Camera Test
No this isn’t a daguerreotype. I wish it was. Really I do. It is however the best of the test photos that I took today. I am happy to report that my bargain basement lens is able to produce an image. Yay! Unfortunately as I suspected, it is pretty limited when used wide open. This particular image was produced using a hand made f-stop with an opening about the size of a dime. If I am doing the math right that makes for an f-stop of a little over 8. Pretty slow in the world of daguerreotypes. The rest of the pictures I took can be seen here. Wide open is pretty fuzzy. Exposure is all over the map since my shutter is a lens cap. I certainly have forgotten some of the refinements of wet chemistry (as you can see), but it was starting to come back to me after a few tries. I also had the fun of using an 8×10 camera for the first time ever. Hard to keep everything adjusted right and get those film holders to seat in place. More challenges – er opportunities. :)
I also cured the light leak in my fan exhaust. Pictures of that here.
All in all a fruitful day.
Daguerreotype Process | andy | February 1, 2009
8x10, camera, castle, charcoal filter, daguerreotype, daguerreotype process, fan, fume hood, light leak, photography, photos
You look like you were very successful! At f/2.3 you’ll have a very quick dag camera. It might be hard to do decent outside exposures with paper (as it looks like you found out). f/2.3 on a sunny day will give you about 1/300 sec exposure on paper (ISO ~6).
It also looks like you have some pretty interesting bokeh. Not quite as crazy as Alan’s but still interesting.
Then chemistry will come back quickly enough, it’s like riding a bike I’ve heard.
It’s exciting to see Castle Daguerre in action!
Yes more castle action, most interesting..
I like your composition, not identical but it reminds me of a certain still life:
http://www.cdags.org/dagforum/images/attachments/StillLife.jpg
Bokeh is a rather kind description of what that lens produces when full open. It will be fast, but the question remains in my mind if much in the picture will be recognizable!
Re the other still life I have heard it said that all art is stolen. I guess if I have to steal my ideas it is best to steal from the original master of them all.
So there are a couple of still lifes like that by Louis, I held one once when visiting Societie de Photographie (SFP) in Paris. they tried to tell me that it had faded and didn’t believe me when I said they can’t fade but it was like that originally. they were looking at a copy image of it from around 1900 which had been processed high contrast to show as much of the image as possible.
I have a friend who is the curator there now, I shall ask if we can organise a trip by daguerreians to look Louis’s plates in September. Something else to add to the itinerary to entice people to come along.
[...] titled this entry The Other Camera Test to distinguish it from Andy’s recent Camera Test. Alas, my test wasn’t of a castle, nor of anything remotely [...]