Finished with Rockland

kevin klein · Aug 7, 2012

I have done everything possible with the Rockland tintype and it just is no good, it sucks. The old stuff worked much better, I was told by one of the employees that the old developer had formalin (fermaldihyde) and it was taken out due to health concernes. The new stuff has no staying power, I used a batch that that I mixed up a few months ago and it worked fine for the first plate but all the rest of the plates had a flat dull contrast. I guess it will have to be collodion from now on.

I'm done with it!!!

hermit · Aug 8, 2012

Been there, done that.

Still think you can do it with collodion dry plates! After a forced break for medical fun and games will be back playing with dry plates and intend to try some tin types. Did have a few dry plates with both Tanner and Gun Arabic on glass that ended up fairly good ambros, so I think it can be done. Will give it a try the next month or so!

Leave Me Here · Aug 8, 2012

I messed around with Rockland AG Plus for ages trying dry tintypes, and I seriously never get a decent plate from it.
I went into it thinking it would alleviate me from the Wet Plate set-up, but now shooting Wet Plate full time, looking back in hindsight, Rockland's actually more time consuming and less consistent than Wet Plate!

MDR · Aug 8, 2012

Kevin since it seems that formalin is missing in the new formula, why don't you add some kind of hardener to the developer yourself. Rollei did market a hardening additive for use in the developer.

Dominik

kevin klein · Aug 8, 2012

Dom

Is the formalin use as a hardener? What ever there was in the old developer, it was more consistant at getting good plates and with a fair latitude of exposure.

I wonder how the original dry tin formulas got lost, it did'nt seem to take very long to come up with them as soon as gelatin emulsions came around. Could there have been something used in the emulsion to make them work, such as a developer or a reversal material?

I'll bet someone in the Eastman establishment knows, but he aint talkin'.

TheFlyingCamera · Aug 8, 2012

Kevin- head on over to The Light Farm, run by Denise Ross (she's an occasional poster here) - http://www.thelightfarm.com/ It's all about dry plate silver gelatin. Denise is terrific and has done a ton of work on making dry plates and hand-coated silver gelatin paper.

Photo Engineer · Aug 8, 2012

Formalin has seen some use in developers to increase contrast. It can also harden gelatin but not collodion or most oher polymers.

PE

kevin klein · Aug 9, 2012

Yup, been there before, she has an excelent site for the gelatin enthusiast. She has some of my gelatin work shown there.

MDR · Aug 10, 2012

Kevin it seems that I have misread your post, I thought that you had problems with the Rockland emulsion. If you have a problem with the contrast of your tintype just use Dektol. Since it works with your own emulsion formula it should work with the tintype. BTW thank you for making your emulsion formula available to the public.

Dominik

removed account4 · Aug 11, 2012

kevin,

are you having trouble with you own developer and their emulsion.
from others i have spoken with who home-brewed their own developer using
thiocyanate and thisulphate always had trouble ... but when they just used
the developer supplied by rockland they had no trouble at all.

when the weather gets cooler i'll be making rockland dry tintypes again
i did it a little in the spring and it was fun ...
i would love to do dry collodion plates, but i keep having dreams where things
go b-o-o-m ( i used to use collodion in the 80s + 90s ) ...

good luck
jlhn

kevin klein · Aug 13, 2012

The problem is with the developer,both mine and Rocklands. I did use BZT in the developer with mixed results. The old plates I made twenty years ago are far diferent from what the new ones are, they are brighter and have a more yellow hue to them.

Finished with Rockland

Membership Council

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency