Nice video Robert. How does he keep the liquids from running off the plate? How "poisonous" are these chemicals?
I do not think these are too dangerous to produce, but the process produces a sheet with around an ISO of 0.5. You read that right, 1/2 ISO.
A couple of years ago Victoria Will did celebrity portraits at the Sundance Film Festival. I think she used a Profoto Twin head connected to two Pro 8 Packs both set at full blast from about 2 to 3 feet from the subject. That's 4800 w/s of power, which is so bright it would feel like the sun suddenly started shinning on you. The images are pretty cool!
Insofar as danger, I think the Daguerreotype holds the record as the most hazardous. The original development and fixing process requires the plate to be hung with the image facing down over a boiling vat of liquid mercury. There is a reason why Daguerre did not make a career of his invention and instead gave it away.
