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  #1  
Old 28th March 2010, 01:02 PM
Martin Reed Martin Reed is offline
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Default Autochrome Plates?

I've been interested in the old Autochrome colour plate process for a long time, and had the good fortune to be offered 5 unexposed packs recently. The packs state that thanks to the new packaging the plates can be considered to keep for several months past the expiry date printed on the front. The date is March 1913!

I assumed that the emulsion would probably be useless, but used one as a test strip, and on the basis of getting some sort of density exposed another & actually got an image. This was by processing it to a negative, and then viewing after scanning & reversing in Photoshop. Just a little hint of colour was there, which is encouraging. Having got this far I want to carry on & try to get to a processing sequence that will actually render colour as the plates were intended to show.

5 packs is 20 plates, very rare to come across that many, but I've blown 2 already - next I'm going to try cutting a few of the 3.25" square plates into 6, giving small test pieces that can be exposed in a 35mm camera.

So has anybody out there got a box or 2 of unexposed Autochrome plates they would be willing to part with for an undisclosed (but not enormous) amount of cash in the interests of art & science?
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Old 17th August 2010, 07:27 PM
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cliveh cliveh is offline
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I wish.
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Old 18th August 2010, 12:26 PM
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Daud Daud is offline
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Martin,
We should be so lucky - I would have thought than finding these plates is almost as hard as good exposed ones..

May I be so bold as suggest that for anyone who would like an idea of what martin has, look at this site.
Or if you are in Paris - The Musée Albert-Kahn is based at Kahn's former home at 14 rue du Port in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb west of Paris.

The Wonderful World of Albert Kahn.

David.

http://davidalockwood.wordpress.com

Last edited by Daud; 18th August 2010 at 12:36 PM.
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Old 18th August 2010, 05:11 PM
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Akki14 Akki14 is offline
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Absolutely LOVED my visit to the Albert Kahn museum in Paris in January even with the rain the gardens were interesting and they have a small pot of the sorted/sieved/cleaned potato starch you can stick your finger in. The stuff is amazing to look at. It looks a bit like flocking but it's a soft powder but it glitters like stardust.

This book appeared to have formulas in it too (but in french... but i don't think it'd be too hard to sit around and translate the formulas), It was around €40 though, quite expensive. wasn't any cheaper when amazon did have it.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lautochrome-...dp/2735506789/
What I found interesting just flipping through the book is that people who have been working on making their own autochromes are using japanese/chinese storebought potato starch which I've seen many times before when shopping in chinatown.
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Old 12th February 2011, 07:34 PM
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Default Autochrome

Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin Reed View Post
I've been interested in the old Autochrome colour plate process for a long time, and had the good fortune to be offered 5 unexposed packs recently. The packs state that thanks to the new packaging the plates can be considered to keep for several months past the expiry date printed on the front. The date is March 1913!

I assumed that the emulsion would probably be useless, but used one as a test strip, and on the basis of getting some sort of density exposed another & actually got an image. This was by processing it to a negative, and then viewing after scanning & reversing in Photoshop. Just a little hint of colour was there, which is encouraging. Having got this far I want to carry on & try to get to a processing sequence that will actually render colour as the plates were intended to show.

5 packs is 20 plates, very rare to come across that many, but I've blown 2 already - next I'm going to try cutting a few of the 3.25" square plates into 6, giving small test pieces that can be exposed in a 35mm camera.

So has anybody out there got a box or 2 of unexposed Autochrome plates they would be willing to part with for an undisclosed (but not enormous) amount of cash in the interests of art & science?
Martin, I and perhaps others, would be interested to see some of the images you have produced from these plates. Is it possible to put some on FADU and are you still using these?
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Old 16th February 2011, 08:34 AM
Martin Reed Martin Reed is offline
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Apart from the 2 plates I used to do a test to see if it was possible to get an image, they're still in cold storage. It was encouraging to find it was possible to get an image at all, although this was low contrast and hence not much colour came through. In fact amazing to get anything at all, as the plates date expired before WW1 !

However this was using an off the peg film developer at a guessed dilution, it needs some careful work to find something like the original dev, energetic enough to get the contrast higher without fogging. However it did seem that the fog level was not unworkably high. As there's a relatively small number of plates I reckon cut some into 1/6'ths for exposure in a 35mm camera for exposure/dev tests.

I wrote the first test up for BW magazine, I'll see if I can link to a PDF of it from here.
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