1940s Kodachrome 4x5's...

Killing time while the laundry tumbles by browsing www.shorpy.com

 

It's site of vintage photos.... they claim to be 100 y/o, but many are a bit

younger than that. No matter, excellent work.

 

The ones that have me captivated are the 4x5 Kodachromes. Rich colors,

saturated like modern digital that so many complain about.

 

Here's one example, more or less picked at random (I simply liked it):

 

http://www.shorpy.com/files/images/1a35370u.preview.jpg

 

Pull up a seat, best if you have broadband....

Would be best if the link would work

Try: http://www.shorpy.com/4x5-large-format-kodachromes

Doug,

 

Thanks for making me aware of these images. I've been looking for some good 4x5 Kodachrome images to show some people.

Joshua,

 

Glad you liked - aren't they amazing?

 

Dunno why the link to the pic didn't work. I opened Properties by right-clicking on the image, and then copy-pasted the URL in. Shrug.

 

Doug

My neighbor showed me a family photo from the 50`s done on 4x5 Kadachrome. I recommend you see an original.

Nice website Doug. A few years ago I had a chance to see an Edward Weston show at the Dayton Art Institute, and they had about 10 chromes 8X10 that Weston made in the 40s or early 50s NICE STUFF. <p>

Joshua, if you want to impress someone with large chromes, start here <p>

<A HREF="http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/f?fsaall:20:./temp/~ammem_bgcd:">THE PRETTY PICTURES</A> <p>

It's the library of congress collection. The uncompressed TIFF photos will knock your socks off.

Thanks Doug and Dave, looks like I'm going to be up for awhile :-)

I know the USDA had a photography department forever and keep archives in perfect condition.

I googled with USDA and got B/Ws. I know they must have excellent color somewhere.

 

This is time traveling.

 

http://www.usda.gov/oc/photo/histfeat.htm

The eye-opening realization is that new technology has not revolutionized photography. Old equipment in the hands of competent photographers produces stunning results. I thought the shorpy.com website was particularly intriguing partially because there seems to be a negative bias against Kodachrome here at photo.net, some would say "awful stuff" ... yet used with talent and skill it produced some very nice images.

 

... and there seem to be many over-confident digital photographers so quick to declare the demise of film .. with but a New York minute to the thought and use of such media ..

 

one point to challenge Doug, would be "rich colors, saturated like modern digital that so many complain about" ... I would have to say that since Kodachrome predates digital by quite a large margin, it is digital that has been trying to emulate film .. I do agree with Doug on all other points .. the pictures are captivating in quality and time.

 

Perhaps it is unfortunate that so many new photographers today shall not have the opportunity or desire to shoot film .. I really think they are missing something important .. and of course fun too!

Directory of Online Historic Photos & Archives

 

http://www.academicinfo.net/artphotohist.html

Its funny how so many digi photographers are doing B&W instead of color.

I read that Intel is working on a new conductor material that will make chip density even higher so moore's law will continue for at least 10 years. Imagine $90 cameras with 80 mp ten years from now.

 

Thats a great link Doug real history. I not very many old color film sites like that.

A related conversation on early color here not long ago:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00OGIA

 

 

What I missed from reading shorpy page was what the archival restoration required. I thought I read about a standard Photoshop treatment to rejuvenate the color. Did anyone else read far enough to catch that? Even old chromes lose some of the original tint. Just like the Sistine Chapel needed a little scrubby soap and water didn't it.

 

Anyone add anything to what makes the shorpy chromes so magnificent? Are they buffed up in some way? I think so...is it something easy or tough? Is it like movie film restoration via digital means? This is an interesting subject I find fascinating. The history of color, once so elusive. Now taken for granted. The chrome vs other processes. The Ilfochromes. Even they lose some pristine pazzaz I read. (Damn the UVA and UVB.mold, smoke, and the impermanence of pigmented man made stuff.)

 

Yeah Doug,sorting colors, and loading the durn wash into the dryer and on to the next fabric softener cycle. Phooey, It is boring to guys but my wife says it is comforting,the warmth and the thrumming. Womblike perhaps. Gal thing.:-)

Taking about history it repeating itself as Gerry pointed out.

 

I say film is almost dead. 10 years from now we will be selling our used 30mp+ DSLR's with 700gb flash cards to junk collectors for $30 at the flea market and cell phone cams will take better pics than what we have today.

 

I also think that history will show that composition is hard to beat.

I've personally seen Kodachrome from the 1930's, and no help was needed. It looked spectacular, like it was just shot. Once someone digitizes an images, there is that urge to tweak it in PS, but from what I saw, if stored properly, Kodachrome doesn't need it to look good.

Sorry for the typos in the previous post. But again to address Gerry's question, Kodachrome is very different from the majority of color motion picture films in need of restoration. For a brief time, 35mm Kodachrome motion picture film was used. It was called "Technicolor Monopack" and it made location shooting easier because it didn't require the bulky three-strip Technicolor cameras otherwise required at the time.

 

The excellent color and dye-stability of Kodachrome is legendary. The motion picture films requiring restoration are overwhelmingly on Eastmancolor negative, a very different and unstable process. It is the nature of the Kodachrome process that makes it unique and very stable in dark storage. That's why so many home movies from the 1950's look like new, while many Hollywood productions from the same era can no longer be printed properly due to severe fading.

 

Yesterday, my husband showed a 16mm Kodachrome film from 1952 to his antique car club, and several people remarked that it looked like it was shot yesterday! Imagine, over 50 years old, and still holds up so well.

 

It's hard for people to believe that such an old technology could ever have yielded such stunning results. But it did, and what we see today is genuine testament to that.

Of course, seeing one on the web comes nowhere near the experience of seeing a real print (or better yet the transparencies themselves). The color gamut chrome is huge. The gamut of your monitor is tiny.

Gerry,

 

I found two of the images I liked from shorpy.com on the Library of Congress website that Dave posted a link to. The home page of that site is: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

 

I would guess that most or all of shorpy's 4x5 Kodachrome gallery came from government archives. (Maybe shorpy even explicitly points that out and I missed the notice.) Images which were produced by the U.S. government are owned by the taxpayer, i.e. you can make your own prints if you really like them. The LoC site includes copyright, or lack of copyright, information along with high resolution scans (i.e. 7k x 5k). I went ahead and downloaded the two I liked, which had no use restrictions, and played with them in Photoshop.

 

Shorpy clearly did some editing to get the 4x5 Kodachromes to look that good. They do not look like that straight from the LoC website. I couldn't tell you if most of the degradation is from aging or from the scanning process, but the two images I downloaded required: local contrast enhancement; levels adjustment; color balancing; saturation boost; unsharp masking; some cleanup of spots and damage.

 

So you can see the differences, here are links to one of the images both on shorpy and on the LoC website.

 

http://www.shorpy.com/node/2592

 

http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/fsac/1a35000/1a35300/1a35328v.jpg

 

I think the photographs are very cool and will be spending more time at the LoC site. However, to be completely honest, working on two of the images made me appreciate both modern digital and modern emulsion technology. We really take for granted just how far image quality has advanced, and how much detail we're pulling from 36x24mm pieces of film and even smaller sensors.

admittedly, Kodachome, especially in the asa 10 era, was not a true color film. But as said, it " knocks your socks off "

 

there was an article by Peter Gowland about 4 shots he took with 4 x 5 kodachome before he was drafted? in wwII. his wife sold all 4. I think the article said something about batting 1,000. It indicated to me , at least, that photography then was a more careful and nobody went snap-snap-snap as they do today.

Walter you wrote: .."admittedly, Kodachome,(sic) especially in the asa 10 era, was not a true color film."

 

 

I read that to mean you are saying more or less that the colors were too poster like or maybe too saturated? Too holiday ornament bright. Like the Adventures of Robin Hood from 1938. Versus the muted hues of movies like some washed out color I see nowadays...So I ask then is that to be taken as a fashion trend. Or is there some measurable standard we can compare. I wonder this without any pre conceived idea, A for instance. Someone said about some routine shot in my gallery that the colors needed 'adjustment.' To my eye they looked fine right out of the scanner. I like warm and saturated. Some like cool and less contrasty. Was always so. I happen to like what I call "punchy" color. (And even punchy black and white.) Not pursuing any argument. But it does tease the mind.

 

I will go back to shorpy this week-thanks for the example Daniel, and find where the webmaster shows what he personally decided to do with LOC image before and after chrome 4by5 . Was interesting. No time today.

Shorpy.com is really wonderful, thank you so much for bringing it to my attention.

<p>Here are some very special kodachromes of Canadian inuits/eskimos in the 1950s:<br>

http://plotphoto.com/canadian-inuits-1957</p>