Archive for the 'alumitype' Category
Wednesday, September 22nd, 2021
a 170 year old process and high end food photography
everybody knows that I work exclusively on collodion wet plate portraits. So what’s the reason for food photography now? Let me try to explain. Many of you guys will remember that I bought a Cambo studio stand some while ago (https://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/2021/02/my-new-150kg-studio-stand-that-is-from-1957-cambo-ast/ ). A little bit later I bought a used tray for it on Ebay. The seller was very friendly and somehow we started to talk about photography. Long story short, a month later we decided to do a project together. After months of planing, Hans Gerlach (a well known food photographer and columnist) drove over to my studio and brought his tools and some delicious food with him. Additional food for this shooting came from my garden, this way I could bring a bit more into the project besides my wet plate photography. During the planing period we discussed different dishes, their colours and how they would appear on a tintype (the wet collodion process only sees blue light and therefore red colours will turn black and blue white). We saw this come together as kind of a first test and wanted to see what what we could create. For me it was very interesting to have a chef working in my kitchen.
I suggested the 13x18cm format, because the camera is not too huge and can be easy mounted over head. We can get a bit more depth of field because of this smaller format. And I have a beautiful 250mm Zeiss Tessar lens that I can stop down to about F16 without having to long exposure times (two Hensel generators with 9000 w/s together helped to archive that and remember, its called wet plate, because the plate needs to be wet the whole time and can not dry). I mounted this beauty of a lens on my 13x18cm Mentor camera (check this article for my renovation of the beauty: https://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/2021/08/shooting-wet-plate-portraits-with-an-affordable-large-format-bokeh-monster/ )
Even this studio Mentor camera and the tripod are meant for that kind of work, it felt funny to see my tools in that position.
While I prepared everything in my darkroom, Hans Gerlach did his magic in my kitchen. We were very excited to work on the first plate. And after we saw the result, we were even more excited, the outcome was gorgeous. So we worked very long on the first day (I think I went to bed at 4 am). But it was not all glory. We shot so many plates, that at some point my silver nitrate bath went bad. First I thought it was the collodion, the fixer and the developer, but after I changed all of that(I am always good prepared for important shootings and create everything twice or even three times) and still got funny looking plates, I know I need to change the silver nitrate bath.
After I changed the bath, everything was fine again and we could go on with the shooting.
We shot many different styles of the sourdough bread until we were happy with the outcome. This is one of our favourites plates. To hold it in our hands after months of planing and all the work we put together was wonderful. If you are interested in a print of this plate or any other, check out this link: prints.mhaustria.com
But this little setback should not be the only thing that kept me busy this day. After shooting many plates, my modified wet plate holder made my life a bit harder. Sometimes the plate won’t stay in place and the end result of that was a scratched plate….
I quickly solved the problem with a little redesign on the plate holder and from that on I was able to shoot without any problem. Before capturing every new dish, we were excited to see how it will turn out.
And most of them turned out great, I really like the beans and the spoon with chocolate mousse. The sheer amount of detail and texture of these scans from the wet plates are just incredible. They will look amazing on a big print.
To get as much done as possible, I scanned all 13x18cm (about 200mpix) and 18x24cm (about 300mpix, I decided later to do two bigger plates too) plates at night and also varnish them afterwards. So this night was quite short 🙂
I shot the bigger plates with a 150 year old Dallmeyer 2b Petzval lens to mix the this delicious bread with the beautiful swirly bokeh from this old lens. I really like how this plate turned out and how the out of focus areas look like.
After these intense shoots, we were always rewarded with great looking plates amazing tasting food.
Hans created also amazing tasting handmade pasta
To give you guys a much better idea of this shooting, I tried to captures as much footage as possible to bring you behind the scenes with this video
On thing is sure, we enjoyed our work together a lot and will do more like that in the future, but that needs again lots of planning. I am very happy that I met Hans and his work inspired me (yes there is also a inspired portrait coming up). I really look forward to our next shooting together (and yes, I also look forward to eat everything 🙂
Because I get asked very often about the tools I use for the wet plate process, I created a shopping list here: list.mhaustria.com
Tuesday, August 24th, 2021
How to remove Scratches from Tintypes varnished with Sandarac
There is nothing more annoying as scratches in your sandarac varnish. In todays video I show you how to make many of the go away. For that you let the varnished plate breath alcohol in a closed container . after about 15 minutes (you will smell it), the varnish will get sticky again and because of that small scratches will disappear. After you are happy with the result, you heat the plate to cure the varnish again. always cover the plate as good as possible with a tray or something else, to avoid dust on it. See the full explanation in my video
Affiliate links to used products
- tray warmer (I use it also for varnishing): https://amzn.to/3j8LRQX
- a cheaper alternative to warm plates:International: https://amzn.to/3grsgd2 Germany: https://amzn.to/3yf9YSA
- similar cake container (mine is no longer available): International: https://amzn.to/3gq0i18 Germany https://amzn.to/3gqyE4m
- 96% alcohol: International: https://amzn.to/3D9YYJv Germany: https://amzn.to/3zcbh5z
- trays I use: International: https://amzn.to/38mOJnf Germany: https://amzn.to/3B5ZV3P
- Get yourself a beautiful print here: http://prints.mhaustria.com
- Looking for wet plate gear? http://gear.mhaustria.com
- Buy me a tea: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mhaustria
- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mhaustria
- Get cool analog shirts here shirts.mhaustria.com
- For online wet plate workshops, visit this http://online.mhaustria.com
- For private wetplate workshops (Nassplattenworkshop contact me here: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/ (German and English available)
- Get the latest news with my newsletter here: https://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/newsletter-2/
Wednesday, August 4th, 2021
Shooting Wet Plate Portraits with an affordable Large Format Bokeh Monster
I should stop calling these “Short Projects” short projects. It didn’t take that long, but still longer as expected.
After I bought it at the Camera Obscura Festival
But I still think if you are looking for a affordable large format wet plate camera, you should have a look at the Mentor camera brand. Most of them are build like a tank (Remember, I got another Mentor too, where I did double exposures with: https://youtu.be/y0ccDnXw9xE) and easy to repair. The cool thing of this camera is the curtain shutter and strobe connector. It has also all movements you can imagine, great for architecture, product (or food) photography.
For the wet plate process, you want to look for a fast lens, but these are mostly pretty expensive. Thats why projection lenses are a good options, but most of them are triplet designs – but there are others too, like the Leitz Hektor 200mm F 2.5 that covers 13x18cm plates in portrait distance easily and has 4 glass elements instead of the classic triplets. be aware that the depth of field is razor thin on that lens. I have a second one for sale here http://gear.mhaustria.com with other camera gear I only use very rarely. So I would be happy if this finds someone who uses it again. I just collected to much gear….
In the video, I show you how I repair all the little blemishes of the camera and add two Lenses to it. I even build two lens plateadapters. One to mount lenses from my Century camera to the Mentor and one to mount Linhof Lenses to the Century camera. Check my Thingverse too, I will post some of them there if I am happy with them. . The more I get comfortable with my 3D printer the more I use it, that reflects also in this project. Even some prints take pretty long (my longest one was 16 hours), it saves me lots of time, because I can do different things in-between. And some of the designs would have been much harder to create with traditional wood/metal working.
I really like how the camera, lens plates and wet plate holder turned out. This will be used on many during my workshops (for English ones contact me here)in the future And I am also very happy that Tanja of https://www.unikat.pictures/ helped me out to model for me. Thanks a lot!
If you liked this kind of projects and want to support my upcoming ones, you ca do that here
Get yourself a beautiful print here: http://prints.mhaustria.com
Get cool analog shirts here shirts.mhaustria.com
Thursday, July 15th, 2021
The First Analog Photography Festival After The Pandemic
This was such a great experience! It was not only great to meet people again at the Camera Obscura Festival, but it was also awesome to meet artists that are interested in an analog workflow. Another great thing is, that this festival is not an exclusive “wet plate event” it is also for people who work with the analog medium in any way. That was so cool, with this option you will experience things you may not have seen before. Like Large Format Cameras build from Legos. It was so nice to meet all of you guys finally in person another big thanks to Stefan, Christian and Denis for organising this great event! If you want to be notified for the next Camera Obscura Festival, register here: http://cof.mhaustria.com
Get yourself a beautiful print here: http://prints.mhaustria.com
Get cool analog shirts here shirts.mhaustria.com
For online wet plate workshops, visit this http://online.mhaustria.com
For private wetplate workshops contact me here: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021
Rose – a wet plate fine art print
Fine Art Prints: http://shop.mhaustria.com
Shirts: http://shirts.mhaustria.com
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For private wetplate workshops contact me here: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/
Or book other ones here http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/workshops/
If you guys want to experience yourself how a tintype is made and own a one of a kind wet plate, please contact me via my website http://wetplate.art
Don’t forget to subscribe to my Newsletter: http://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/Newsletter/
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2021
wet plate / Nassplatten Workshop WIFI Salzburg
Today I want to share some impressions of my recent workshop at the WIFI training center in Salzburg. We could do that because of daily testing and wearing masks. I had a great time and met great new people. Thanks to the whole WIFI Salzburg Team for everything!
For private wetplate workshops contact me here: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/
Or book other ones here http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/workshops/
Art: http://shop.mhaustria.com
If you guys want to experience yourself how a tintype is made and own a one of a kind wet plate, please contact me via my website http://wetplate.art
Don’t forget to subscribe to my Newsletter: http://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/Newsletter/
Wednesday, January 27th, 2021
From Wet Plate to 3D Print – Touchable Bokeh part II (in color)
This time I did a full explanation of my whole process from a wet plate to a finished Lithophane 3D Print. I thought great 3D prints need a different approach, therefore I went outside and looked for subjects with lots of “texture”. At the end I came up with an overgrown “Nature’s Victory” branch and the skeletons of Japanese Lanterns that are a symbol for “Death Within Life”. You can can find the 3D and finer art prints in my shop: shop.mhaustria.com – you can also support me as a patron here patreon.mhaustria.com and get more inside infos about my project and also support for your wet plate process.
For the Lithophanes I went to the http://itslitho.com website. Sliced the Sprint in Ideamaker and used a Filament from https://www.extrudr.com/. As said in the video, I am not sponsored by anyone, I just want you guys to know what worked well for me.
The main differences in the slicer settings are, that I did not use any infill and filled everything up with shells. Outer shell speed is 20 and I used a brim with 20 loop lines. If you use Ideamaker, you can download the Profile here (it is for an Artillery Sidewinder X1 in combination with the bio fusion filament from Extrudr)
I didn’t show it in the video, but I did the scanning before varnishing the plates. I thought it might confuse people, if interrupt the analog process with the scanning.
For private wetplate workshops contact me here: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/
Or book other ones here http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/workshops/
Fine Art Shop http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/front_store/
become a Patreon and support me: https://www.patreon.com/mhaustria
If you guys want to experience yourself how a tintype is made and own a one of a kind wet plate, please contact me via my website http://wetplate.art
Don’t forget to subscribe to my Newsletter: http://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/Newsletter/
Wednesday, November 11th, 2020
Connected – a 5 minute wet plate exposure with 7000 km distance between us
click or scroll down for the English version
English version
Connected – a wet plate art project about the bonds of friendship
with Shane Balkowitsch
This is not about a technical perfect wet plate. This is about building connections from thousand miles away. Overcoming obstacles and being there for each other.
This 5-minute exposure captured more than just an image, it’s a short movie where the plate captured our thoughts and movements. Thanks to Shane Balkowitsch to be a part of it.
We couldn’t do a lot of things because of the pandemic, but I won’t let this get me down.
I also didn’t want to wait for some things I wanted to do. That’s when I came up with the idea to do things differently. With that I finally could meet Shane in a more direct way and we also were able to shoot a wet plate together. For me it was important to show, that there are always ways to do something. The only limits we have are in our head. At this point I want to say thanks to Pro-Digital in Vienna who lent me this wonderful Dedolight light head with the projection kit. This is an amazing tool! Without that it would have been much tougher to make this happen.
Darken my studio
First I had to darken my studio, because the tiniest lightleak would be visible in a 5 minute exposure.
I have blinds, but they were not enough. With a 5 minute exposure a tiny light leak could make problems, thats why I covered my windows behind the blinds with cardboard.
Background
I wanted to have Shane’s background in my studio. That’s wehre things got a tricky.
As you saw, I used the projector on a gray wall to not overexpose the background and Shane.
During the test shots I thought for a moment I could use the projector light on me too, because on a digital image I looked as bright as shane. But the wet plate process fairy was against me – The uv light just sees it differently.
So I knew I needed an additional light source to get the exposure right.
I have a Hensel spot adapter for a strobe and tried this one first. But with the modeling light the light was to uneven (it’s a 20 years old strobe), it just works with the strobe.
Then I tried it with the light blaster. This is a projector for speedlites where you can mount lenses on it to project images on as a background. But here I had the same problem, as soon as I used a flashlight, the light was to uneven.
Then I remembered a workshop where the guy there used a dedolight and that’s when I called Pro Digital and asked them if I can have one. Some days later I went to their shop and Andreas explained all the possibilities I have with the light and showed my also the projection kit. From there I knew this is the right tool. Good to have local shops like that!
As soon as I got home, I made myself a gobo that looks like me. A gobo is a Graphical Optical Blackout.
I printed it and then I used a cutter to cut it out.
And with that I could make a projection on myself that does not brighten up the Shane and his background.
Exposure
5 Minutes is very long for a portrait. And yet it was as short as I could get it.
I used my Century 8×10 camera with my Dallmeyer 2b Petzval lens – it’s a F3 lens by the way.
I could only shoot 13x18cm plates, because the camera would have been in the way of the projector for 8×10 plates (I had to go closer).
Using a longer lens would also have been an Issue, because then I would have an aperture of F4.5 or even F6. With that the exposure times would have been twice or four times as long.
Aa you could see in the videos, I set the timer on my watch and released the lens cap with a string that I squeezed between the lens cap and the camera. An then it was only us two and 5 minutes in front of the camera.
Manny of you have seen the apron I am using but only a view know that this apron is from my grandfather who used to have a shoemaker shop in this house. Thats the reason I like to wear it, because it is part of our family.
It was such a great experience and so much fun. I will for sure do it sometimes again. Maybe some people even want to do a portrait like that. It’s a great way to get memories during that time where we have to be at home
For private wetplate workshops contact me here: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/
Or book other ones here http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/workshops/
Fine Art Shop http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/front_store/
become a Patreon and support me: https://www.patreon.com/mhaustria
If you guys want to experience yourself how a tintype is made and own a one of a kind wet plate, please contact me via my website http://wetplate.art
Don’t forget to subscribe to my Newsletter: http://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/Newsletter/
Wednesday, October 28th, 2020
Shooting Wet Plates with Autofocus (FAIL)
click or scroll down for the English version
Ich hatte ja schon mal Freihand mit einer Nassplattenkamera Fotografiert. Diesmal war der Plan mit Autofocus auf Kollodium-Nassplatte zu fotografieren. Dazu habe ich das Mamiya 645 AF AFD Polaroid Film Back HP402 an meiner 645 AFD II verwendet. Leider wurde meinem Vorhaben ein Strich durch die Rechnung gemacht. Warum genau zeige ich euch im Video. Vielen Dank an Jasmin fürs Modeln: https://www.instagram.com/real_better_me/
Zum Lichttest habe ich ein iPhone Foto erstellt – das einzig Scharfe in der Serie 🙂 Manche Platten schauen ok aus, aber im Scan sieht man wie unscharf sie sind.
Nächste Nassplattenworkshops: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/workshops/
Fine Art Shop: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/front_store/
become a Patreon and support me: https://www.patreon.com/mhaustria
Wollt ihr immer auf Letztstand sein, benutzt einfach meinen Newsletter ein Newsletter: http://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/Newsletter/
English version
I shot already wet palates handheld, but this time I wanted to shoot them with an autofocus camera. For that I mounted the Mamiya 645 AF AFD Polaroid Film Back HP402 onto my Mamiya 645 AFDII. Sadly it didn’t work out like I imagined. In this video I show you why. Thanks a lot Jamsin to for modelling: https://www.instagram.com/real_better_me/
For testing I shot one iPhone photo – the only sharp one 🙂
Some of the plates look ok for, but in my scans you can see they are way off.
For private wetplate workshops contact me here: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/
Or book other ones here http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/workshops/
Fine Art Shop http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/front_store/
become a Patreon and support me: https://www.patreon.com/mhaustria
If you guys want to experience yourself how a tintype is made and own a one of a kind wet plate, please contact me via my website http://wetplate.art
Don’t forget to subscribe to my Newsletter: http://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/Newsletter/
Tuesday, October 13th, 2020
Family and Architecture Wet Plates on location
click or scroll down for the English version
Diesmal wurde ich beauftragt Architekturaufnahmen auf Nassplatte von einem historischen Haus zu machen. Zusätzlich waren auch Familienaufnahmen gefragt. Mit der Hilfe von Alois Stingl gibt es dazu auch ein Making-Of video. Vielen Dank dafür! Natürlich hatten wir auch viel Spaß dabei!
Nächste Nassplattenworkshops: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/workshops/
Fine Art Shop: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/front_store/
become a Patreon and support me: https://www.patreon.com/mhaustria
Wollt ihr immer auf Letztstand sein, benutzt einfach meinen Newsletter ein Newsletter: http://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/Newsletter/
English version
For this assignment I was creating architecture wet plates of a historic house. Additionally I did also a family portrait. With the help of Alois Stingl I can show you a Bits video – thanks a lot for that! And of course we had a lot of fun too!
For private wetplate workshops contact me here: http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/kontakt/
Or book other ones here http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/workshops/
Fine Art Shop http://www.markus-hofstaetter.at/pages/front_store/
become a Patreon and support me: https://www.patreon.com/mhaustria
If you guys want to experience yourself how a tintype is made and own a one of a kind wet plate, please contact me via my website http://wetplate.art
Don’t forget to subscribe to my Newsletter: http://blog.markus-hofstaetter.at/Newsletter/