Tintype

Tintype of Herbert Hoover.

Tintype, also melainotype and ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a sheet of iron metal that is blackened by painting, lacquering or enamelling and is used as a support for a collodion photographic emulsion.

Photographers usually worked outside at fairs, carnivals etc. and as the support of the tintype (there is no actual tin used) is resilient and does not need drying, photographs can be produced only a few minutes after the picture is taken.

An ambrotype uses the same process and methods on a sheet of glass that is mounted in a case with a black backing so the underexposed negative image appears as a positive. Tintypes did not need mounting in a case and were not as delicate as photographs that used glass for the support.

Technical details

The process was very similar to wet plate photography, where silver halide crystals (silver bromide, silver chloride and silver iodide) are suspended in a colloidion emulsion that is chemically reduced to crystals of metallic silver that vary in density according to the original light values of the original image.

In a tintype a very underexposed negative image is produced on a collodion photographic emulsion and mounted against a dark metal backing(usually on a piece of iron, but the name tintype was the most popular name^[1]), giving it the appearance of a positive. The ability to employ underexposed images allows effective film speed to be increased, permitting shorter exposure time, a great advantage in portraiture

One unique piece of equipment was a twelve-lens camera that could take a dozen gem-sized(3/4x1") portraits in one exposure^[2]. Portrait sizes ranged from 3/4x1" gem-sized to 11x14" portraits, the most popular type was called Bon-ton(2 3/8x3 1/2to 4x5 3/4") from around 1865-1910^[3].

History

The process was first described by Adolphe-Alexandre Martin in France in 1853, patented in 1856 both in the United States by Hamilton Smith and William Kloen in the United Kingdom. It was first called melainotype, then ferrotype by a rival manufacturer of the iron plates used; finally tintype.^[4]

Tintype of an African American woman, mid 1800s

Ambrotype

The ambrotype was the first wet-plate collodion process, invented by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851 and introduced in the United States by James Ambrose Cutting in 1854.

Success of the tintype

While the ambrotype remained very popular in the rest of the world, the tintype process had superseded the ambrotype in the United States by the end of the Civil War. It became the most common photographic process until the introduction of modern, gelatin-based processes and the invention of the reloadable amateur camera by the Kodak company. Ferrotypes had waned in popularity by the end of the 19th century, although a few makers were still around as late as the 1950s and the images are still made as novelties at some European carnivals.

Advantages of the tintype

The tintype was a minor improvement to the ambrotype, replacing the glass plate of the original process with a thin piece of black-enameled, or japanned, iron (hence ferro). The new materials reduced costs considerably; and the image, in gelatin-silver emulsion on the varnished surface, has proven to be very durable. Like that of the ambrotype, the tintype's image is technically negative; but, because of the black background, it appears as a positive. Since the tintype 'film' was the same as the final print, most tintype images appear reversed (left to right) from reality. Some cameras were fitted with mirrors or a 45-degree prism to reverse (and thus correct) the image, while some photographers would photograph the reversed tintype to produce a properly oriented image.

Tintypes are simple and fast to prepare, compared to other early photographic techniques.^[5] A photographer could prepare, expose, develop, and varnish a tintype plate in a few minutes, quickly having it ready for a customer. Earlier tintypes were often cased, as were daguerreotypes and ambrotypes; but uncased images in paper black sleeves and for albums were popular from the beginning.

Ferrotyping

Ferrotyping is a finishing treatment applied to glossy photographic paper to bring out its reflective properties. Newly developed, still-wet photographic prints and enlargements that have been made on glossy paper are squeegeed onto a polished metal plate called a ferrotyping plate. When these are later peeled off the plate, they retain a highly reflective gloss.

See also

• Calotype

References

1. ^ Rinhart, Floyd; Rinhart, Marion (1990) (in English). The American Tintype. Ohio State University Press. 
2. ^ Rinhart, Floyd; Rinhart, Marion (1990) (in English). The American Tintype. Ohio State University Press. 
3. ^ Rinhart, Floyd; Rinhart, Marion (1990) (in English). The American Tintype. Ohio State University Press. 
4. ^ Peres, Michael R.. The Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, p. 32.
5. ^ http://ohiohistory.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/what-do-you-know-about-tintypes/

External links

• Step by Step Wet Plate Photography
• Making a Photograph During the Brady Era
• Civil War Photographs from the National Archive