my first Becquerel daguerreotype

[Bakody]

Today finally I could make my first B-dag! Actually this was the third try, but in the first 2 time I used 2 layers of red film instead of rubylith film and after fixing my plate looked like after polishing(before iodized), just mirror like silver, nothing else. Because my rubylith didn’t arrived, so I decided to cut all of my red film what I had and I used all of them in several layers. It was working…

I iodized to (I think) first cycle purple-blue, but at the edges was still deep-yellow.

Development: I had 2 500W halogen heads so I used both of them from 40cm. After a few minutes I could see the weak image. I developed for 2 and a half hours.

I need to improve my polishing technique and some water marks on the bottom.

The final image is a little bit brown. Is it because I overdeveloped it?

The flower is sharp, but I like tone and texture of the leaf.

Easy to become addicted… 😀

 

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[photolytic]

Congratulations Mate. I think the tones are good.

How many layers of red film did you use?

Can you place an incident light meter under the film and measure the light intensity?

Then compare this to the light level you get with Rubilith when it arrives.

Perhaps the light intensity is more important than the exact color to prevent fog on the plate.

John

[Bakody]

Sorry because of the late answer, but I tried to make an other picture on my second plate. The final image was too dark and full of water marks so tomorrow I will polish it again. I hope, I will still have enough silver on it. I polished it hard because of some scratches and at the moment I have just 2 plate…

I used 6 layers of red film.

Sorry, but I don’t have a light meter (I want to save money for vacuum pump and chamber ). I use my canon camera to get exposure time and f-number(5.6). Then I convert this to EV and then to the “right” exposure time. So I could check it like this: I put my hand under the filters (2cm) and I checked the light on it. It was 1/60, f=5.6, which is EV11.

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[Bakody]

I made an other one today. I think, because I reached the copper, the plate is brown on the middle and the image is too dark! During development I couldn’t see strong image, like the first one was, so I stopped the development after 1 and a half hours. I think that is why the image is blue, underdeveloped.

Now I don’t have other silver plate, so I will start to prepare new copper plates. 1 or 2 more weeks and I can make new dags again…

 

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[Bakody]

The brown mark on the middle wasn’t the chopper, I think I was some red rouge left from polishing. So I could make an other picture. On the picture you can see a kind of cabbage.

At the highlights it’s overexposed. I didn’t concentrate on the lights well enough. I think B-dags can’t record big differences between bright and dark areas.

Do you have any experience, B-dags how many stops difference can record well between white/bright and dark areas?

It was deep purple this time and at the edges of the dag, dark yellow (where is blue now).

In the first post I wrote, I have 2 500w head. This time in the beginning one of them died, so I lowered the distance for about 25-30cm and I developed for longer time, for 3 and a half hours. The result in colors, tones is like in my first dag about the orchid. It’s still a little bit brown in the middle, but I think I will keep this dag.

 

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[photolytic]

I exposed a 2nd yellow Becquerel plates to a grayscale at several ISO speeds from 0.005 to 0.022 and developed the image under rubilith.

The Best contrast was obtained at ISO speeds of 0.008 to 0.014.

 

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[Bakody]

Thank you!

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[photolytic]

Sorry but the ISO speeds on the plate are in the wrong order.

The following figure shows the speeds in the correct order.

 

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[ecoleica]

Thank you so much for the info photolytic! this will be very helpful for me when I finally start myself. Also good work Bakody..wonderful image of the cabbage

[Bakody]

Ecoleica, did you able to make black and white Becquerel developed dags? Don’t forget: lots of light + more time + enough red film = black and white Becquerel dag.

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