I have read several articles that say that chlorine has been used for sensitization. Has anyone had success with using chlorine? Could you just use chlorine instead of iodine. AgCl is supposed to be more sensitive than AgI. Also, could you use becquerel development? Thank you
Chlorine and bromine must be used in combination with iodine. Either or both can be used with iodine, and they create different sensitivities and tones. Read through some of the old manuals for examples.
Chlorine is difficult to use because it is a gas at room temperature, but I know that some contemporary Daguerreotypists have used it successfully. I have never tried.
Becquerel only works with Iodine. Adding chlorine and bromine will not create an image, just fog.
You can use chlorine after bromine, but the acceleration is only 10 times greater than iodine used alone. With bromine the speed gain is 60 times. Claudet reported success with the Becquerel process using chlorine as a quickening agent but imagine exposure and development time had to be very precise to avoid fog. I haven’t tried chlorine with Bq development, but have made several plates with mercury development for my dissertation.