Hi-Res Photos? Use Kodachrome!
erco
Posts: 20,256
Some stunning Kodachrome images from 70 years ago. Who needs digital? Mama don't take my KodaChrome away...
Curiously, a Russian collector provided these images of WW2 American aircraft development & Rosie the riveter.
http://pavel-kosenko.livejournal.com/303194.html?thread=22669914
Curiously, a Russian collector provided these images of WW2 American aircraft development & Rosie the riveter.
http://pavel-kosenko.livejournal.com/303194.html?thread=22669914
Comments
Thank you for that. Amazing.
I think the saddest thing is that all the know how that went into making such film chemistry is now lost forever.
Personally, I had something of a shock when I first saw second world war footage in colour. I had been brought up with black and white TV you see.
Those pictures are the same shock again.
Not only was my parents world in colour but high resolution!
Perhaps it was also 3D
I feel the same as Heater about the loss of knowledge and the means to produce Kodachrome again. It was such a special process. Actually I have at least one roll of undeveloped Kodachrome film in the fridge (still). I was too late to get it developed when the last train left the station.
-Tor
Thanks for the great find!
It is absolutely amazing how high res still photography captures a moment forever. Like Heater, I've had to remind myself that WWII was in color. :-)
If only the subjects of these pictures hadn't been posing...
This appears to be the only Kodachrome type produced back then:
That said, even 35mm Kodachrome provided great color and image sharpness.
No one who had the expertise has really "forgotten" how to process Kodachrome, but the equipment and chemicals became too expensive to maintain. The last Kodachrome roll was processed three or four years ago, as the lone Kodak approved servicer finally got out of the business. Kodak had done so years before.
No one does Technicolor prints any more, but the process is well known and documented, should someone wish to do so again. George Lucas had some Techniclor stock struck for the original Star Wars film. I'm told they used it when retiming the color on the later digital versions. No prints provided the required color fidelity, and in the intervening years the negative would have shifted an unknown amount.
That's what impressed me about the film speed. Typically on a 4x5 camera, you find lenses in the f/3.5 to f/7 range. A 203mm f/7.7 was a classic lens (equivalent to a 50mm in 35mm terms). This puts you close to the subject for portraits and also doesn't give you much light to work with.
Being posed and all, they are masterfully lit and exposed!
The depth of field in the shot of the workers in the tail of the B17 means they had to dump a bunch of light in there to use an even smaller aperture.
I'll stand behind my WOW!!
While it's true the f7.7 Ektar was a popular lens, at least some of these look to have been shot with shorter and faster sports lenses. The depth of field on some appear fairly shallow, and on a few there's a bit of distortion suggesting a wider angle lens (remember, too, the lens board can be tilted on a 4x5). My Speed Graphic has an f3.5 (ish, I haven't looked at it in a while) and was used for sports photography. Now, f3.5 is "slow" in modern terms, but with quarter- or half-second exposure and fairly wide open they may have only needed a couple of broadlights. The lighting looks "cinematic" so I wouldn't doubt they used movie lights (no flash), which would have also been at the right color temperature, too.
The look on these is nothing short of superb. I notice a number were shot at factories in the LA area. There are a few folks around there who know how to light a piece of film.
http://ondu.si/buy-pinhole-camera
See the 'Sliding box' design at the bottom of the list?
They're shipping mine one of these days now...
Kodak may not be making film any more, but there are still manufacturers out there and New Stock is still plentiful.
(While my 'sliding box' uses paper, my Lubitel 166, Olympus OMs, Zenit Horizon and a couple of pinhole cameras all use film. Just a pity I'm such a lousy photographer)
http://www.shorpy.com/Large_Format_Kodachromes
Follow a given link to find some more text and a full size image:
http://www.shorpy.com/node/8888?size=_original#caption
So at what resolution were the scans made? I read yesterday that a 35mm Kodachrome64 image is about a 20 megapixel scan. So a 4x5 at the same resolution would be gigantic!
Were any artifacts or other changes introduced through the scanning process? Were these brought back to be true to an original print or the transparency through any digital processing?
Is everybody viewing them on a color corrected monitor? The answer to this is probably no, so everyone is experiencing a different image regardless of what was done to bring the digital images back to match the original.
Thanks for posting, Erco.
As other poster have stated, we grew up in a BW world as far as that era Those shots where just beautiful .
Now who wants to buy these?
And is that an Olympus OM?
Nope. Minolta and two Cannons.
Four lenses camera are 3D cameras from the late 80's. NIMSLO was a company I worked for in the 80's. The camera where made in Ireland by Timex, but we built the printers in Atlanta, Georgia.
It printed on lenticular film, a process that has been used by a few companies. I remember Kodak doing it first back in the 70's ?.
You want some OM's?? I've got a few (hoarding) a bunch of OM-1, some OM-2 maybe a few OM-10 & 20's no OM-3 and if there is an OM-4, it's MINE!!! They should work (except for the battery issues with the OM-1), they probably need new light seals. Send me a PM, I'm always willing to talk about OM's!!!
If I get a chance, I can post a picture or two with an EMBARRASSMENT of film cameras!
My condolences...
There's probably no way for an amateur to get lenticular film printed these days, so I must decline.
(What's the fun in owning a camera that I can't use?)
Generations #1 and #2
In the above picture, the Olympus is circa 2010 and the Zeiss-Ikon Trona 210/5 is from the 1920s. Photography has changed a bit in 80-90 years! ...or at least the tools!
I'm mean girls with huge radial motors! Just beautiful. Girls wielding riveters and machine tools. They don't make motors like that any more and they don't make girls like that any more, At least not around here.
God bless them, and a big thanks to them all for working so hard when they were needed so badly.
Yeah, yeah, I know, this post is not politically correct.
(obscure Monty Python "Holy Grail" reference)
All that in the middle of the biggest, ugliest, bloody mess the human race has ever made.
http://bangshift.com/blog/a-study-in-steel-incredible-video-of-a-locomotive-being-built-in-england-circa-1935.html
When we were casting aluminium back in school we were kitted out with big boots, leather gaiters, a leather apron, gloves and eye protection.
Those guys look like they are dressed well enough for an evening down the pub!
Wonderful Scottish accent of the narrator by the way.
Yeah I was thinking that too...promo pictures without the supporting blood and guts.
Every time I see a 50's or 60's photo I am reminded as to how very close we came to thermonuclear war...several times..
Folks...the good old days weren't that good....
We seem to have killed about 40 million people in various conflicts around the world since the second world war.
http://www.cissm.umd.edu/papers/files/deathswarsconflictsjune52006.pdf