Daguerreotypes are weird

Try using a body cap with a pinhole (search for "pinhole body cap"). I have a body cap with a 0.25mm pinhole for my Canon 7D. Images are soft-focus, show off dust on the imager, and require long exposures. Then insert a couple extension tubes into the system - now you have an even slower telephoto pinhole camera. I don't really recommend this, but it is possible to play with. I lost interest in this after a couple weeks.

I love pinhole cameras, and I’ve made a number of them with machined apertures. If you are ever in Seville, Spain, there is a magnificent camera obscura that gives you a view of the entire city! https://www.andalucia.org/en/sevilla-cultural-tourism-torre-de-los-perdigones-camara-oscura

Really NICE presentation on these early photo technologies! I don’t think of myself as ancient, but the time you spent on the details of loading film as though it were a mysterious lost art of a previous civilization made me feel a little bit that way.😀🧐

1854 - Hugh Lee Pattinson takes a daguerreotype of Niagra Falls. (The gyroscope was 2 years old. Franklin Pierce was US President. Matthew Perry was forcibly opening Japan to trade with threatening warships, while the UK were forcibly getting China high on opium, and Chinese people in SF were making Americans full at their restaurants. Steel was very expensive but Henry Bessimer was working to change that.)

Stephen Gillie

Alec makes his own lava lamps with the more-than-slightly-carcinogenic tetrachloromethane; do you think a little hot mercury vapour is going to stop him?

Mike Richards

Comment without comment: “Get it up for you”

Zach Elwyn

Aaahhh! I collect Victorian photos so this is going to be right up my alley. So excited

Dude all of your videos have been right on point with the things that interest me and the things I want to learn about. I didn't expect you to go into detail about photography like this, but man I would love to see a series on it. Keep up the good shit!

I'm not sure calling them etchings is appropriate. I can sort of see how they could be thought of that way but the chemical process is exactly the same as the silver-gelatin process, and getting a positive image out of them requires what's basically a trick of the light. There are particles of silver sitting on the polished mirror surface, converted back from silver iodide in the development process.

Technology Connections

They are not prints on paper or thin metallic sheets. The are actually relief etchings in metal. If you look closely at them at a museum, the same odd effects occur. They capture tremendous detail, but because they are relief etchings on metal, they are VERY delicate. Thus they are always kept under glass. Of course, there are no multiples either. Each is a one-off. Beautiful, but obviously they had to lose out to paper photography.

OMG thank you! I've read that these have strange appearance, but as I never seen one in person, and this is not apparent in still images, I couldn't figure how (No to mention I'm excited about photography as well 🤩)

I'm so excited for this. I've done B&W photography as a lazy hobby for like 15 years and always wanted to figure out how the older techniques work.

Here's a neat video of a modern tintypist: https://youtu.be/T_gQgkCfj7w?t=98 The payoff when the photo is developed is amazing. I was there live, and holy crap did the chemicals stink.

Michael Dunn

Heh, there's a line about modern tintypists in here...

Technology Connections

I'm so sorry for linking to tiktok but check this guy out. https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM8kr2D1c/ He does tintype and cyanotype photos and you can see him develop the picture instantly. It's awesome. Anyway looking forward to the video Alec!

Mike Jacob

So you're not going to get into daguerreotype development? (/s)

Kevin Bost

Do I go read some Wikipedia articles or just wait for the video? Hmm...

Excited can't wait

Jon Hesse

I learned a new word just now. Thank you, Alec!

Scott Kemp