The quality of those pictures is absolutely mind boggling for being taken with 70 year old technology.

Amazing photos. I miss my film too.

quote:

Originally posted by soggy_spinout:
I sure do miss Kodachrome 25 and 64.

Me, too. Beautiful work.

WWII Kodachrome had an ISO of 10, so those photos were staged. The probably used both flash and flood lighting, and may have touched up the transparencies as well.

I like the photo of the International Harvester tractor pulling the bomber. Those Kodachrome skies…

quote:

Originally posted by downtownv:


Also notice that most of the woman were wearing lip stick and nail polish.

Some of the makeup well-coiffed hair in these photos is probably because they knew they were going to be photographed. I suspect that the trip to the plant by the photographer was known in advance. You don't just pop in with a 4x5 view camera - that is 20 to 40 pounds of equipment on a tripod, with light meter, never mind any lighting equipment.

It doesn't lessen these photos, but many were clearly posed and well planned out. The women may very well have known they were going to be photographed and dressed for it.

Might've been a view camera, but i'd've guessed a Speed Graphic Press camera.

Great photos - thanks for sharing.


Am I the only one who has an ear worm going now?

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away...

Thanks for that. I passed it on to a pro photographer friend. Amazing definition/color for that era.

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:
The quality of those pictures is absolutely mind boggling for being taken with 70 year old technology.

Not so amazing, really. There is far more information and resolving power in a sheet of 4x5 (that is inches) film than in any sensor in any camera used for ordinary photography. The lenses then were not significantly different than they are now - especially for a fixed focus lens. And some of the look you are seeing there are the properties of Kodachrome film.

Kodachrome was a dye transfer color positive transparency film. Nothing else has ever looked like it. Digital post processing and camera settings have attempted to mimic Kodachrome and have gotten close, but Kodachrome has a distinctive look and feel. Kodachrome is no longer available. The last lab that processed it closed some time ago. It can't be processed except in a large and dedicated lab.

You used to buy Kodachrome with a mailer that included sending the film back to Kodak for processing. A couple of weeks later your slides came back in the mail.

And maybe that is a Speed Graphic. The light in the tractor driver photo posted above comes from the other side of the tractor and from below. That has to be lights placed there, which tends to confirm that those photos were highly planned and set up. You'd use a view camera for that.

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
The photos look staged. I wouldn't expect that women working in somewhat dirty jobs in factories would be dressed up like that every day - and appear so neat and clean.

Those photos were absolutely staged, Kodachrome at that time had an ISO of 25 and the lenses used for 4x5 sheet film were usually set to f16 to f32 to achieve the maximum sharpness in the image. As a result a very LARGE magnesium based flash bulb was used and the time involved to set up just one shot could take as much as 15 to 20 minutes.

BTW, I have a 4x5 Monorail camera in my stash and still have a box of Plus-X pan in the freezer. I also did some shooting with Kodachrome 64 in the 120 format when it was available in the late 1980's and the image quality that could be achieved with that film was stunning.

From having spent 25+ years shooting view cameras commercially (4x5-8x10-even 11x14)I would not be surprised to learn that every factory shot was a full day of lighting and testing.
Pride back in the day was measured by your ability to get the shot with no retouching, everything was done in camera. I doubt that retouching dyes were even available for Kodachrome, I never remember any retouchers working on actual Kodachrome. If you needed to "touch up" Kodachrome a "dupe transparency" on Extachrome would need to be made and that would be retouched.
Most pros would never shoot a job on Kodachrome because of the limitations as far as pushing or pulling in processing and the limitation of camera formats it was available in. It is a VERY unforgiving film, you have to be right on. A very dangerous combination to take out and shoot a job with were failure is NOT a option and there are no do overs.
You also would have to take into account that your film won't be back to view for maybe a week. Hard to hold a set-up and people together for that long,plus no client will wait that long or spend that Kind of money to wait.
The more you know about this the more you respect the photographer that took these pictures.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
The photos look staged. I wouldn't expect that women working in somewhat dirty jobs in factories would be dressed up like that every day - and appear so neat and clean.

Those photos were absolutely staged, Kodachrome at that time had an ISO of 25 and the lenses used for 4x5 sheet film were usually set to f16 to f32 to achieve the maximum sharpness in the image. As a result a very LARGE magnesium based flash bulb was used and the time involved to set up just one shot could take as much as 15 to 20 minutes.

BTW, I have a 4x5 Monorail camera in my stash and still have a box of Plus-X pan in the freezer. I also did some shooting with Kodachrome 64 in the 120 format when it was available in the late 1980's and the image quality that could be achieved with that film was stunning.

I didn't shoot a lot of color film, but Kodachrome in 120 size was lovely. Such beautiful transparencies. As Armored said though, Ektachrome was so much more convenient and forgiving.

Really really awesome! thanks for sharing!

I started taking photos for a living *just at* the tail end of Kodachrome's popularity, in 1989. Learning how to light things for Kodachrome (and the upstart Fuji Velvia) provided an education that just doesn't register with photographers these days.

Unfortunately.

The photographers that shot these images in the linked post were very skilled and patient people. They were creating works of art (my opinion) and crafted them as such.
They knew what the image would look like solely using a flash/light meter, guide numbers and distance measurements, and the sort.

Most of them are using flash units, based solely on how dim the tungsten lamp appears in the one photo of the guy behind the desk. If they were using tungsten (hot) lights, the desk light (and others) would have burned in on the very long exposures. Just an educated guess, however.

Thank you for posting the story/link to these images. They remind me that really, really good photography takes time, and also knowledge of light.

No matter how good a digital camera may one day become.

Sigh. I miss film.

I started my working career (late '70s) in a printing job shop that would make separations (scanning film to individual Cyan Magenta Yellow and Black screened film) and compositing them to print stuff. We used to do Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Business Week, Aviation Week-you get the picture (HA!)

About 20% of the images used to come in as Kodachrome II, most of the rest as Ektachrome with some Ilford and Agfachrome taking up the rear. Ads mostly were Kodachrome II as it was way slow (at the time it was ASA 25. the original Kodachrome was ASA 10. Yes ASA was the correct spec as ISO designation didn't come out until later I forget why).

Each film had a specific color profile that had to be accounted for as the output color would vary widely if you used the wrong one. And yes, we NEVER saw retouched Kodachrome, only Ektachrome. Looked ugly viewed in person but separated (into colors) nicely. Just so you know, a lot of the retouching was done in places like where I worked, as we had Dot Etchers who would mess with the individual color films (or "plates") to achieve some level of magic.

The shots shown are most definitely setup,as it was virtually impossible to light the scene and position the subjects with that sort of precision with a view camera (most probably used in those situations) on a tripod on the fly, so to speak. Fill lights with large umbrellas, back lights and hilite lites were all used (truck driver best example of both fill (little from front) and "key" lighting (from left side). The film didn't have a lot of latitude, so the separation house (my place) would have to go into the separation and "Dot Etch" the dark areas lighter so they would view naturally. Doesn't take away from the craft or art of the photographer as they had a tough row to hoe. We all worked together to create the images that everyone took for granted.

Too damn easy now and it shows.

The International Standards Organization (ISO) started making it's way into US manufacturing arou d the mid 1970's. The film standard wasn't adopted until 1979. The soeed numbers stayed pretty much the same between the systems.

quote:

Originally posted by SIG 229R:
Those are some great photos, staged or not. My Mother worked in some sort of an aircraft plant in Phila., Pa. during the war but do not remember which one.

The two main ones would have been the Naval Aircraft Factory, located at the Phily Navy Yard, and Brewster Aircraft in Warminster. I did contract work at the second one in the 80's. You can still see the Brewster marking on some of the buildings.

Re: "Yes ASA was the correct spec as ISO designation didn't come out until later I forget why)."

I wish that the logarithmic DIN system had prevailed. It was much more logical. An increment of 3 for doubled sensitivity. E. g.:

DIN 18 = ASA 50
DIN 21 = ASA 100
DIN 24 = ASA 200

So an increment of 1 DIN value is 1/3rd of an f-stop.