Quarter Plate glass negative. Taken at Encanto Park. Sunny Conditions, 6 minute exposure @f11 (overexposed).
Quarter Plate glass negative. Mostly cloudy conditions, 20 minute exposure @f8.
The Dry Plate Collodion process is a slightly modified version of the wet plate collodion process. The plate is poured with collodion and sensitised in a 9% silver bath just like you would with wet plate. Then, here's where things change. The plate is washed in water to get rid of the excess silver nitrate and is placed in a bath of 3.3% preservative solution of Tannic Acid for a few minutes. The plate is not washed after soaking in Tannic Acid and is allowed to fully dry. Once dry, the plate is said to have a very long shelf life (over a year). One of the downsides is that the exposure is about 4-6x as long as a wet plate! After exposure, the plate is soaked in water for a few minutes and then is developed by inspection with a solution of Pyrogallic Acid and Silver Nitrate. Then is fixed, dried and varnished like a wet plate.
Tannic Acid - 3.3g
95% Grain Alcohol - 1mL
Distilled Water - 100mL
Filter before using. The shelf life should be indefinite.
Pyrogallic Acid - 4.7g
95% Grain Alcohol - 30mL
Place solution in dropper bottle for convenience for when making working developer solution. The shelf life should be indefinite.
Silver Nitrate - 1.3g
Citric Acid - 1.3g
Distilled Water - 30mL
Place solution in dropper bottle for convenience for when making working developer solution. The shelf life should be indefinite.
Solution #1 - 3.7mL
Water - 177mL
Then take 15mL of that diluted Pyro solution and add 20 drops of solution #2 to it. Only add #2 just before developing. This is your working solution. Before developing, soak plate in water for a minute or two. Pour onto plate and develop to inspection. If the sky quickly becomes dark but the other details are slow to develop, the exposure was too short, add 10-15 drops of solution #1 to the plate. If all parts of the plate develop simultaneously, the exposure was too long, add a few drops of #2 so that the sky will not be too dense.
Solution #1 - 10 drops
Solution #2 - 22 drops or ~1mL
Water - 20mL
Only mix just before use. Develop the same as described above. This formula should be about the same as above but I found it redundant to make 177mL of diluted solution #1 when I only use 15mL of it for a quarter plate.
The formulas that I used here were from the Silver Sunbeam .
Another reference for Dry Plate
Bostick and Sullivan - Source for wet and dry plate supplies in the US.
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