ammonium thiosulfate as a fixer

[unrealalex]

Hi all,

What do you think of using ammonium thiosulfate instead of sodium? Will it works? Will it gives better results then sodium?

I’m asking about this because in wet-plate ammonium thiosulfate gives a higher speed f fixation and a little bit creamer tones then sodium.

[Jon Lewis]

Welcome to the forum!

I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Fixing dag plates is the same process as fixing wet-plate, film, or any other silver based process.

As for the results I can’t say but I’m interested in other people’s experiences. Potassium cyanide should also work and from what I’ve heard gives even creamier tones than ammonium thiosulfate in collodion processes. Though it’s also a pretty nasty chemical… not that any of the daguerreotype chemicals are particularly friendly.

I have been using Kodak rapid fix with hardener mixed for fixing prints since I have it mixed already. It seems to work fine and the hardener doesn’t mess with the plates that I’ve noticed. Though unfortunately it doesn’t harden my dag ” title=”Wink” />

[unrealalex]

Thank you, Jon

I’m also very interesting in other people’s experience ” title=”Wink” />
Did you get any different results with the kodak rapid fixer?

[Jon Lewis]

I haven’t noticed any difference from just straight sodium thiosulfate but I haven’t really made enough plates with sodium thiosulfate to tell. I just read that Kodak rapid fix uses ammonium thiosulfate as opposed to the sodium thiosulfate of the regular fix. Learn something new every day! And it looks like I have some experimentation to do. Here are the extent of my plates, perhaps you can see a difference. All but the first plate were fixed in kodak rapid fix (ammonium thiosulfate). The first plate was fixed in a solution sodium thiosulfate (crystals dissolved in distilled water). http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonlewis I haven’t been making dags all that long and it certainly shows I hope that helps!

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