Old Timey Camera

I built an old timey camera and took my first picture yesterday.

In a nutshell how it works is that I cut a piece of glass to size (4"x5"), coat it with chemicals, put it in the camera, take off the lens cap to expose it, and then develop the piece of glass. So the picture itself is on a piece of glass. That is called an ambrotype. You can also coat a piece of metal (commonly called a tintype, but depends on the type of metal you're using). This is exactly how they did it in the 1800's (which is why this picture looks like it came from the 1800's).

There are no negatives, and every one is one of a kind. You probably can't tell from the picture of the picture, but it's unbelievably sharp (it intentionally goes out of focus around the edges due to the lens) and really stunning to look at. You'd have to see it first hand to do it justice. The edges of the photo look kind of cool, but it's not really supposed to look like that. The chemical coating started peeling away from the edges, which I'll have to fix on the next one.

The camera is built out of 3/4" plywood and the lens is an old movie projector lens.

Photo was taken during the Broncos game yesterday:
http://s3.postimg.org/6phu4ma1f/20141214_105503.jpg

What was your exposure?


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Originally Posted by Firehaus

What was your exposure?


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About 3/4 of a second. Actually looks a little bit under exposed, but I like it.

I think exposing for the highlight detail is good. Nice shot!


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Really quite impressive.

Really cool, off to do a little research.

Any limitations as to the size of box you build for the print? With pin hole cameras the size limitation is only with whatever materials you can scrounge to build your camera and the size of photo paper you can find. How is focusing accomplished do you need to expose and develop a throw away print before your final exposure?

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Originally Posted by USMC88-93

Any limitations as to the size of box you build for the print? With pin hole cameras the size limitation is only with whatever materials you can scrounge to build your camera and the size of photo paper you can find. How is focusing accomplished do you need to expose and develop a throw away print before your final exposure?

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There is no limitation to the size. Theoretically you could build a gigantic camera and take poster sized pictures (and some people do). The downside would be the cost of the chemicals. You have to coat these with a silver nitrate solution, and it's not cheap. And would be really expensive to have enough of it to make a bath to coat a huge plate (thousands of dollars probably). You would get hundreds or thousands of pictures out of it, but just the money up front you would have to spend is prohibitive.

It's kind of difficult to explain the focusing, but you'd understand it immediately if you saw it. I have two little boxes that I put in the back of the camera. The first doesn't have a back and contains a piece of glass sprayed with a frosty spray paint from a craft store. When you have that in the camera, and you have the lens cap off, the light shines back through the camera and onto that piece of glass. And the frosty coating captures the light, allowing you to see the image coming through the lens. The back of the camera moves in and out which allows you to focus.

Once you have focused on that piece of glass (technically called the ground glass), I tell the subject to not move a muscle, remove that box completely and insert the second, light-proof box, which contains the piece of glass coated by the chemicals. I coated the glass back in a dark room and closed the box to keep it light proof, so I can't actually see glass. But both boxes are constructed so that the pieces of glass are in the exact same position and plane. So once the camera is focused on the ground glass in the first box, I know it will be focused on the coated piece of glass that I can't see.

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Originally Posted by generalmeow

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It's kind of difficult to explain the focusing, but you'd understand it immediately if you saw it. I have two little boxes that I put in the back of the camera. The first doesn't have a back and contains a piece of glass sprayed with a frosty spray paint from a craft store. When you have that in the camera, and you have the lens cap off, the light shines back through the camera and onto that piece of glass. And the frosty coating captures the light, allowing you to see the image coming through the lens. The back of the camera moves in and out which allows you to focus.

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Understood completely effectively a removable viewfinder. I miss the days when I had access to an old 8 x 10 negative bellows camera. Crazy sized prints and incredible detail.. Too bad the only print I have left is one of my teen age face pimples freckles bad hair and all (I never show it at home due to the embarrassment of how I looked). What kind of depth of field is possible (Lincoln Gettysburg prints come to mind)

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Originally Posted by USMC88-93

What kind of depth of field is possible (Lincoln Gettysburg prints come to mind)

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This particular lens is a movie projector lens, and I probably will only use it for close up portraits due to the unique look. It will focus to infinity, but it's a petzval design which makes it intentionally swirly/blurry the further you get from the center. I think at infinity it would probably look like a defined ball of focus in the middle and blurry everywhere else.

I have a couple of other lenses that are not petzval design and will be more used for landscapes or more distance shots. I haven't tried them yet.

I actually started this project by buying a 4x5 bellows camera off of ebay, but it was broken (unbeknownst to the seller). So I just examined it and sent it back. Then it was easy to build my own after understanding how it was supposed to work.

Im thinking I should research when the next land survey / satellite photos will be taken of Denver metro and leave this face up in the back yard for that day. 8 x 10 negative project for a High School photography class.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ps331d119b.png

Damn, that's a big picture.

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Originally Posted by generalmeow

Damn, that's a big picture.

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It's like those pimples want to pop 28 years later.

I found a picture of the two backs of the camera. The one on the right is obviously the ground glass, and the one on the left holds the coated plate. Once its in the camera, I pull up the slide which exposes it to the light proof interior of the camera (you can barely see the slide at the top), so when the lens cap is removed the light hits the coated plate.

http://s27.postimg.org/z972sjdwz/20140905_073807.jpg

http://s27.postimg.org/5g02jxp9v/20140905_073826.jpg

And the back of the camera:

http://s27.postimg.org/n8lmrt6ib/20140905_073849.jpg

You should do some Artistic AR-Photos.

Nice job. Be zippy if you did one of those flash pan units. Then get a picture of you with the camera & flash pan.

Very nice. [Awesom]

VERY cool, dont stop!!!

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Originally Posted by Great-Kazoo

Nice job. Be zippy if you did one of those flash pan units. Then get a picture of you with the camera & flash pan.

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I wondered what the flash pan was about, but now understand that's it's pretty dangerous to have a pan of exploding anything right near you.

I have no idea what the real story is, but it seems hard to believe that they actually took photos at night during those days, like Doc and Marty at the clock tower in 1885. The chemicals are only sensitive to UV light, and while there may be some UV light produced by the flash pan, it wouldn't be even close to a substitute for something like the sun. Even people today who shoot wet plate indoors have UV lights, sometimes in addition to a modern flash, and they have to sit still for many seconds, to get enough light for an exposure. The lights have to be close to the subject and it makes them uncomfortable. I wonder if they just used those flash pans at the end of the day to get some extra light. Or maybe the person sat there for like 30 seconds and they flashed multiple times while they sat still with the lens cap off.

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Originally Posted by generalmeow

I wonder if they just used those flash pans at the end of the day to get some extra light.

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-catchlight.

How many megapixels?

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Originally Posted by Irving

How many megapixels?

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I understand that this process holds the finest detail of any silver based film (which includes modern films), so if there were such a conversion to megapixels it would probably be better than most digital cameras. I think that's why when you hold the picture in your hand you can't believe how good it looks. It's as sharp as real life. If you used a magnifying glass you could probably count all of the individual fibers on the scarf.

I didn't expect that. I had never held an ambrotype until I made one myself.

That is cool beyond words!

I have seen a website that claims Kodak Ektar 100 film has a resolution on the order of 8000 pixels per inch. Assuming his solution has a similar grain structure, his 4-in x 5-in plate has a rating of approximately 32000x40000 or 1280 megapixels.

I was just joking when I asked, but that is pretty awesome.

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Originally Posted by Aloha_Shooter

I have seen a website that claims Kodak Ektar 100 film has a resolution on the order of 8000 pixels per inch. Assuming his solution has a similar grain structure, his 4-in x 5-in plate has a rating of approximately 32000x40000 or 1280 megapixels.

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That's probably black and white film. And even though the detail would technically be there, the grain prohibits extreme enlarging too much. So probably closer to 200mp. An 80 megapixel camera file is super clean and enlarges very well. Stitch 2 or more 80mp files together and your into 5x7+ film range.

Also, you would need to use a lens that resolves the maximum lp/mm of the film.


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I took some more pics this weekend. I was having major problems getting the chemicals to stick to the glass plates, and I didn't figure it out until the very end of the shoot (I was apparently waiting too long between coats of chemicals, causing an unknown complication, but I changed my method and it stopped). I still got some pretty cool looking faces, but the plates look like junk overall. It actually makes them look kinda authentically aged, but that's not what I'm going for. I want nice clean pics that look old.

I did figure out that if you take a guy with some wrinkles on his face, put a cravat and cowboy hat on him, and take a picture of him with this camera, he'll look pretty mean.