The collodion wet plate process is an early photographic process (around 1850).
The collodion process requires the photographic material to be coated, sensitized, exposed and developed within the span of about fifteen minutes, necessitating a portable darkroom for use in the field. Collodion is normally used in its wet form, but can also be used in humid ("preserved") form,
at the cost of greatly increased exposure time. The latter made the dry form unsuitable for the usual portraiture work of most professional photographers
of the 19th century.