1970's photo characteristics

for quite some time now i try to reproduce the typical look of a photo

taken 30 or 20 year ago digitally using photoshop. but beyond the

usual "age photo filters" which normally only decrease the image

quality i don't sucseed. my goal is to have a good photo of that time

emuleted not a trashy one. so i am wondering if there is any

literature about photo characterisics of specific times or other

studies of that kind. is it all a matter of kamera used and how the

film was developed. or in the end does the saying from the famous book

"hagakure" featured in the movie "ghost dog" apply: "you can never

recapture the spirit of a time gone"

 

regards

mike<div></div>

Something tells me this could be Kodachrome, although I'm not sure. One thing about the films from the 70s is they probably weren't as punchy and saturated as today's films.

To build on what Daniel said above, the "look" you are referring to is likely caused by unsaturated colors (at best) or unrealistic color reproduction (at worst). Certainly Kodachrome seems to have a look that is not realistic. My parents' photos from the 60's and 70's appear from that age from not only the fashion and long hair but also the distinctive color rendering of the film. Tree and sky colors (those colors haven't changed) have a certain hue that screams 70's. I suspect that playing with curves in Photoshop will eventually produce this, but I don't have a specific formula (nor do I want one!).

The effect of what you've shown looks more like magazine printing limitations than what the original slide/negative would have looked like.

 

Do you have any slides or negs from that time you can use as a reference?

Also add a little more grain to them with maybe more green if I remember the color film of thoes dayse C-22 and The new C-41 were Fuji green not Kodak yellow. Also the GAF 500 was total grain with the lovely cast of red even in daylight. it was an E-4 process.

That example photo does not look like Kodachrome to me. The flesh tones are way too orange. Kodachrome is a look you can still get, at least for now.

 

To get a specific color reproduction look in Photoshop, you will probably have to work with more than the curves function. The channel mixer allows tremendous flexibility, but it is difficult to use effectively. For example, if you want to reproduce a Kodachrome look from a digital or color neg capture, you first have to define what the Kodachrome look consists of.* I would say that Kodachrome 64 has bright reds and desaturated greens. To get bright reds on the channel mixer, the red channel should be made of 140% red and -20% blue and -20% green. (One convention that is helpful is to keep the sum equal to 100%.) To desaturate the greens, select the green channel and set the components as 80% green and 10% red and 10% blue.

 

* I once talked to a photojournalist about film choice. I asked, "When do you use Kodachrome?" He told me, "When I want that Kodachrome look." Those words didn't help me at all, but after he pointed out some of his work that had been shot on Kodachrome I realized that he knew in his head exactly what the "Kodachrome look" meant.

I think most photos taken 20-30 years were actually better than those taken today. People then used quality cameras not the point and shoot, zoom and digital junk they use today. Sure films have improved a little but there is not much net effect because you can't buy the great 25, 32 and 64 asa fine grain films that were in common use back then. Even 100 as a film is getting hard to find now. The net effect of the faster films has been to enable camera makers to use cheaper slower lenses.

The sample of royals is undoubtedly a copy of a highly retouched print, probably dye transfer. Dye transfer portraits were common as late as the

early sixties...some dye transfers were realistic, some were not intended to be realistic (the sample was presumably intended to be "idealistic", not realistic), and some were simply badly done because the craft was in decline.

 

Ektachrome X of the 70s was highly accurate by today's standards, much more so than Velvia (for instance)...however there were very few decent labs for that E4 process...E4 was said to be greenish, but that was only the result of ignorant/careless labs.

You might want to study some old National Geographic magazines...they credited the film in each photo back then, specifying Kodachrome or Ektachrome. Kodachrome's "look" mostly had to do with the fact that it was well processed by Kodak and was used in better lighting. It did have better blacks than similar speed Ektachrome, but it wasn't as accurate.

 

Ektachrome H (high speed) was typically used in low light, often pushed a stop or two, therefore didn't look as good. Ektachrome X was the choice of commercial studio photographers with studio strobes because of its exquisite color accuracy...many studios processed their own because they had bad luck with E4 labs.

Mike,

 

What makes you think that there is an appreciable difference between the characteristics of colour photographs from 20-30 years ago to that of today? The medium was quite mature back then, and the principle differences have primarily been that of fine-tuning and possibly tweaking/creating emulsions to match current preferences. Of course there is the matter that any photo created on an Ektachrome-type eumulsion back then would have faded somewhat regardless of how it was stored (more a matter of degree rather than of kind).

 

The example you provided is not the best one since if it came from a print source, the quality may be very much more a matter of the reproduction method used -- or intentional modification/shoddy work -- rather than that of the original shot.

Yeah, looks to me they had Kodachrome color in the can right

from the start going back to when it first came out around 1939.

Check out this shot of some 1940 sharecroppers below. They

even had ISO 10 back then.

 

Then in the '60's and '70's I guess they needed to recreate color

to what you now refer to as that '70's look.

The photo you show is a reproduction and reflects the lighting style of the time. I went back and looked at Kodachromes I shot in the 70's, almost all on Nikon F and lenses. See nothing looking like Chas and Di in terms of color or saturation. What I have noticed before is that the 70's was a 'warm' time, with warmer, earthy, darker coloration than later; go back and look at photos and ads in the magazines of the time. The film I remember coming out noticeably different was the Agfa slide films--and it was something they hyped in their ads. And yes, with that Ferrania GAF slide film, the fast one, the grain was as big as your eyeball! Sure wish the Ektachrome was as fade-resistant as the K-chrome. BTW the Chas and Di pic was lighted intentionally for reproduction, it's not what they used for more 'personal' portraits.

I don't know what good color was like for pro photographers back

in the '70's, because the reproduction values (mainly offset print

and TV ads) availed to the public at large looked pretty bleek.

Very blue white points with orangy-tan saturated fleshtones in a

contrasty surround with the blackest blacks imagined on coated

stock.

 

Check out cable channel TV Land. They sometimes run old

commercials from the '70's and that'll give you an idea of what

poor color reproduction looked like.

 

I came across a 1985 Photography magazine in a thrift shop and

didn't realize even for the pro's back then how far we've come

today in quality color reproduction even for the masses.

 

The majority of the public didn't have access to good quality

control color reproduction coming out of their own camera's

printed at one hour photo labs. I compare my family photos off

my Yashica 35mm SLR from back then and compare them to my

current digicam shots. It's like night and day.

Personally I seem to love the odd color look of the 50s and I've never been able to reproduce that. It just looks different in a way.

 

I have a bunch of 126 negatives and slides my dad shot back in the 70s and none look like that.

 

Perhaps going with an older emulsion type like Kodachrome or perhaps a less "punchy" slide film.

Just ran across your post, and am glad!

 

The previous answers pretty much sum it up. However, the human factor may be worth thinking about too. That is, the way we remember things plays a huge aspect in how we perceive things today. Not just in photos, either. Remember the rock and roll songs of the 60's and early 70's? We heard them on AM radio, and record players. Now, when they are played back on todays "techology"(digital, remastered, etc.), you know somethings missing. It's not how we remembered it. Taste, smell, photos, and sounds.......very powerful.

 

Technology today may be superior in film and processing, but doesn't always replace the look or memories of yester-year.

 

The fact that you are trying to recapture the look of films and prints from the 70's, speaks well about you. I hope you can find a combination that works to your satisfaction. Let me know if you do.