A series of question for a newbie downunder

[ecoleica]

Hello all! My name is Steve and I’m a aspiring daguerreotypist all the way in New Zealand. I have just completed my masters degree in science communication and throughout my studies I been fascinated by daguerreotypes and early photographic history. With my discovery of the Becquerel process (mercury doesnt sit well with my flatmates) I have finally decided to give dags a go. I am hopefully going to talk to a cabinet maker about a fume box but my next big issue is to find some decent plates. After talking to Alan Bekhuis (one advantage of living in NZ) and he suggested I put a few questions to you all to see if I can get some sort of consensus

1) Would anyone be able to show me a few photos of a 4×5 film holder that has been converted to hold a dag plate? I plan on using my Horseman LE monorail as a camera.

2) I have been in touch with a local plater and before I get him to make a few plates I am hoping to get to him as much information ass possible.

– Could anyone provide me with a photo of a copper/brass plate that has been polished before plating?

– What thickness should the plates be?

– What thickness should the silver be plated to?

Thank you for all your help and if there is anything else you think I should know please reply!!

Cheers

Steve

[drdag]

Hi

I use a 5×4 film holders and just tuck the plates under the film holder bit. The plates have to be really accurately cut to fit your holder, about 1mm bigger that the gap between the film holder bits. I put 1/2 inch of double sides in the middle to make sure and I tape the plastic bit at the end down.

My plates are 0.5mm copper and I had 25 microns put on and it was over 100 polishes on a rotary rouge mop before i went through.

The plates have to be dead flat or the dark slide will hit the plate and scratch it.

The polish has to be like a mirror before plating.

Good luck

[jgmotamedi]

Linhof made a double plate and film holder which works very well for Daguerreotyope plates with regular (International or Graflok) backs. These were made in 6.5x9cm, 9x12cm, 4×5″ and 13x18cm. These are no longer made but come up frequently on eBay. There are plate-ejector levers on the side of the holder which can help you differentiate the plate and film holder from Linhof’s regular film holders.

These plate holders have a spring-loaded base to ensure proper registration with the ground glass. One problem with modifying film holders, as described above, is that the registration will not be correct, since plates are significantly thicker than film. This will result in the plane of focus being closer that it appears on the ground glass.

[drdag]

“This will result in the plane of focus being closer that it appears on the ground glass”.

POSTED 11 HOURS AGO #You could put a shim around the filmholder that is the thickness of your plate. I personally haven’t found any of my images out of focus though.

[ecoleica]

Thanks for all your replies! it has been most helpful. jgmotamedia is this the kind of filmn holder like the one you posted above?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-BOX-4X5-LINHOF-CUT-FILM-HOLDER-/230712961618?pt=US_Film_Backs_Holders&hash=item35b7906a52

[jgmotamedi]

Yes, that is it.

[phuphuphnik]

I posted this on the wet plate forum a while back, could help here.

I stumbled across several different kinds of holders recently, and took them apart. After several I found that the LISCO REGAL II has a solid septum. The Fidelity ones I looked at has 2 sheets of thin aluminum separated by a perforated piece of aluminum. The old Graflex were two sheets of thin Aluminum. The Liscos are the easiest to work with, as the 1/8″ (~3mm) is thick enough to cut out without flexing, or tearing.

I used a milling machine for one and a nibbler for another. A spiral bit like those found on a roto-zip work well too, but you need to go slow.

[captivelight]

I’ve heard that many photographers make their own backs to fit the camera and plate size. Does anyone have any pictures of their setup to share?

Ben

[ecoleica]

IM about to roder some of those linhof plate holders…I was wondering if there is a way to create a mask so I can shoot smaller plates in it…any suugestions jgmotamedi?

[70’s Dager]

There’s no need to do that; go to my web-page; http://www.walterisphotography.com; look for my paper titled; “Save that film pack adapter”. You’ll need to go into the archives to find it, and in there is my suggestion to use the common film pack adapter because you can load the Dag plate, or wet-plate from the back, then insert a filler pad to hold the plate in place when the back is closed.

to remove the plate, simply remove the filler pad and turn the adapter up-side-down, and the plate will then fall into your hand.

My paper goes into more detail, but you get the idea that the less you handle the plate, the better results you are going to have.

Walter Johnson

[jgmotamedi]

I had a machine shop (SK Grimes) make a few adapters for 3×4; you can see a picture of the product here: http://www.skgrimes.com/whats-new/2011-2/daguerreotype-adapter. These were not cheap, but work well.

I have also found that you can place a plate in a corner of the holder, so that two sides are held down, so long as you are careful and don’t drop or shake the holder. When I do so I make sure to use camera movements (shift and rise) to center the “sweet spot” of the lens on the plate.

Walter’s description using film pack holders is great, I have a 3×4 film pack adapter which I use with a 3×4 Graflex.

[Bakody]

When I was searching for plate holders, this topic was helpful for me, to get information about Linhof 4×5 plate holder.

I was searching for more on the internet and I found 2 other 4×5 plate holders.

On my picture, left hand side: 4×5 MPP plate holder

right hand side: 4×5 Trixale

MPP (what I’m using and I like it) made in England (wooden and metal). I contacted with The MPP Users’ Club to get more informations about it. They told me, the external size is like every other film holder, but the correct distance of the “film” from the ground glass can be different, because they made international standard size and different, special size as well. Nobody can decide which one is which. I was lucky, my MPP plate holder is in the right size and fit in to my Cambo, make sharp images in the right focal point.

Trixale (I haven’t try it yet) made in London (plastic and some metal) . It’s hard to pull out the dark slide so I will need to fix this problem somehow. I measure it and I think it has the same inner and outer size like my MPP. I couldn’t find much information about this one.

 

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

http://daginhun.blogspot.com/
 http://www.facebook.com/DagerrotipiaDaguerreotype

[ecoleica]

Good work Bakody! Glad you managed to find some plate holders. I have finally managed to snatch a linhof holder from ebay and I got a test piece of copper cut from my supplier. Its fits rather nicely….maybe shave a 1mm off one side to make loading and unloading easy.

 

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Author]

Posts