big camera for big tintypes :)

In 2007 I made a trip to New York with Mark Zimmerman to attend the wet plate jamboree at John Coffer's house. John is an amazing guy, and one of the people responsible for the resurgence of wet plate photography.

I brought along my new wet plate camera made for me by Ray Morgenweck of the Star Camera Company. My camera is a reproduction square bellows Anthony style camera. It is awesome, and since purchasing it new in 2007 I have made many plates with it.

My camera can only make images up to 1/2 plate (4 1/4" x 5 1/2") which is just fine for most of the work I do. I would have probably been content with this image size, but folks at the jamboree were using all sorts of camreas, including larger format camreas to make big tintypes and ambrotypes. Seeing large wet plate images in person is an amazing experience. I knew that I was eventually going to go bigger with my work.

Going big with wet plate means going big with a camera. Unfortunately most cameras have been out of my reach, and for the last four years or so I have been looking for an affordable way to make it happen. I was all set to start building my own 8x10 inch wet plate camera this winter when a beautiful old camera became available:

 

 This is a turn of the last century 8x10 Agfa Universal studio camera. A fellow wet plate photographer Christopher Morgan was selling it on one of the wet plate forums. It is large and in charge, with huge front and rear standards. This gracefully beautiful camera has seen a lot of use over the years. It has bumps, scratches, stains, wood filler and lots of character. It is a fixer upper, and will require a bit of work. The bellows are new, but do not have any frames and they will need to be attached. The wet plate back is a new Star Camera Company 8x10 back and snap in ground glass. The camera back does not have any means for attaching the wet plate back at the moment, so I will be building part of the rear standard so that the wet plate back and ground glass will snap into place.


To show you the size of this camera, I photographed the Agfa with my 35mm Pentax SPII perched on top of the rear standard:

You can also see the difference in size between my 1/2 plate plate holder and the new 8x10 inch plate holder. It is gonna be pretty cool pouring 8x10 inch tintypes and ambrotypes for sure!

I have two big brassie lenses that I have been wanting to use for a few years. One is a ginormous Darlot projection lens with an 11 inch focal length, and a smaller no name projection lens with a 17 inch focal length. They should work out quite well on the more than ample 9 inch square lens opening on the camera.

So I have a winter project :) That's ok, I am really looking forward to making 8x10 tintypes and ambrotypes. In addition to making frames for the bellows, new lens boards, fix a few pieces on the camera, and rebuild the rear standard... I will also be making two new 8x10 dip tanks for the silver nitrate and fixer solutions. Oh and a tripod. Whew!

When it is done, it is going to be awesome. I can't wait.