What exactly is Daguerreotype?

[badpets]

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I was telling and showing my friend how sharpening up images captured by noctilux 50mm f1.0 can make the subject in the image kinda 3D and poping out and he immediately thought of daguerreotype which I had absolutely no clue with. Googled but still don't know how exactly it works. Anyone here knows about it? Do you think Noctilux has similar effect? Thanks. (Attached is images I sharpened to 500% in photoshop which was original shot by Leica M8 with Noctilux 50mm at F1.0 ISO 160)

 

[Artorius]

Not even close. Daguerreotype is a process that exposes directly to a polished plate that is then chemically processed. Kind of like modern Polaroid process, except there is no color.

[giordano]

Once in a while the vignetting and small depth of field from the Noctilux at wide apertures can give an effect not totally unlike the dark blurred background and edges found in many daguerrotypes. But I'm sure that this is because of the lenses available in the 1850s - perhaps in particular the Petzval-type fast (f/3.7!) portrait lens - rather than the Daguerre process.

 

You can see for yourself on the web, e.g. Daguerreotypes: Special Presentation and Flickr: The Petzval Lens Photographs Pool.

[christoph_d]

Hi Badpets,

 

It is true that both Daguerrotypes as well as Noctilux photos can show 3D - like effects. These effects are

quite different and have different explanations.

 

As Art pointed out, Daguerrotypes are made directly on polished plates that are chemically processed.

Typically some of the areas of the Daguerrotypes stay polished even after processing, providing a mirror-like

effect in the image. An observer looking at a Daguerrotype would focus his or her eye onto the sharp image,

say, a person. He / she would also see a reflected image of the surrounding of the picture in the areas

of the Daguerrotypes that remain polished / mirror-like. His / her brain would interpret this as "Depth"

inherent in the picture - a 3D effect.

 

With the Noctilux, the effect is base on the selective focus in the image. In your example the wheel

is sharp, the surrounding unsharp. This provides depth - clues to the observer that again are interpreted by

the brain as a 3D effect.

 

So much in short. Hope it makes sense to you,

 

Best regards, C.

[stunsworth]

There was a TV program show in the UK a hile back about a photographer who is still making Daguerrotypes - in the program he was taking, and making, some photographs of Kate Moss. They have a unique look - largely due to the image appearing on metal as mentioned above - and look nothing like the shot you've posted. And when I say nothing I mean _nothing_.

[KM-25]

Robb Kendrick, Sally Mann and Chuck Close all spend more and more time with the daguerreotype / tintype wet plate process as the digital age makes a stale mediocrity of the modern photographic era:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/arts/design/20kenn.html

[earleygallery]

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I visited an exhibition last year and there was a (newly made) Daguerreotype on display, the artist had even made a leather bound velvet and gilt frame/case. It looked fantastic I have to say.

 

With respect badpets, I think your friend may have meant something else?

[Michael Hiles]

There is a good article on Daguerreotypes in Wikipedia. Also, there is a book called The Keepers Of Light that describes old photographic processes, and has instructions on how to make them work today. The Photographers Formulary in the United States has (or had) materials to support the process.

[badpets]

Hi ALL. Appreciated all of your comments! Thanks!

 

Yes, I already youtube about it and watched the program that mentioned about Daguerreotype. Also I have seen some samples on google. I think images produced by Noctilux seems to have that kind a effect when sharpened. But Daguerreotype is something amazing and photography nowadays can't really be compared to it.

 

But I'm glad I get to know this now. Cheers!

[masjah]

There was an exhibition of Daguerreotypes in Paris several years ago (I think it was at Musée d'Orsay though I may have got that wrong). Anyway it was absolutely fascinating, including several stereo pairs, and one or two rathe risqué items.

 

A friend of mine and myself went to NMM in Bradford to Insight to look at the work of an early English photographer whose work interested us. Over the lunch hour they took us into their archives and, cottong gloves and all, let us hold one of the earliest Daguerreotypes in their collection. We were exhorted not to drop it - its value was in five figures, and it was a wonderful experience just to hold and examine the thing.

[likea]

Daguerreotype is alive and well. And, the world's headquarters are in Pittsburgh, PA, USA

 

The Daguerreian Society