Wednesday, May 4th, 2022
Building a Wet Plate Frankenstein Camera and Capture a Ghost
Corrine of www.corrinewestmedia.co.uk booked a wet plate workshop before the pandemic started. Two years later we were finally able to do it. The main subject was to get comfortable with the wet collodion process and to create images similar to the ones of spirit photographer William H. Mumler. Mr. Mumler created images (probably double exposures) where his clients could take a picture with their deceased relatives. The photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln with the “ghost” of her husband (Abraham Lincoln) was his most famous one. Corrine found my double exposure wet plates and that was the reason she contacted me in the first place. About two months before the workshop Corrine surprised me with a question: “Can we build a wet plate camera together?”. I talked with a friend and after a long visit at a DIY market I was sure that we can do it. A DIY Camera and capturing ghosts, that sounds like a fun workshop for me đ
I could not capture everything in the video, because I was focused to deliver a great workshop experience. So let me explain a bit here. I build a diy camera kit so to say. But I did not want to build everything. It was important for me that we put the major parts together in person, to really create a camera and an understanding how a camera works.
It took me a long time to figure everything out, I wanted to create a diy camera, that is adaptable and upgradeable without any special parts. It also should be able to shoot portraits and landscape and if something breaks, just go to your diy marked and get a replacement part. The only thing needed is my self designed camera back. I wanted to invent/adapt something that you can get in the market, but I was without luck finding such a part. The 3D printed design took many hours and a lot of filament to work as expected.
For the lens I went for a 150mm Leitz Dimaron (F2.8), Elmaron (F2.8) or Hektor (F2.5). These lenses have three things in common. 150mm is kind of a “normal” lens for the 4×5 large format and they all have the same diameter and not too expensive if you buy them online. All of them are pretty sharp as well as you could see in the video (this was a Dimaron)
The camera and lens support is build like this one in that posting: Camera and Lens support
For the Film/Plate holder I decided to go for the std international 4×5 holders. I had them water jet cut for a clean look and we modified it with silver wires, because these are more resistant against acid and fit into the silver nitrate workflow
We were super happy with our first result. The portrait looked awesome and the resolution of the lens is great. When you look closely at the video you will see, that we used two boxes for portrait distance.
https://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/2019/12/ho-to-make-a-ground-glass-for-a-large-format-camera/
Here is a detail scan of Corrine’s eye – pretty impressive result of a 4×5 plate shot with a self made camera and a projection lens.
For the spirit photographs that are inspired by Mr. Mumler we wend for wet plate double exposures.
To make our live easier, we marked all positions with sticky tape on the ground.
We decided to use my Dallmeyer 3B Petzval lens for the first double exposure, because it fits better to the time when the original images were captured.
The second double exposure was a bit more modern, but also should get the ghost look. For that we used a Zeiss 300mm F4.5 Tessar lens. This lens is pretty new (about 2Ă-30 years old) and is very crisp. I thought that makes more sense for this kind of image and also fits to the story (see caption of the image)
What a great 3 Day workshop that was. We created so many different portraits. (more in the gallery) and time flew so fast. At this point I want to say thanks again to Corrine for visiting my workshop and trusting me with the camera design. I looking forward to see what she will do for her PHD with the wet collodion process.
May 5th, 2022 at 20:10
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May 5th, 2022 at 20:12
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May 5th, 2022 at 20:33
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May 5th, 2022 at 20:34
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May 5th, 2022 at 20:41
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May 5th, 2022 at 20:51
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May 5th, 2022 at 20:52
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May 5th, 2022 at 21:07
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May 5th, 2022 at 21:07
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May 5th, 2022 at 21:29
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May 5th, 2022 at 22:07
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May 5th, 2022 at 22:45
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May 5th, 2022 at 23:44
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May 5th, 2022 at 23:54
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May 6th, 2022 at 00:05
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May 6th, 2022 at 01:04
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May 6th, 2022 at 01:41
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May 6th, 2022 at 01:46
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May 6th, 2022 at 02:52
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May 6th, 2022 at 03:08
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May 6th, 2022 at 05:14
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May 7th, 2022 at 10:00
Building a Wet Plate Frankenstein Camera and Shooting Ghost Photos - MB DROPS said:
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May 7th, 2022 at 11:15
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May 7th, 2022 at 12:30
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May 9th, 2022 at 04:15
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May 9th, 2022 at 09:05
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