My Project for 2011

walsh

walsh

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Over the past few months I have amassed quite a lot of old photographs and postcards of the local area. After seeing some "then and now" photos of paris and moscow etc, ive decided to do the same. Im going to try and be as accurate as posssible whilst doing this. Ive picked up a 1920 ensign camera that I can use 120 film in. My question is what films would you recomend that look traditional? Ive used some adox film that looks good, but Id prefer a faster film because the camera doesnt have any settings.
 
What sort of traditional did you have in mind?
 
well a film that hasnt changed that much since that period. also is there any way to develop my film so that it has a sepia look to it?
 
Scanning in colour normally gives the film a sepia look but the colour all depends on the film...
 
The easy way would be a hybrid workflow - shoot film, scan and process in Lightroom/Photoshop. A lot of the "old" look will come from the performance of the lens.
 
are you wet printing, or scanning in ?
 
this is just a DSLR image , with a click on 'old photo' button in GIMP (free) image editor.


4333891599_83f894248e_o.jpg
 
I'll be scanning the negs, I've nearly finished a test roll of delta 400 through it so it will give me some idea on how it performs. There is no control on the camera apart from a bulb mode and just a open and close. It doesn't get much more basic!
 
Walsh, which Ensign are you shooting? I use a Selfix 420 and there's several other active Ensign users on the forum.
 
Kodak TRI-X is pretty traditional.

Its at least 60 years old, I suppose it will have been improved over the years, but what hasn't.
 
Formapan won't be too far off, Tri-X is probably a bit too new, depending on what era you want to replicate.
Just rate the Formapan 100 at 80 or 64 and you should be OK.
 
Tricky69 said:
this is just a DSLR image , with a click on 'old photo' button in GIMP (free) image editor.
Click to expand...

You can replicate the look in processing, but the feel is as much about the style of composition and the way the lens performs. You need to think vintage well before you press the shutter.
 
Alastair said:
Walsh, which Ensign are you shooting? I use a Selfix 420 and there's several other active Ensign users on the forum.
Click to expand...

Its a JB houghton Ensign Box Camera. Ive also got a selfix 820 on the way, but I think ill be using the box as its older.
 
The Adox CHS films are supposed to be 50s technology - available in 25, 50 and 100asa.
 
walsh said:
Over the past few months I have amassed quite a lot of old photographs and postcards of the local area. After seeing some "then and now" photos of paris and moscow etc, ive decided to do the same. Im going to try and be as accurate as posssible whilst doing this. Ive picked up a 1920 ensign camera that I can use 120 film in. My question is what films would you recomend that look traditional? Ive used some adox film that looks good, but Id prefer a faster film because the camera doesnt have any settings.
Click to expand...

erm having modern cars or punk rockers etc would look odd in the scenery, if you were to mimic old prints :eek:
 
walsh said:
well it would show how the times have changed from victorian period!
Click to expand...

Well I was thinking of the old faded (sepia?) prints you want to mimic. Usually used in "what went wrong" discussions ;)
 
Alastair said:
You can replicate the look in processing, but the feel is as much about the style of composition and the way the lens performs. You need to think vintage well before you press the shutter.
Click to expand...


Indeed..I've done quite a few "now and then" shots from WW1 and found it's very difficult to match old LF lenses (I think the word would be "perspective").
 
excalibur2 said:
Indeed..I've done quite a few "now and then" shots from WW1 and found it's very difficult to match old LF lenses (I think the word would be "perspective").
Click to expand...

I really need to manage my bookmarks better.. just last week I was looking at a blog/website of someone using and M42 adapter, lens rings, step-down rings and/or bellows attachments to mount old large and medium format lenses to a 350D and a 7D (or maybe it was a 5D classic) digital cameras. The results were suprisingly good. When I find the link again I'll post it up.

From my own experiments you need a very broad approach to get even close to emulating a pre-WW1 photograph using digital - and some of this applies to using modern films as well.

  • Composition - the example from tricky fails for me on several levels, the lens used is too sharp and the wrong focal length, but above all I have never seen a vintage image with such a dynamic composition. It just looks wrong from a distance
  • Lens performance - modern lenses are too evenly sharp, you also need to get the focal length right for the right look.
  • Shutter speed - old emulsions and films were slow, very slow. 1/100th is a fast shutter speed on a vintage medium format camera. You probably need to be using ND filters. On a realted note, check some of the early photography guides for the sort of aperture setting that was being used.
  • Colour response - do some googling for colloidon emulsions, they had a very unique response profile if you're emulating early prints. Cold colours go white (e.g. blue) so the sky tends to blow no matter what the weather conditions, warm colours (red, yellow) go dark so those black Victorian dresses could just as easily be bright crimson red. This will depend on the process you're emulating though.
  • Grain - if you look at old prints with a magnifying glass (or at high scan resolutions) there's several distinct grain patterns. With albumen prints it's less like pattern of grain and more like a flattened texture. Tricky has got a grain texture that's actually pretty close to my eye for an albumen print, but the GIMP filter isn't applying it in the right mode, to me it looks like the right texture in the wrong place.

Things like cars and fashions are generally less noticeable if the composition and colour response are about right.

Walsh - the first step might be to share a couple of the original shots you want to emulate, it's easier to give pointers if we can see the end result you want to achieve.
 
Alastair said:
I really need to manage my bookmarks better.. just last week I was looking at a blog/website of someone using and M42 adapter, lens rings, step-down rings and/or bellows attachments to mount old large and medium format lenses to a 350D and a 7D (or maybe it was a 5D classic) digital cameras. The results were suprisingly good. When I find the link again I'll post it up.
Click to expand...

Was it this?

http://galactinus.net/vilva/retro/
 
Yup, that was the one.
 
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