What is the difference between a wet plate camera and a dry plate camera?

Answer 1

A plate camera exposes to focussed light a glass plate coated with a solution of silver salts. In the early days the formula for the solution was such that the coating had to be fresh - not necessarily actually wet (which would have run and made some weird effects) but absolutely new. Fox-Talbot and his emulators travelled with a darkroom tent and coated their plates on site. Once the chemical process had been refined, it became possible to coat plates at home and take them out in a light-proof box because the coating remained active for much longer - days instead of minutes. celluloid film came much later. People who need immense detail in their pictures still use glass plates, but wet plates, unless somebody wants to try the process for fun, are long gone. The statement about the wet plate process is not accurate. I am a modern wet plate artist. The process is called WET PLATE COLLODION because the Collodion HAS TO STAY WET for the proces to work,if it's not wet, it looses sensitivity and will not produce an image. Regards, Quinn Jacobson www.wetplate.com