Camera Talk

Given the title of the post, I was not sure if I should look or not. Great portrait, and nice tradition to keep going. Happy birthday!

One more thing... here are some plate adapters from a current ebay auction. The 5x7 ones can be trimmed on the outside to fit your plate holder, as long as the internal quarter plate size seems interesting (it is the standard "lantern slide" size for which film sheaths are commonly availab...

By the way, I still use my Epson 4990 for all kinds of scanning. It has great resolution and tonal scale when set up for the type of scan. It will be fine for the images you get from this beast. Any scan in my gallery was done on a 4990.

Nice score, Alex. You have a fun project ahead of you! The reference to plate size in a field camera generally harkens back to wet plate era, which is why few films are available to fit. In this case, the glass you found in the holder may be either a "future wet plate base" that was left i...

Last summer while antique shopping out in West Texas, I asked a dealer about old lenses and he pulled out a large, dingy lens on a 6 inch square lens board. It made an image, but I could not tell what optical design it was just by that incidental inspection. It was marked for $4000 (a sucker is born...

More on the previous record: it was camera that produced a 4.5′ × 8′ glass-plate negative in 1900. Story and some great photos here: https://www.lomography.com/magazine/246 ... -from-1900

I appreciate the discussion about Ian's technique. He has been making giant plates for several years, hence I suspect he has gallons of the silver nitrate on hand. He could have pooled all his stock for these particular shots. I was impressed by the number of helpers, most of whom were probably paid...

I reported earlier on the Rockland gelatin tintype process (http://photographytoday.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=9467#p9467}), but was not pleased with the mechanics of the method. The experiment was useful, and someday I'll finish off the tube of emulsion. But the experience gave me the confidence to...

Benny, how are you setting the white point for your scan? I find that scanning software automatically defaults to cutting off a lot of highlight detail, which also looks like this. I make certain to use the full 0-255 output scale, and set the levels to include pretty much all tones for the scan, an...

These are the ortho film equivalents that I'll be comparing the tintypes with (the sensitivities being very similar).

Ortho test shot 1: Ortho test shot 2: