Talk:Tintype

The ferrotype, also called the melainotype or tintype, was America's first major contribution to the art of photography. It superceded the ambrotype by the end of the Civil War and went on to become 19th-Century America's favorite quick picture.

It was made the same way as the ambrotype, except that a thin piece of black enameled, or japanned, iron was used in place of glass. Like the ambrotype, the image is reversed.

Ferrotypes were made from thumbnail size to as large as 11" x 14". With the introduction of multi-lensed cameras with sliding backs in the early 1860's, the more typical small sizes were made in volume. These were usually mounted in card mounts of the then popular cart-de-viste size. Made on a metal plate and with a varnished surface, ferrotypes have proven very durable.

Although their popularity waned in the early 20th century, there were street vendors still selling portraits un til th 1950's.

Tintype

The name the world knows it by is tintype. It was first called a melainotype, then ferrotype (by a rival manufacturer of the iron plates used), but the world knows them as tintypes (William Welling, Photography in America, Page 117).--Persianhistory2008 09:09, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Naomi Rosenblum's 'A World History of Photography' (3rd edition), New York, London, Paris: Abbeville Press, 1997 states that the tintype was invented in 1853 in France, not in 1856 in America. Wikipedia's page on tintypes obviously needs to be reviewed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.54.4.23 (talk) 22:54, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Image composition

The article currently states "the image, in gelatin-silver emulsion on the varnished surface,".

Is this correct? Surely it's a collodion-based process, not gelatine, and the varnish is over the image? Sorry, I can't check/correct myself since my reference books are boxed. MarkMLl (talk) 08:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

No it is not correct. Tintypes used the wet plate collodion process on an iron plate covered with some black stuff. Ambrotypes were simply glass collodion negatives mounted in a frame against a black background.

Article needs to be compressed and all the claims as to one process superceding another is irrelevant. Especially as people are producing tintypes today. RPSM (talk) 23:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Example

Why is not Billy the Kids tintype picture used as an example of tintype photos? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Billykid.jpg --Bjs5005 (talk) 10:23, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

reference

http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/tintype.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by RPSM (talk • contribs) 16:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

The wet plate collodion process

The wet plate collodion process produces: 1) wet plate glass negatives that are printed to make paper prints 2) as the collodion wet plate negative looks positive against a black background, mounting the collodion negative against a black background prduced an ambrotype 3) tintypes were the same as ambrotypes except that the support was metal with a black asphalt layer. They are not all different processes; they are one and the same process. RPSM (talk) 20:13, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Image question

I am curious as to whether the tintype of the infant is a memorial image, i.e. made of a recently deceased infant? The baby seems to be very flaccid, eyes closed, and memorial photos were very common, especially of someone who had never been photographed in life; hence the question. See: Post-mortem photography 207.69.137.27 (talk) 00:45, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Memorial images are common but i don't think they were in the african american community at that time, it's the first one i've seen. Is the child in fact dead? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.26.72.143 (talk) 20:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

That baby looked very dead. Perhaps the image could be removed? Or maybe I'm just being too sensitive. Cloak' 01:23, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Tin?

The article is clear that there is no tin used in the process, but less clear why the name "tintype" is used. I presume it's derived from the use of the iron plate, which is sometimes referred to as "tin" (for example, in tin can, tinware and tinsmith) from the early use of tin coatings as rust protection (tinplate). It would be nice to have a referenced mention of the source of the name in the article, though. -- 71.35.100.68 (talk) 19:42, 17 March 2013 (UTC)