Ferrotype

Tintype street photographer. The cylinder behind the photographer's wrist is the developing tank. image by Ben Shahn (Image rights)

Ferrotypes (also known {in the USA} as Tintypes) are photographs made onto black-enamelled iron plates by the wet-collodion process. The black background made the transparent areas of the negative image appear black, and the dark, silvered areas were whitened using mercuric bichloride, and so appear light - in the same way as glass Ambrotypes.

French photographer Adolphe A Martin was the first to use this process, in 1853. A dry ferrotype processes later replaced the wet-plate system. As the process could be carried out inside the camera and needed no drying time, dry ferrotypes were popular with "while-you-wait" beach and street photographers. Some cameras were advertised specifically for this purpose, such as the Mandel-ette.

Since the image must be viewed from the silvered side of (non-transparent!) plate, the image is left-right reversed (mirror-imaged) - a fault shared with most Daguerreotypes.

The process was used in the US until the early 1940s.

Young American	American couple	American family	Two gentlemen	Two young ladies

Links

Ferrotype cameras in a past Breker auction catalogue:

• Aptus, for 1¾×2½ inch exposures, by Moore & Co. of Liverpool, c.1910.
• One Minute Camera, by the One Minute Camera Co. of Chigago, 1910-20.
• Mandel-ette, by the Chicago Ferrotype Co., c.1914.
• Unidentified street camera for ferrotype and postcards, c.1910.