plate glass negatives

[gedbrogan]

My Partner very kindly bought me some plate glass negatives from a charity shop. They look well composed and might be historic, looks like they were taken by a wealthy person of their lovely home somewhere in Norfolk. There are also glass negatives of the broads and old boats.

How would i make prints from these and if they are of historic photographic interest is there anyone that collects/collates such things?

Gerard

[harveyzone]

My Partner very kindly bought me some plate glass negatives from a charity shop. They look well composed and might be historic, looks like they were taken by a wealthy person of their lovely home somewhere in Norfolk. There are also glass negatives of the broads and old boats.

How would i make prints from these and if they are of historic photographic interest is there anyone that collects/collates such things?

There are various ways to get a print from them. I have had success by all of the following at various times...

• Photographing them on a light box with a digital camera, inverting the image and then printing.
• Scanning them on a flatbed scanner in sections (in sections because my scanner only has a 35mm wide light source designed for 35mm film), merging them into a single file, inverting the image and then printing.
• If you have 35mm darkroom facilities you could 'contact print' them onto photographic paper.
• You can enlarge them properly, but you need an enlarger capable of holding and a lens capable of covering the full image circle of the plate negatives (I was lucky enough to work somewhere that had suitable equipment at the time).

[David Kilpatrick]

The best way to handle these is to buy some suitable size RC photo paper (Grade 2 and Grade 3 should do), a dish and some basic chemicals (dev and fix). The plate glass neg can be contact-printed perfectly using its own weight, no printing frame needed. You will need a safelight or a safelight bulb, I'd be happy to lend you a safelight and dish and even send you some (outdated by a year or two but probably perfect) photo paper, if you pay the postage and return after use. To make the exposure, you just hold the safelight a yard above the paper and plate, and unscrew the cover to reveal white light for about five seconds, maybe less or more.

To process the paper using one dish, you mix up a couple of cupfuls of the dev and fix, and you must have a blacked out room with a sink (late at night is OK, and sodium street lamp light is a safelight for b/w paper - so if you have sodium light coming in through a window at night, you can use a room like that as a darkroom). Fold a bit of kitchen towel, dip in the dev, put the exposed paper in the dev tray, and swab the surface with the developer for two minutes. Rinse under a tap for a second (dish and paper together), then pour enough fixer to cover the paper, fix for 1 minute, return the fixer to its cup/measure for re-use, then wash the print in the tray under cold tap for two minutes.

By using the dev on kitchen towel (or cotton wool) you can ensure a fresh and consistent result, the fix is not so critical, and you can use a single dev dish.

The resulting print once air-dried can be scanned, and the result will be much better than trying to scan or photograph the plate and invert the result.

If you have a proper darkroom around of course it's easier, this method is suggested for 'scratch' darkroom work - and it's only suitable for contact printing. For old sheet film you need a contact frame to keep the film under pressure. The good thing about glass plates is that you do not!

David

[gedbrogan]

Thanks for all the advice on this matter.David thanks too for your kind offer, however I am going to take a raincheck on this project for a few months at least as I am busy trying to earn a living.
Gerard