Yesteryear Photos: Route 66 Americana

This article showed up in my f@c3 b00k feed. The photographer, Charles Custer and his family apparently traveled Route 66 annually to visit distant relatives. He carried his camera along each time.

The images are totally amazing.

 

Charles Custer, dead at 91, with wife Irene Custer took photos capturing a time capsule of Route 66, Americana

Incredibly sharp images. Why are we chasing those new lenses? Thanks,

Not only incredibly sharp, but the depth of field as well.

I have to stop and take a breath. This is like something from the Twilight Zone. I can almost hear Rod Serling intoning the introduction. Everything in the barber shop is familiar, even though I never got closer than 1800 miles to New Mexico at the time. The enameled chairs, standing sink and wire stool, square linoleum tile floor. Most of all, there is the tin ceiling. Pink's Place is what I remember, named for the owners once fiery red hair.

 

Thank you for posting.

These were an absolute treat. Thank you for posting, and they were absolutely mesmerizing.

 

I do have one quibble with the article, though. The author needs to learn what a box camera is, since those most definitely did not come from one(and I'm guessing were from the view camera shown both over the photographers shoulder and in the "self portrait").

Technically excellent but more than that, they did a wonderful job recording America in a way that humanized it.

 

Rick H.

Love it! Thanks for posting.

That was great and inspiring. The clothing stores and restaurants reminded me when I was a kid. WIndows to the past. Thanks for sharing that article.

Not only incredibly sharp, but the depth of field as well.

 

...and perfect exposure! The dynamic range of these images is wonderful. This with the depth of field (and great digital scans also) means one can explore each one from edge to edge and see so much from long ago - a great way to spend some time in isolation.

Nice shots, but the reproduction is not good. Very "chalk and cheese" rendition, with often blown out highlights. Where are all the middle tones? Smacks of heavy handed digital manipulation to me. Interesting how this is 95% white America too.

I have to agree with Robin above. They are really cool photos, but using the view camera sort of made them all posed shots, which isn't bad at all, just makes the set kind of one dimensional, but I love these old barbershops and drugstores etc. A view camera will produce incredibly detailed photographs, but a lot of what seems like sharpness is digitally done and the overall tonality looks very brittle and over contrasty. With all that, I still like these a lot.

As a side note, on the frames where the notch codes are visible, all are Super-XX.

 

That's such a beautiful film all around, and it's easy to see why Kodak kept it in production in sheets up through the 90s. I really wish I could find some to play with-I had a roll of 120 disintegrate in the camera, and have one of 35mm sitting on the shelf, but I'd like some recent-ish 4x5.

This article showed up in my f@c3 b00k feed. The photographer, Charles Custer and his family apparently traveled Route 66 annually to visit distant relatives. He carried his camera along each time.

The images are totally amazing.

 

Charles Custer, dead at 91, with wife Irene Custer took photos capturing a time capsule of Route 66, Americana

 

Thanks, Ricochet, for posting this. I'm amazed at the clarity and sharpness of these photographs. As one who, believe it or not, has never travelled Route 66, I wish I could. Sadly, long car trips now are not in the cards.

Fantastic series!

 

Why can't they make a BW sensor with digital that give such nice BW images instead of the usual fair of a mass of highly graduated light and dark grays?

A really engaging series of photos. Thanks for posting.

 

Nice shots, but the reproduction is not good. Very "chalk and cheese" rendition, with often blown out highlights.

 

Why can't they make a BW sensor with digital that give such nice BW images instead of the usual fair of a mass of highly graduated light and dark grays?

 

Vive la difference.

 

I have no idea what the originals looked like, but it is definitely not the case the B&W film couldn't produce graduated grays. Just look at Edward Weston's work, or Ansel Adams' work. After all, that is what the zone system was all about.

 

If you like the look in these photos, it isn't all that hard to create it from a good digital image. You could probably get a good part of the way there just by choosing one of the film emulation filters in SilverEfex Pro. But it wouldn't be all that hard without filters, just with standard tonality, local contrast, and sharpening adjustments..

Fantastic series!

 

Why can't they make a BW sensor with digital that give such nice BW images instead of the usual fair of a mass of highly graduated light and dark grays?

 

Wouldn't the LeicaMonochrome camera(s) cover that ground? I mean, at a price for sure, but don't they have advanced tech on this?

Fantastic series!

 

Why can't they make a BW sensor with digital that give such nice BW images instead of the usual fair of a mass of highly graduated light and dark grays?

 

I didn't know that digital cameras are equipped with a separate B&W sensor. Perhaps I'm just ignorant?

I didn't know that digital cameras are equipped with a separate B&W sensor. Perhaps I'm just ignorant?

 

No, in almost all cases, they don't. Leica makes at least one model that shoots monochrome only. Beats me why anyone would want it.

 

A digital (color) sensor gives you much more control over B&W than B&W film did. For example, in the old days, if you wanted to darken the blues in a B&W image (e.g., make a sky more intense), you had to put a red filter on the camera before you took the capture, and most people I know had only one density of red filter. Now you can do that all simply in post, with a great deal more control. You can do it for any color(s) and in whatever amount you want. This is trivially easy, for example, in Lightroom, and other software allows you yet more flexibility.

Leica makes at least one model that shoots monochrome only. Beats me why anyone would want it.

One reason I’ve heard comes from people who like restricting themselves to black and white for a given shoot or period. What they may lose in terms of conversion flexibility they seem to feel they gain by seeing and thinking in black and white only, as if they were using black and white film. I’m not advocating or criticizing this process, merely relating what I’ve heard. What I do advocate is someone working however they want, with the recognition that self-imposed restrictions can be either very limiting or open many doors of creativity, or some degree of each. I’ll usually assess the work more on its merits than on the process chosen.

Bear in mind that digital sensors are inherently B&W(just as film starts as B&W).

 

Each pixel is overlaid with a colored filter. The most common arrangement for this is called the Bayer pattern, although there are others. With Bayer and many other patterns, the color is interpolated for each pixel by comparing adjacent pixels.

 

Normally, if you want a B&W photo from digital, you are usually best to capture it in color and then use one of various tools to convert it to B&W. These tools will let you mimic both the spectral response of different film stocks and also add the effects of filters. As a side note, in the late film era, I knew more than one person who used color film and scanned it for the same reason.

 

A few sensors, including the ones used in some Leicas(and a couple of older Kodaks) lack the color array over the sensor. These should be used with colored filters to get the desired effect.

 

A while back, I also looked at an older Leaf(I think) back on a Sinar view camera. That was a mid-90s era back, and actually worked by taking 3 separate exposures using 3 different filters in front of the sensor and and then combining them into a color image.

I’ll usually assess the work more on its merits than on the process chosen.

 

Of course. I didn't suggest otherwise. In fact, I almost never know what camera other people have used for a given image, and I only ask if there is a reason to.

 

My point was that I personally don't see the value in throwing out data. The Leica sensor has some other advantages, but not enough in my mind to compensate for all it doesn't have. But if people want to spend more than 3 times as much for a camera that shoots only monochrome than for, say a Nikon 780 or Canon 5D Mark IV, that's their concern. I'm only saying that I personally can't see doing it.

Of course. I didn't suggest otherwise.

I know you didn't. That was merely a point I wanted to make once I started talking about my own preferences. It wasn't a response to anything you said or didn't say.

My point was that I personally don't see the value in throwing out data.

I understand. The reason I gave a reason why some folks opt to set their digital cameras to black and white mode was in response to what you said ... "Beats me why anyone would want it." I did not respond in order to convince you that it's a good method or one you should consider. I responded simply as a matter of giving you information and relating reasons I've heard. No agenda here and no attempt to influence your work flow. Just dialogue.

I always thought it best to flood as much information as possible onto a (digital) camera’s sensor. Which is why it’s best to shoot color and convert to B&W afterwards, yes? Eliminate, as much as possible, anything of any sort that would reduce the information flow.

 

Recently, a friend told me he bought a certain camera for his work because he could disable the device’s low-pass filter. While I guess this term wasn’t new to me, I really had no idea what it is and how it works. To hear him tell it, all digital cameras incorporate a low pass filter into their works and this filter serves (among other things) to block information from getting to the sensor.

(caveat: I have no idea if this is true or not)

 

BUT aren’t all digital cameras more or less built to emulate as closely as possible (well certainly higher end cameras if not so much low end ones) the original analog process of using light to activate particles on a sheet (in the case of these old photos) of film?

 

And sure, all that COULD HAVE been done in camera and in the darkroom or lab can “more easily” be done on a computer...

 

but I can’t help but feel like people seem to always go back to the original analog processes because there seems to be something there that technology just cannot fully replicate. We’ve seen this in the recording industry, in live performance, certainly in listening to music- and aren’t all the true reference recordings orchestral with the least possible amount of mics and gear captured on all analog equipment?

 

And now we are seeing it in the world of photography with the resurgence of film- which, as it happens, interfaces well (or not so well maybe- hence some complaints about these images) with digital measures such as scanning, post processing and sharing, displaying, storage, and transferral.

Recently, a friend told me he bought a certain camera for his work because he could disable the device’s low-pass filter. While I guess this term wasn’t new to me, I really had no idea what it is and how it works. To hear him tell it, all digital cameras incorporate a low pass filter into their works and this filter serves (among other things) to block information from getting to the sensor.

(caveat: I have no idea if this is true or not)

 

The low-pass filter is also called the anti-aliasing filter. Its function is to reduce the chances of moiré happening. Typically, at least with lower resolution cameras, the detail loss is not great but moiré is basically impossible to remove in post, so it's a reasonable trade off.

 

At one time, certain cameras would eliminate it, and it was often found to be more trouble than it's worth. I have a Kodak DCS 14/n, which has a 14mp full-frame sensor, and it's one of the cameras that eliminated it. It's purely a studio camera when I have used it(the batteries don't last long and it's bad above base ISO) and I have run into issues with moiré on fabric backdrops.

 

As resolution has increased, and pixels gotten smaller, moiré has become much less of a problem, and it has become increasingly common to leave out the AA filter. In Nikon land, the D800(which I have and use) does have one, but Nikon also released a companion along side it, the D800E, that didn't have it. The D800E does deliver slightly sharper results than the D800, although a 36mp sensor is pretty unforgiving of lens imperfections and those can mask any differences between the two. The revised and tweaked D810 eliminated the filter completely. I don't notice any moiré issues with the D500, which is a 20mp crop sensor(and roughly the same pixel density as the 45mp full-frame D850).

but I can’t help but feel like people seem to always go back to the original analog processes because there seems to be something there that technology just cannot fully replicate.

 

It's all a matter of personal preference. I grew up with wet darkroom work, and I still feel a little nostalgic about it. Ditto, my Canon FTb fully manual film camera. But I personally wouldn't consider going back to it, and I haven't actually used film in many years. I have vastly more control working digitally. I can accomplish more of what I want, and I can do it more easily. Even something as basic as dodging and burning is much easier to do digitally, and it's reversible, if you use certain techniques. For example, I usually dodge and burn by creating a curves adjustment, turning the mask black, and slowing painting white where I want to make the change. If I go to far, I can just turn the brush black and erase it. If the effect is too strong, I can simply reduce the opacity or make the curve less extreme. In wet darkroom days, the only way to compensate for having burned too much or in too large an area was to start over. And that's just one of many examples.

 

Someone who knows this better than I can correct me if I am wrong, but I think the music analogy isn't precise. In using digital recording, unless you use a very high sampling rate, you are discarding information that in theory an analog recording can capture. Photography is the reverse: digital captures leave you with more data, not less.