Collodion wet plate negatives

Gelatin dry plate negatives

Albumen silver photographs

GELATIN DRY PLATE NEGATIVES

In August 1880 Captain Sweet was the first photographer to use gelatin dry plate negatives in South Australia. They were a vast improvement on the earlier wet plate negatives, with shorter exposure times and no messy chemical preparations. The plates used gelatin, instead of collodion, as a binder for the silver halides. The process was invented by Richard Maddox in 1871, but it was not until it had been refined that it became popular in the 1880s. Initially photographers could buy ready-made emulsions with which they coated their own glass plates. In 1878 the first ready-made dry plates were advertised by Wratten & Wainright, and by the Liverpool Dry-Plate company.

There had been earlier attempts to produce dry plate negatives, such as albumen silver plates and dry-collodion plates, but these had not been very successful, requiring much longer exposures than collodion wet plates. Gelatin dry plates remained popular until nitrocellulose roll film became widely available in the early 20th century.

© Karen Magee 2008 - 2009