24 May
EMULSION, ON THE FIELD, PRINTING PROCESSES, Zebra Dry Plates

The Revenge of Analog: Why I Trade a 30 FPS for Hand-Poured Glass Plates?

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Shadows Captured in Silver: The Creative Awakening of a Modern Glass Plate Photographer What if the most radical step forward in your photography meant looking back a hundred years? In a world where digital cameras fire off thirty pristine frames a second, every image risks becoming disposable. Algorithmic perfection has stripped away the soul of the craft, leaving many of us feeling like operators of a machine rather than creators of an art form. If you are craving a deeper, more tactile connection to your imagery where every single exposure demands your full presence, intellect, and heart, the answer isn’t a newer...
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20 May
AUTOCHROME, EMULSION, EQUIPMENT, ON THE FIELD, PRINTING PROCESSES, Uncategorized, WET PLATE PHOTOGRAPHY, Zebra Dry Plates

Why ProFilm Meter May Be the Most Complete Light Metering App for Film & Plate Photography?

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34
The Exposure System Built for Film, Dry Plate, Wet Plate, and Alternative Photography! Today, after months of development, field testing, and beta testing together with photographers from the analog community (a huge thank you to all the testers who helped shape the app along the way), we are incredibly excited to officially launch ProFilm Meter on both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. This is not just another light meter app. ProFilm Meter was built specifically for photographers working with film, dry plates, wet plate collodion, cyanotype, infrared materials, RA4 and alternative photographic processes the kinds of materials most modern...
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12 May
AUTOCHROME, EMULSION, Zebra Dry Plates

First Reverse Processed Zebra Autochromes – A Small Step Closer to Magical Colour Photography

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Over the last few weeks we have been quietly experimenting with something that has completely captivated us: reverse processed Autochrome plates. And finally… we have our first successful results. The images were taken during a recent trip through the Czech Republic, and seeing those tiny glowing colors appear for the very first time on glass has honestly been a magical experience. Even in these early stages, the plates already possess that unmistakable Autochrome atmosphere soft light, luminous color, and a depth that feels almost impossible to reproduce digitally. What makes them especially exciting is that these are not scans or digitally inverted negatives....
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05 May
DARKROOM CHEMISTRY, KICKSTARTER, Uncategorized, Zebra Dry Plates

The Zebra Daylight Developing Tanks a Almost Here

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From Kickstarter Success to Full Release Not long ago, the Zebra Daylight Developing Tank existed only as an idea. A simple but ambitious goal: to create a system that would make large format film and plate processing easier, more flexible, and accessible without the need for a traditional darkroom setup. When we launched the project on Kickstarter, we didn’t fully know what to expect. What followed exceeded everything we imagined. The campaign quickly gained momentum, reaching its goal and continuing far beyond it. What mattered even more than the numbers, though, was the response from the community. Photographers, alternative process enthusiasts, and large format users...
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22 Apr
DARKROOM CHEMISTRY, Zebra Dry Plates

Brighter Whites & Balanced Tones – A New Chapter for Direct Dry Plate Positives!

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There’s something incredibly satisfying about finally seeing clean, neutral and bright positives appear on the plate in fixer exactly the way you imagined them. If you’ve worked with direct dry plate positives for any length of time, you’ll know that this has always been one of the most elusive parts of the process. Not sharpness, not contrast, but white balance  that delicate, silvery neutrality that gives a tintype its unmistakable presence. And this is exactly where things have just taken a big step forward. Tested Where It Matters In Real Workshops Over the past months, I’ve had the chance to test a new complexing agent not just...
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27 Jan
DARKROOM BUILD, EMULSION, Uncategorized, Zebra Dry Plates

Making History: The New Chapter of Dry Plate Photography

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For over a century, dry plate photography has lived in a space between science and craft , between chemistry, light, patience, and human hands. It has always been a medium shaped by care, slowness, and deep technical knowledge, preserved by small communities and individual makers who refused to let it disappear. Zebra Dry Plates was born from that same tradition: hand-mixed emulsions, manual coating, slow production, and a deep respect for historical photographic processes. For years, every plate we produced was hand coated, one by one, following techniques that connect directly back to 19th‑century photographic practice. Tradition is not something that...
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18 Jan
DARKROOM CHEMISTRY, EMULSION, PRINTING PROCESSES, Zebra Dry Plates

Beautiful glass Ambrotypes without a camera?! A complete Guide to Contact Printing positives on glass (VIDEO)

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This project started with a simple but meaningful intention: to create deeply personal Christmas gifts from photographs that already existed. Instead of making new images with a camera, we chose to translate old family photographs onto glass, creating ambrotype-style positives using Zebra glass dry plates. What makes this process special is that no camera is used at any stage. The image is recreated entirely through scanning, tonal preparation, contact printing, chemistry, and optics. It is a slow, deliberate process rooted in 19th-century photographic principles, adapted carefully for modern materials. Below is the full, exact workflow we used.   What You need to Get Started Source...
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01 Dec
KICKSTARTER, Uncategorized, Zebra Dry Plates

November Update: Zebra Daylight Processing Tanks – Shipping is about to start

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November Update: Shipping Timeline, Production Status and Important Info for U.S. Backers We are still aiming to start shipping the tanks in early December, which is actually a few weeks ahead of the original estimate. Over the past weeks, we have been preparing all the small details needed to make sure that when your tank arrives, your experience is smooth and intuitive from the moment you open the box. It is not only the physical product. It is the brochures, user manuals, packaging, and all the small things that matter to us. Finalizing these takes time and a lot of effort, but...
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25 Nov
DARKROOM BUILD, EMULSION, Uncategorized, Zebra Dry Plates

After Half a Century, Machine Coated Dry Plates Are Back

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2
First Machine Coated Dry Plates After More Than 50 Years Dry plates once stood at the heart of photography, coated in massive industrial facilities operated by companies like Ilford and Kodak. But in the 1970s, as the world shifted fully to flexible film, the last machine coated dry plates rolled off those production lines. The machines were shut down, dismantled, and never built again. From that moment on, the survival of the Dry Plate process depended entirely on the few photographers and craftsmen who continued to coat plates by hand.I eventually became one of them. Over the last seven years, I have hand...
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09 Nov
AUTOCHROME, OTHER, Zebra Dry Plates

Through the Mosaic Screen: Discovering the Magic of Early Colour Photography

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My Love Affair with the Autochrome It all began with a plate shimmering in the light.The first time I placed an Autochrome on a lightbox, I felt as if I were staring through time itself, into a moment made of color and silver, air and dust. The way those tiny dyed grains of potato starch came alive under magnification, forming a tapestry of living color, was absolutely hypnotic. As a maker and experimenter in photographic chemistry, I could not resist going deeper. What were these colors made of? How did the Lumière brothers manage such brilliance with nothing more than starch, dye,...
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