My DIY 8×10 Wet Plate Camera
I had been mesmerized by wet plate photography for at least a couple years. It wasn’t until I saw a post by Giles Clement about making a camera in 10 hours with his friends that I felt inspired to not only learn more, but maybe attempt building my own camera. I did some other research into other DIY cameras and after that I was convinced I would be able to do it.
I thought I would take the same approach Giles did, use standard size pieces of poplar from Home Depot. I figured this way, there would be less cutting (especially ripping) with my limited set of tools.
The only tools I had on hand were a jigsaw, an electric sander, a cheap 12v drill, a file, a very long ruler, a tape measure and my two hands. I also had an mini assistant as seen below.
Before I started building the camera, I spent a day or so designing it in a program called Sketch. I decided to use this program because I’m familiar with since I use it at work (I design apps you would find on the web or on your phone), plus it’s super intuitive. It’s meant for user interface design, so you can only design 2D, but I figured I would just design each part from multiple angles. So, that’s what I did and it seemed to work pretty well. I’m so glad I spent the time coming up with a design and having all the measurements down, it made the whole process go smoothly and quickly. It’s was definitely worth the upfront investment in time.
Once I had the design down, I decided I would start with the rear standard. I figured this was the easiest part to build. If I couldn’t build that, I knew I wouldn’t be able to build the rest of it. I took off to Home Depot to pick up the pieces of wood. This part was easy because I had all the measurement down from the design plans I laid out earlier.
I made my way back home, cut up all the pieces to size using a jigsaw and began putting it together. Essentially I was just making a box. A couple hours later I had the start to the rear standard. I knew at this point it was totally possible.
Next was the front standard. The only tricky part here was getting a nice round circle right in the middle of the front board for the lens to go into. I end up buying one of those compass circle drawing tools that you would use in elementary school. That seemed to do trick.
After that was complete, next was the ground glass holder. This took me a bit of time to wrap my head around. When I was initially coming up with the design for the camera, I was planning on using a standard film holder. I couldn’t come up with a way to have the ground glass perfectly on the same plane as the film. It was at that point I decided I would not only make my own ground glass holder, but my own film/paper/plate holder as well. This way I could control everything.
Since everything had to line up perfectly at the correct depth, I figured the easiest way to make this happen would be to use layers of 0.25" thick pieces of MDF. I also bought a 0.25" thick piece of glass, which I ground down with silicon carbide. After 45 minutes of grinding and then putting it all together, I had my ground glass holder.
Next, the film/plate holder. I cut and ensembles five slightly differently shaped layers of MDF. I then glued them all together and clamped them down.
For the lens, I bought a 300mm Fujinon f5.6, a good cheap starting point. Plus it came with a copal shutter, so I figured that would make life a little easier for shooting higher ISO mediums such as film. I bolted it straight to the front standard with some metal plates and screws I got at Home Depot.
I needed a way to attach the standards together and be able to focus. I went the simple route that Giles went with, a simple long frame to allow the front and back standard easily slide back and forth. The frame was easy enough to put together. I added a bit of paraffin wax on the outside rails to help the standards slide easily. I then added a couple feet on each standard and attached it to the optical stand. I could really see my camera coming to life now.
I almost had my camera, minus the bellows. My original idea was to do a box inside a box type bellows. Kind of like a telescope, but with only two pieces. I wasn’t really planning on spending much time on it, but I quickly realized that it wasn’t going to be able to focus at 1:1 or infinity, but somewhere in between. This wasn’t ideal.
I tried looking into other options, knowing that building a real bellows is a huge undertaking. I couldn’t find any decent options. I thought to myself, this can’t be that hard, it will just take time. So I opened up Sketch again and started designing it. I was now committed to making a real bellows. 😳
This bellows was going to be fairly large (over 3' long) and require paper stiffeners and two layers of 100% opaque material. I decided I would create a smaller (6" long) paper prototype before jumping straight into the full version. I cut up some stock paper, folded it up, taped it together and voilà, a prototype. My measurements where spot on. I was good to go it terms of building out the real version.
I went down to a local textiles store and looked at some leather. I managed to find a very thin synthetic leather that was completely opaque. I made sure it was by shining a very bright LED light right up against it. I spent the next evening drawing out the bellows’ stiffeners on big pieces of Bristol board I got from the local dollar store. The next day my wife and I spent a good 3 to 4 hours cutting, scoring and folding each line. This was probably the most tedious part of making the camera — It’s also the only point which I enlisted some help. I used cement glue to fasten the stiffeners to the big piece of the leather I bought. I added another piece of leather to the inside. Next, I folded it all down. It took a huge amount of effort, but I had my bellows.
Standing in my carport at about 11pm at night, I used the last bit of cement glue I had and attached the bellows to the front and rear standards. My camera was complete!! I had no idea if it would even work, but I was excited to try it out.
I woke in the morning just as the sun beginning to rise and ran outside to finally try out my camera. I looked through the back of the camera and there is was, a beautiful upside down and backwards image on the ground glass. I was actually shocked that it worked and that it looked as amazing as it did. I was excited before, but now I was super stoked to start taking photos with it—but I didn’t know if it was light tight, or even going to work at all.
I set my camera up on a bench outside, as I didn’t have a tripod yet. My wife sat down on another bench. I moved the camera close to her and got the composition down. I slowly moved the rear standard to bring her face into focus. A quick trip to the garage (which is my darkroom) I loaded up a paper negative into my holder — came back out, swapped the ground glass for the holder and open the shutter. Think I counted to about 5 seconds while my wife sat there as still as she could. The paper was exposed… but did it actually work?
We headed into the garage. I unloaded the paper from the holder and dropped it into the developer. An image began to appear… I could tell it worked! Next was the stop bath and the fixer. I brought the image outside so we could see it better.
Hour and hours of designing, cutting, sanding, screwing, folding, composing and focusing, I had my first image.
Since that day, I’ve taken a workshop with Quinn Jacobson and learned how to mix my own chemicals and shoot wet plate. I’ve taken probably 20–30 tintypes and ambrotypes. I’ve also shot some x-ray film.
I also built a 4x5 downsizing back and another holder just for wet plate. I did some modifications to the front standard so I can use lens boards, therefore more lenses! I bought a 16” f4 Charles Shepherd Petzval which I had a custom flange made to be able to mount it to the camera properly.
Here are some plates I’ve taken with the camera so far.
It’s funny doing a project like this—as soon as you’ve finished it, instantly you know how you would do things differently the next time. I already have a 8×10 V2 in my head and I’ve also started another camera… a much larger camera. I can tell you about that some other time though 😉
I was thinking of releasing the plans for the camera. If you are interested, leave me a note in the comments below.
✌️❤️📸
