Wet plate collodion photography is a very do-it-yourself endeavor. We are very much like the original roving photographers of the 1800’s because there are no, or limited, commercial sources for much of our suppliers and equipment.

Thankfully we don’t have to make our own lenses but are limited to lenses made around a century ago. This is because the small number of large format lenses still made incorporate glass and coatings which block the blue and UV light essential for collodion photography. But old lenses often have parts like lens caps missing. So we decided to invest in a 3D printer to make these and other accessories for our wet plate gear.

This first video is our design and making a lens cap for our newest brass Petzval lens. We used FreeCad to design and our new Ender 5 Max printer to create the lens cap.

The next video is just a short time lapse of our first print. We’re making a box to transport 12×12 inch glass plates and the print is a holder for the sides

---

Back to Our Blog