Journey to Wet Plate Collodion

Beginning of the Journey

Here is the first picture I ever did with my 5x7 large format camera. This camera was designed and made by me, and what is even more interesting… IT WORKS!

But this would be the end, the culmination of this story.

The beginning can be traced to January of 2021. At this time, I was pretty set in film photography. Thanks to books, YouTube and various people taught me, how to work with it. How to develop film, how to dry it safely and store it. How to manipulate film and scan it, work with files in Lightroom. But also in manual Lightroom known as dark room. Here you can experiment with many variables in order to make the “perfect” print.

These tasks of developing and printing, kept me company for last 8 years. But in the start of 2021, I hoped to start something new. And what better thing than wet plate collodion process!

Through out photographic history, starting from Camera Obscura, photographers were looking for something new, exciting, But in our modern era, we can observe that more and more photographers are looking into old or even archaic methods. Even complete forgoing of whole digital photography. Doing film photography for a long time now, and introducing many people to it, the appeal is easily understood. It’s real. Each picture exists, it is here on this planet, you can touch it, see it and smell it (not recommended).

The Camera

The first prototype

After I realized that next step in photography will be large format, I got quickly to work. Knowing that enlarger lenses can resolve unto huge areas, I found out that one of the lenses used for enlarging medium format on smaller papers has large enough image circle to cover 5x7!

This first prototype did not take any pictures, but it was able to focus with the tabs made out of match sticks. Well, whole camera was made of cardboard, tape and glue. Nothing was perfectly square nor things aligned well, but ! It worked! Sort off anyways….

I considered this to be a success! It achieved what camera should, to project image onto a flat plane. But, what sort of camera it would be, if it only projected image without ability to record it! Well, designing and prototyping continued until ! Version 2

The second prototype “Matilde”

As you can see, this was very different design. I was learning how to make bellows, which will be in any case needed for the “real” camera. But as I was making multiple types of bellows I decided to make a big ones. The template consisted of 4 A3 papers taped, creased and taped together. Bellows were quite successful and I decided to put on it a “front standard”
that had a lens board mounting system. Wow much advanced!

But it also could focus and stay focused thanks to holes on the top and bottom of the box, spaced 1cm apart. Speaking of the box, name “Matilde” came from the box, in which the camera was made. It’s a type of cocoa milk drink in Denmark, and it has perfect dimensions for 5x7 camera.

The back standard was made out of old picture frame. Therefore I could insert “focusing screen” made out of tracing paper and focus. Also, I could put photographic paper inside and expose a picture! And there is and example of that. And as you can see, camera worked! And results were very decent! Well, camera gave me negative, which I exposed second time in mounting frame to get positive on another piece of paper. But none the less, I was close !

Third one is the charm

From the previous prototype to the finished product in “only” 5 months. It might seem long, and well, it is. But needless to say, every part of camera is little bit special. When you are designing camera, you need to keep in mind dozens of small details that need to interplay in just the right way!

For example, focusing. To make focusing precise, you have to make focal plane (where image is projected) completely straight for proper focusing. At the same time your design for focusing/ground glass needs to be in the same place, as your film / plate will be. Therefore 3 different things have to align to make focusing precise. It’s usually about small details, just like in life.

But after long time and lots of studying my camera was ready! Along the way I learnt how to make ground glass for focusing, model in SketchUp and Fusion 360, how to make bellows…… so on and so on. The feeling after making the first picture was hard to describe. Probably something what a builder feels after the house is finished and ready to be lived in.

Although I am incredibly proud of this camera there are few areas it can improve. For example, one restriction that I made for myself is, that I glued lens board to the camera so there would be no temptation to buy more lenses. Also decision to make back standard move instead of lens my have been a bad idea. It would be much sturdier if the back part was stationary and only front would be moving. Well, a great idea for a next version.

If you like this camera feel free to give it a try and make it yourself! The whole camera was made for 90€, There are few things you would need to buy yourself such as screws, focusing mechanism (3D printing part - linear motion screw) and cloth for bellows. If you trust yourself with woodworking go ahead! Otherwise I can recommend CnC machining for this camera.

Link to all the files, from camera to plateholder and even bellows can be found at this link.