4 ms·

Are those scans of old film photographs? If yes, then I'm surprised how rich the colors are compared to digital photography today. Is it that film has a differe

by sowbug 8y ago

Are those scans of old film photographs? If yes, then I'm surprised how rich the colors are compared to digital photography today. Is it that film has a different character from digital? Did photographers have a different aesthetic sense when they developed film back then? (I assume that there's some artistry involved not just in taking a photo but also in developing it.) Is film still marvelously better than digital photography? Or am I falling victim to some sort of psychological trick where warmer colors just look better? The reason I ask is that I recently scanned some old family photographs from the 1990s, and I had the same impression of them: rich colors that you just don't see today. And these were anything but good photography. They were from a 35mm point-and-shoot and taken in casual settings.

sverige 8y ago
Yes, those must be old photographs. And yes, there was some artistry involved in developing both the film and making prints. The demise of film and color processing is a tragedy. Sure, it was expensive, much more so than simply snapping digital photos to your heart's content (as long as you have enough storage, of course), but it made you think about what you were doing before you pressed the button. And processing film and developing prints was endlessly fascinating, even if it was frustrating at times. I have yet to see any digital photograph as rich as lovely old Kodachrome could come out, even when sent to the local drugstore to be developed. It has actually nearly killed my desire to make photographs. These pictures made me really happy.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Honestly, I sort of have the opposite perspective. I never had a darkroom after graduating school and slides became something I mostly just shot on trips. I find digital and the sharing of digital photos rekindled my interest to a large degree.
- varjag 8y ago
  K14 development process was automatic and really streamlined. Sometimes you could order to push/pull the roll a stop but that's about it. BW film, and prints (BW or color) certainly an entire other matter…
ghaff 8y ago
Those photos are warm. Could reflect the actual light and film choice although I'm not sure there were explicitly warm-balanced films that far back. If those are from the 70s, presumably either Kodachrome or Ektachrome--though actually Ektachrome from that era tended toward the cold site. Honestly, comparing scans to digital images today. The difference is going to be mostly how they're processed. If anything, I find there's a trend to overprocessing (e.g. HDR) certain types of digital photos today.
- et-al 8y ago
  Last October (and this November) when the SF Bay Area was filled with smoke particles in the sky, I noticed the light was very "nostalgic". And it did make me wonder if older color photographs had warmer tones due to Kodachrome, or simply because the skies were more polluted back then.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Kodachrome was generally considered to have realistic tones. Traditional Ektachrome tended to be colder and was more likely to fade over time as with E-6 process films in general. Kodak did produce some explicitly warm E-6 films later starting with Lumiere. Photographers did also use filters including for warming effects. Photographers and art directors have always exerted creative control. Both the technical means and tastes change over time though.
    - varjag 8y ago
      Ektachrome of the time of article was E-4. The later E-6 has much improved color fidelity and archival performance, even if not close to Kodachrome still.
joshvm 8y ago
They were probably taken on Kodachrome, which was renowned for its colour reproduction (or at least its aesthetics). It's also archival quality film, so older negatives don't age much if kept in the dark. It was also designed for projection so had a fairly high contrast. They're also obviously scanned, and we don't know what settings were used. Kodachrome is pretty great though, I wouldn't be surprised if they looked that nice in the flesh. That's what was truly impressive about those golden era films, they just worked. You sent them off, they got developed and they looked fantastic. There are physical differences in how film and ccd/cmos sensors record light, which may have a subtle effect. Nowadays digital sensors are superior in pretty much every way to film, and you can get whatever effect you want using post processing. The exeption is that medium and large format film is still a lot cheaper than super high resolution digital sensors.
- varjag 8y ago
  It's also a direct positive (slide) film, not a negative. A properly exposed Kodachrome is absolutely gorgeous in real life, scans do it little justice.
trevyn 8y ago
I’d bet there’s a healthy chunk of “nostalgia for times and technologies past” that is affecting your perception as well. The “default settings” are different, but nothing you can’t do in Photoshop.
- hudibras 8y ago
  Back then, someone flipping through your photos would say, "Ah, you used Kodachrome! Looks nice!" but if you had the same look on a printed photo today, they'd instead ask, "Why did you use a filter on this?" I guess my point is that back then, people recognized that using different film and different equipment led to different results, and that the photographer chose their technique in such a way as to make art in the way they wanted. Photography was not simply method to capture a moment in the most realistic way possible, as it often is thought of today.
coldtea 8y ago
>Are those scans of old film photographs? If yes, then I'm surprised how rich the colors are compared to digital photography today. Is it that film has a different character from digital? No, it's mostly the type of film and post-processing, and the fashion of the day (now people like moodier, bluer/oranger pics in Instagram and the like). One can saturate a digital photo just as well, if not better.

by sowbug 8y ago

sverige 8y ago

Yes, those must be old photographs. And yes, there was some artistry involved in developing both the film and making prints. The demise of film and color processing is a tragedy. Sure, it was expensive, much more so than simply snapping digital photos to your heart's content (as long as you have enough storage, of course), but it made you think about what you were doing before you pressed the button. And processing film and developing prints was endlessly fascinating, even if it was frustrating at times. I have yet to see any digital photograph as rich as lovely old Kodachrome could come out, even when sent to the local drugstore to be developed. It has actually nearly killed my desire to make photographs. These pictures made me really happy.

ghaff 8y ago
Honestly, I sort of have the opposite perspective. I never had a darkroom after graduating school and slides became something I mostly just shot on trips. I find digital and the sharing of digital photos rekindled my interest to a large degree.
varjag 8y ago
K14 development process was automatic and really streamlined. Sometimes you could order to push/pull the roll a stop but that's about it. BW film, and prints (BW or color) certainly an entire other matter…

ghaff 8y ago

Those photos are warm. Could reflect the actual light and film choice although I'm not sure there were explicitly warm-balanced films that far back. If those are from the 70s, presumably either Kodachrome or Ektachrome--though actually Ektachrome from that era tended toward the cold site. Honestly, comparing scans to digital images today. The difference is going to be mostly how they're processed. If anything, I find there's a trend to overprocessing (e.g. HDR) certain types of digital photos today.

et-al 8y ago
Last October (and this November) when the SF Bay Area was filled with smoke particles in the sky, I noticed the light was very "nostalgic". And it did make me wonder if older color photographs had warmer tones due to Kodachrome, or simply because the skies were more polluted back then.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Kodachrome was generally considered to have realistic tones. Traditional Ektachrome tended to be colder and was more likely to fade over time as with E-6 process films in general. Kodak did produce some explicitly warm E-6 films later starting with Lumiere. Photographers did also use filters including for warming effects. Photographers and art directors have always exerted creative control. Both the technical means and tastes change over time though.
  - varjag 8y ago
    Ektachrome of the time of article was E-4. The later E-6 has much improved color fidelity and archival performance, even if not close to Kodachrome still.

joshvm 8y ago

They were probably taken on Kodachrome, which was renowned for its colour reproduction (or at least its aesthetics). It's also archival quality film, so older negatives don't age much if kept in the dark. It was also designed for projection so had a fairly high contrast. They're also obviously scanned, and we don't know what settings were used. Kodachrome is pretty great though, I wouldn't be surprised if they looked that nice in the flesh. That's what was truly impressive about those golden era films, they just worked. You sent them off, they got developed and they looked fantastic. There are physical differences in how film and ccd/cmos sensors record light, which may have a subtle effect. Nowadays digital sensors are superior in pretty much every way to film, and you can get whatever effect you want using post processing. The exeption is that medium and large format film is still a lot cheaper than super high resolution digital sensors.

varjag 8y ago
It's also a direct positive (slide) film, not a negative. A properly exposed Kodachrome is absolutely gorgeous in real life, scans do it little justice.

trevyn 8y ago

I’d bet there’s a healthy chunk of “nostalgia for times and technologies past” that is affecting your perception as well. The “default settings” are different, but nothing you can’t do in Photoshop.

hudibras 8y ago
Back then, someone flipping through your photos would say, "Ah, you used Kodachrome! Looks nice!" but if you had the same look on a printed photo today, they'd instead ask, "Why did you use a filter on this?" I guess my point is that back then, people recognized that using different film and different equipment led to different results, and that the photographer chose their technique in such a way as to make art in the way they wanted. Photography was not simply method to capture a moment in the most realistic way possible, as it often is thought of today.

coldtea 8y ago

>Are those scans of old film photographs? If yes, then I'm surprised how rich the colors are compared to digital photography today. Is it that film has a different character from digital? No, it's mostly the type of film and post-processing, and the fashion of the day (now people like moodier, bluer/oranger pics in Instagram and the like). One can saturate a digital photo just as well, if not better.