoint you as it wont work
You could also produce an Ambrotype positive image from a negative glass plate, I suppose. Although it would be reversed.
Yes there is a way. Maybe I will do a video once but have to try in on my own first :)
Could the emulsion be applied and drawn using a glass rod? if so that would produce an even coating.
Yes it could but it produces a lot of emulsion waist and it is quite messy...
Did this work for wet collodion ambrotype as well?
I haven't shot with collodion yet so cant help you sorry
Great to see this done and it is something I'd like to try but alas I would have to get a government license to buy sulphuric acid in the UK now. Also I think the Potassium Dichromate is really bad, very poisonous and carcinogenic so I'd rather not use it in my home or put it down the drain. I once tried to used Hydrogen Peroxide at 12% to do reversal on resin coated paper but it was disappointing and didn't bleach very well. I wonder if H202 would work with dry plates?
Hey Roger. Yes I agree many off the chemicals are hard to get or even forbidden in some countries. I usually buy them from eBay in small quantities ant haven't had a problem yet. Some of them are really bad like potassium dichromate but it all comes down to protect yourself and use got ventilation. To be hones I haven't worked with Peroxide at all so cant help you at this point :(
for spreading the emulsion try modifying a drill or a Dremel for a 4x5 plate. Try making a clamp and rotating the drill slowly.
Hey Bruno. Yes I will be making something like that for sure. Havin a 3d printer at home will help quite a bit I hope! Have you done it yourself?
@@lostlightart6064 haven't done anything like that myself but it was the first thing that came to mind. I feel like a clamp on a drill seems like a "easy" And "simple" solution + it wouldn't take up much space
@@Buza3 Agree!
Could you spin your plates Slowly in order to get an even coating ?
Look forward to your Autochrome experiments 👍
Yes this is what I have to try
@@lostlightart6064 I already calculated it. If you do a rough coating first like you do it (that is essential!) and than place the glass on an old record player at 33 r.p.m. With the viscosity I see in your video, about 1 minute of rotation should be fine to get a coating below 100 micrometer. I tried it with a test solution and it works.
33 rpm is not enough to spread it from the center, but it is enough to get the coating very even and very thin.
@@flutgraben13 thank you. That was exactly what I am planing to do. Coat the plate like usual and than give it a spin to even out the thickness
Just saw the record player in video which i missed 😅
Using such a method could you make a type of layered Autochrome?
@@stuartbaines2843 Autochromes have a colour screen which is dusted on a sticky adhesive layer. Screen is than protected from moisture and coated with a thin coating of panchromatic emulsion ;)
Can you use the same process to create film positives?
Yes with slight modifications of the ratios
Look up an old twirl-o-paint unit
Thanks I will
@@lostlightart6064 might need to evaluate spinner speed, but they're made to hold rectangular plates already, and have a built-in splash basin. I could see this working well if the applicator tip stays in contact (or droplet contact), then spin to distribute, maybe even dry a touch.
Want it even?
Vibrate it, fast like 100-500 hz
Interesting thanks for sharing 🤗
@@lostlightart6064 there are other options make the fluid softer either by heat or some kind of soab
Just discovers a cache of old Kodak materials amongst my late grandfather’s things including bellows, Kodak cine C-mount lenses, and some truly awesome measurement tools. Thanks for sharing. Your enthusiasm encourages me to get started with it.
Ps Do you do much with developing your own medium format film? If so, what techniques do you employ?
Hey Mark. Great for you and have a good fun using it all :) To be honest I have been shooting dry plates exclusively for the last two years so dont have as much experience with film ;)