[alt-photo] tintype developer formula?

[Christina Anderson]

This, too, from 2002 which I wish I would have come across before I finished the Experimental Book. So far, the only tintype developer (meaning, for liquid emulsion tintype or modern tintype) game in town is Rockland.

Having donme some Tintypes I did use sheets of black anodized aluminum of a 
thickness of 0.2mm. You can buy them at suppliers for sheet metal. 
Because many developers reduce to dark metallic silver you would need for 
Tintypes one which reduces to more bright metallic silver. Otherwise you 
would not get a contrasty positiv image. 

Here this formula: 

Water ca. 50 C 600ml 
Hydrochinon 10g 
Sodiumsulfit sicc. 80g 
Sodiumcarbonat mono 80g 
Sodiumthiosulfat 80g 
Ammonia 60ml 
add cold water to make 800ml 
for more contrast add ammonia. 

  
2-5 min inspection development under red light until higlights and halftones 
are well out. Short rising, then fixing. 

In »Cassel´s Cyclopaedie of Photography« I found, that you can make this 
»dry tintype« more similar to the original wet collodium tintype by 
varnishing it. 

Burkhardt Kiegeland 


Christina Z. Anderson
christinaZanderson.com