collodion camera

woo now. looks like its been a couple of years since ive been on this bitch. but i had a thought the other day... and that thought was... i should blog some more, since in done with school and all. so i thought id give it another go, but this time im thinking that ill blog about the crap that i make. im constantly making stuff, if i need something ill always consider making it before i buy it, and that ranges form cameras to furniture. ill prolly start out with some stuff that i have made at school over the last couple of years, as i dont want to deprive anyone of the real gems.

ill start off with a bang with my wet plate collodion camera.

i started off with a normal 4x5 camera and rail. i needed the bellows, rail and lens, but the rest was going to made out of wood. i should have some sketches around here some where, hold on...

well i cant find them, but i do have photos of the final project so ill rock those for you.

i figerd that i would basically need to make a wood 4x5 film holder, like the ones that are used in normal film work, but instead i would be using glass instead of film. oh ya, i should prolly explain what wet plat collodion is.
the collodion photo process is basically the first negative process, invented in the late 1800s. there was a paper negative before that, but i think it didnt last long because this collodion neg came into being soon after. the process consists of poring collodion (cotton dissolved in alcohol and ether) onto a piece of glass, then placing the glass in silver nitrate for a number of minutes, then place the glass in a holder (the holder i made), then taking the exposure, then developing the negative, all with in 20 minutes. ill post a pic of what the negatives look like.
so, i acquired some black walnut and spent three days very carefully cutting and gluing, and poof, the camera emerged form the sawdust.
as you can see form the photos, there is a fraim for the glass in the back of the holder and a dark slide in the front of the holder. the knob on the back threads into a nut to tighten the holder to the back of the camera. to take a photo you pull the dark slide up and expose for around three minutes at f16.
after three tries i got my first usable negative from the process and the camera.