Really want to do tintype photography, but with a 35mm camera

<p>Really want to do tintype photography, but with a 35mm camera</p>

<p>I just remembered a documentary about tintypes, and now I really wanna try doing it! But with a 35mm camera.. Is it even possible? Or should I just buy a cheap holga and try it out first since someone actually did it? Thanks :)</p>

<p>Btw, what are the sheets called? Black aluminium plates? </p>

<p>Or maybe with my Rolleiflex</p>

<p><em>"Tintype photographs are made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal coated with a dark lacquer or enamel and used as the support for the photographic emulsion."</em></p>

<p><br /> I don't know how you could get metal in those formats.</p>

You may be able to IMITATE the look of tintypes by shooting on 35mm film and postprocessing. But the look of a tintype is

not a tintype.

<p>Metal shouldn't be the issue. -Take some badly copied offset plates (aluminium) and trim them under a guillotine cutter and paint them black.<br>

The bigger question: what are you going to do with the results? 24x36mm positives aren't exactly epic sized. and few folks bother to hang them framed onto their walls but maybe some friend of yours is into dollhouse interior design?<br>

I never tried tin types but guess the emulsions are still awfully slow and all your awesome f1.4 & faster glass aside you 'll need a tripod? - So why not go all the way and get yourself a nice field camera for the project? The 9x12 - 13x18cm stuff intended for amateurs and tourists 90+ years ago isn't overly expensive. Considering all the effort you'll have to put into learning to make & handle your plates an old LF camera might be worth getting.</p>

True, but I heard that the tintypes have to be processed

within an hour or something right?

I made wet plates and tin types using an old Brownie camera. The cameras are cheap and the conversion is simple. You

cover the metal in the back with electrical tape and it's ready to go. Load the plate in the camera in the darkroom, carry

outside for the shot and back to the darkroom to develop the plate or tintype.

I had a brownie but sold it recently. How long after do I

need to develop the tintype? Thanks!

Bergger Prestige RC1 Multigrade Black &White paper

8''x10''

 

Like these? Are those for tintypes?

<p>A tintype is a colloidon (not gelatin) emulsion on black metal. You have to process it before the colloidon hardens, because after it hardens, it's waterproof -- you can't get the chemistry to the silver halides to process them. Same issue as the "wet plate" process for colloidon emulsions on glass plates used during (for example) the Civil War in the US. The need for a wet field darkroom is why "dry plate" photography (with gelatin emulsions) were such an important invention.<br>

You could certainly capture images in the field by whatever means you like (B&W film, digital, etc.) and then make a positive transparency print in an ink-jet printer. Then that could be printed in a darkroom on colloidon process tintype, so that you don't have to have a field darkroom. <br>

Both tintypes and digital negatives (although you would be making a positive) are well covered by many books on alternative process photography.</p>

 

Shooting the World's Smallest Tintypes with a Minox Subminiature Camera

Black and White papers will not create tintypes. As mentioned above, real tintypes are metal plates, coated in photo-sensitive materials. If I am not mistaken, the chemicals needed aren't as cheap as normal B&W chemicals, and a lot more toxic.

 

My ideas is much like John Shriver recommends above - shoot normal B&W film, scan your negatives without inverting them and print them in large size on celluloid (most inktjet printers can print on the materials to create transparencies for overhead projectors - that ought to work). This way, you have a large reasonable quality negative that you can use with a wealth of different printing processes (contact prints). Photosensitive gels are available to allow B&W printing on a wide range of materials. Another option, without scanning/creating a large negative: see this old thread.

Note: this is just some ideas, I haven't tried the above things myself.

The principal behind the tintype and the ambrotype is, an underexposed negative image against a black background yields a positive looking image.

http://jdainis.com/neg.JPG

 

http://jdainis.com/pos.JPG

 

http://jdainis.com/pos1.JPG

 

Hey, I just made a 35mm tintype. (Rather poor black background but all I had for a quick and dirty example.) If you were to use a camera using 120 film then you would just underexpose each shot, develop the film and attach that thin negative to a sheet metal painted black. Stick it in a union case or behind a small glass frame and who will know? That would be about a ninth plate, 2 x 2.5 inches, tintype which was a very popular size back during the War Between the States in 1860s America.

You could buy tintype plates here:

 

Modern Collodion Tintype Plates (4 x 5", 15 Pack) TTP15-45

 

Modern tintype plates are made of aluminum not metal. I wonder if that is to prevent someone from going to a Civil War re-enactment and taking some photos and the trying to sell them as real Civil War tintypes. Run of the mill tintypes of unknown people sell for a few dollars. Tintypes of Civil War soldiers with weapons sell for hundreds of dollars.

"Modern tintype plates are made of aluminum not metal."

 

Last time I looked, aluminum is metal. do you mean "not made of tin...?"

 

You could not sell a photo made at a reenactment as a "real Civil War tintype" because it wasn't shot during the Civil War. It's a re-enactment, and you are shooting on a totally different medium. You aren't wet coating a metal plate, nor wet developing it on-site.

 

Only the purchasers can decide if they are interested in "replica tin types"

You can't go into a bank with a gun and demand that they hand you all the cash in the till because that would be stealing. But, people do. Believe it or not there are dishonest people in this world. Fortunately photographers are honest people so none would think to make tintypes at a re-enactment and try to sell them as genuine Civil War tintypes

Just speaking for myself, I wouldn't want colloidon dripping in any of my Rolleiflexes.

 

I've played around very little with wet plate processes(I've done both glass plate and tintype) with mixed results, but I use plate holders to expose them. 4x5 plate holders are easy to find, abeit I did find one 2x3 holder covered in dust in the back of my favorite shop. 2x3 is a nice size and the cameras tend to be a lot less expensive than 4x5s. Heck, you should be able to plug a Graflok spring back from a miniature Speed/Crown graphic on an RB67 and have a "modern" camera that you can use and actually get reasonably sized images.

Nice demo of how ambro and tintypes work James.

 

There's an emulsion bleach (bichromate maybe?) That turns the silver white. This would increase the contrast and avoid having to look sideways at a thin negative.

 

I'm not sure how permanent a bleached image would be though. However, I'm sure that some sort of toning process could be applied to a negative to make a pseudo reversal.

 

BTW, were "tintypes" ever coated on tin? Tin is a soft and expensive metal. Even tin cans aren't made of pure tin; only coated with it. So I imagine tintypes used the same material - thin iron or steel sheet. Or maybe they were recycled from used tincans?

Edited May 19, 2017 by rodeo_joe|1

Too late to edit apparently. That was never 15 minutes!

 

Anyhoo.

 

Wouldn't it be better to underdevelop an ambrotype, rather than underexpose?

Underexposure loses you shadow detail. Whereas what's needed is a thin negative with a full tonal range. As got by giving a normal exposure and curtailing development.