What kind of camera and lens were used to make these old photos?

Hi All,

I've been looking at these old images trying to figure out what kind of set up I can adapt to either my Leica DMR or Canon bodied systems to produce something similar to the soft yet sharp old images. I'd rather achieve the effect directly rather than doing it in photoshop but all ideas are welcome. Not all of these are from the same photog or camera but have a similar effect. I'm not an expert but, It looks like some where made with view cameras and some with fixed lens type of cameras and some may have been softend in the darkroom and some prints may have had the details drawn in. btw: There are tons of old images on the parent website that I am linking to that are very interesting and availble for viewing only for personal use. Thanks in advance for any comments ideas and thoughts you can share. Also I am not aware of the original photographers so if anyone know who some of them were that would also be helpful.
Eric Hiss

http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Merkel, Una/Annex/Annex - Merkel, Una_02.jpg

http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Erik, Caja/Annex/Annex - Eric, Caja_01.jpg

http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Fleming, Susan/Annex/Annex - Fleming, Susan_01.jpg

http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Griffith, Corinne/Annex/Annex - Griffith, Corinne_01.jpg

http://www.doctormacro.com/Images/Leet, Marjorie/Annex/Annex - Leet, Marjorie_02.jpg

Eric,
from where I stand, getting this kind of effects via PS (esp. CS3) is a walk in the park.
Getting the same end results via hardware would take much more time, hassle and money.
Just MHO..
Good luck with whatever decision you make

Photshop

Hi Nikolai,
If it were so easy as a walk in the park, could you give me a few pointers. You could start with a studio shot at f/8 with a fixed lens or use a wider apeture if you had t/s available. But either way what would you do to get the painted soft look?
THanks,
Eric

Hi Eric,

I would guess you could start by trying to get a date for the image, and work out what was available at that time. So, there would be no fast electronic flash, probably slow, ortho film. The lens would not be comparable with what we would use today, and I suspect the chemicals used in development were different too. Longish exposures, too, I suspect.

To duplicate it easily, then it would need the same gear, chemicals and paper (and skill).

You may get there with more modern gear using filters, possibly use the smeared vaseline, whatever. The lighting is important, possible flood lights would be a solution. I think there has been a lot of work in the development/printing side of the process, which as Nicolai as mentioned, would be easier today in photoshop, or other digital processing.

If you posted a portrait of your own, I expect a number of us would have a go at trying to get a similar result.

Best wishes,

Ray

Eric: These all appear to be portraits taken during the late 1920's or early 1930's. All were certainly taken with large format view cameras, the photographic medium of the day especially for studio portraiture.

There are many ways to "fake" the general appearance of such images. The starting point is the wardrobe, hair styles, and make-up the era. The next aspect is the manner of pose common to subjects of the day. It was quite uncommon for subjects to look directly into the camera. They nearly always looked askance of the lens axis.

Beyond that, achieving the general softness and tonality is largely a matter of experimentation. Note that film emulsions of the day had limited "dynamic range" (as people today call it). They were relatively high-contrast productions. Lipsticks ("lip rouges") were deep red, eyebrows were often tweezed off and painted. This, coupled with the lack of precise studio lighting, often produced mannequin-like appearance on women's portraits. Note also that the "soft" look was often due to two factors. First, film emulsions were quite slow. Portraits captured in a studio, often using window light, required the subject to sit perfectly still for several seconds...a feat. Second, photographers' lenses often had limited iris settings. So they often opted, by necessity, to shoot wide open, thus creating a shallow depth of field.

Have fun simulating such portraits.

Here are two files to play with

Hi Guys,
I haven't tried to take these images yet...just thinking about it. But if all this can be done in photoshop here are two files that I took that could concievably be turned into such an image. Feel free to edit these and show us how you did it. Thanks very much and please don't use the files for anything else.
Eric Hiss
http://www.eh21.com/Helena.jpg
http://www.eh21.com/Marjorie.jpg

From the subjects it looks like these are from the 20's or 30's, and the site they're on says they're all either movie still or scans of 8x10 publicity photos (these look to be publicity photos).

Could this book be what you're looking for? It claims to be showing how these were done, and there was a lighting diagram in the pages Amazon let me preview

http://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Portraits-Roger-Hicks/dp/0817440208/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product/002-9609837-1536831

I've heard reference to at least one good book on the subject. I'm not sure if this is it, but it's an avenue that might be worth looking into. I'm curious if they are trying to get the very shallow depth of field with an SLR, or if they're recommending getting a cheap large format rig.

Eric,

Eric Hiss said:

Hi Guys,
I haven't tried to take these images yet...just thinking about it. But if all this can be done in photoshop here are two files that I took that could concievably be turned into such an image. Feel free to edit these and show us how you did it. Thanks very much and please don't use the files for anything else.
Eric Hiss
http://www.eh21.com/Helena.jpg
http://www.eh21.com/Marjorie.jpg

Click to expand...

I will work on these sample of yours
It may take a while, since it's still holiday season, but I hop you'll get something back this year

Cheers!

Hi Eric,

I have a love hate relationship with Lightzone. It just needs a bit more fiddly stuff. It took me a long time removing the strand of hair from below her chin. I have about four days trial left, still can't decide if its worth the money to me. Anyway, is this something like? -




Basically about ten zone adjustments, a crop and some cloning. I wish the selection tools were a bit better, but I guess its getting used to it.

The adjustment file is here -
http://www.yertiz.com/images/LZExport58743-3.lzn

Best wishes,

Ray

I seem to remember that some of the early "portrait" lenses for large format cameras included an adjustment ring for varying the level of "diffusion". I have never used one (or seen one for that matter) but from the looks of the originals presented, it might have been a part of the original equipment. To my eye, intentionally introduced diffusion is a different look than blurring or soft focus, and helps to date the look of the original photographs.

lightroom

Hi Ray,
I've got only a few days left on my trial as well...thanks a lot for your efforts. While this is a long ways towards what I am trying to achieve it still needs the softness, the painted like quality that the older images had. I'm just playing with lightroom so it was really useful to be able to load your template and click through them step by step. That in fact is one great thing about lightroom. Thank you for your effort.
Eric

thanks for the book link

Hi Erik,
Thanks for the book link...I took a quick look and it might be useful ...

Eric

This is fun. I had a go at Helena.jpg because I think you benefit from starting with a color photo so that you can choose how dark the skintone gets when converting to bw. I wanted the skintone to get darker than in Majorie.jpg.




This is my workflow:
1 - converting to bw using ConvertToBW Pro, www.theimagingfactory.com. This can be done with channelmixing also, this is just much more user friendly (as in easier to get what you want). Using the same filter I also increased contrast while not blowing out highlights.
2 - Gaussian blur on the whole image. (0,8 radius, but this depends on dpi setting of the image)
3 - For comparision with the other vintage images I thought the sky background was to light so I simulated a little vignetting by using the filter that corrects lens issues (I don't know the english word for the filter) but instead adding vignetting (lightly).
4 - I then wanted some grain*. If you work creatively with Add Noise (achieving larger noise pattern) you can get good effects, but I used the wonderful Alien Skin Exposure, starting with simulating Kodak T-MAX 100 (I think it was) and then increasing the grain size and % effect. With this step the contrast also got a little higher.
* The grain in the images you linked to has another look, but without any kind of grain the image looks to smooth.
5 - I used the normal Blur filter just to get an even smoother image after the added grain.
6 - I increased contrast a little (Curves)
7 - Now I thought it looked ok, but to simulate the tilt/shift effect I made a layer which I blurred and then, through a layer mask, painted in the blurry layer where I wanted it, leaving the face.
8 - Finally I used Hue/Saturation to add just a little warm tone to the image.

To write this down took me much longer than actually doing it in PS. By that I mean the image is not meant to be spot on, just an example of a workflow you could maybe start with and change to your own liking.

/ Petter

Edit: Language

My objective was to make the image appear more like a real 70 year old artifact. Changed lighting impression, added selective fog, altered contrast, added grain.

I agree with Tim & also think these '20s photos were made by several means, sometimes combined.

A large studio camera with a long lens & shallow DOF would have been the starting point.

As Tim says, the view/studio camera might have been used with a diffusing or "portrait" lens, or the lens might have been adjustable in this respect. A diffusion lens or filter tended to flare the highlights - in contrast to a diffusion screen under an enlarging lens, which would flare the shadows. Caja seems to be an example of diffusion with a portrait lens.

Some other techniques were a touch of vaseline on lenses (later, diffusion filters), or diffusion with a screen in printing, if the image were an enlargement. Printers could use anything from a stocking to waxed paper.

Corrine would seem to be an overall soft-focus image, which is the only effect you can produce with overall Gaussian blur. To reproduce more complicated soft-focus effects, you'll need a mask to diffuse only the highlights.

Susan seems to be darkroom work, at least in part, with a diffusion filter, rather than just a long-focal-length lens & shallow DOF. It looks to me like her eyes are quite sharp, but also her hairline, which is farther back in space, while some of the details to the right seem to be in the same plane of focus as the hairline & eyes, but less sharp. I suspect the photographer was using the 1920s version of Photoshop.

Eric,

here's what I got after playing. BTW, thank you for giving the opportunity

Helena (cs3):



Marjorie (cs3):



For both images:

• convert for smart filters
• some gaussian blur
• some added noise
• mask to clean up the face a little
• b/w conversion (for Helena, Marjorie was ok as is)
• some curves (per channel for Helena, just one composite for Marjorie)
• finally, added some 45% opaque black layer in a Darken mode, and worked a very soft 15% large white brush

Not sure sure if this is what you wanted, but it was defintely fiun

I had to take a shot at this. Fun!



Some contrast masks, saturation for the lips, diffusion and noise to resemble the grain. Pretty hard to fake that old studio lighting look.

Wow!

Hey Guys,
I am totally impressed by your editing efforts! Hard to say which I like most, they are all good.
Eric

I found out something

I know this post has been dormant for a long time but I recently read a book that covered the original photographer Fredrick Johnston who took a lot of hollywood and ziegfeld photos. Turns out he was trained as a painter before photography and he painted directly onto the plates (with emulsion?). He used the paint to fill in backgrounds and also highlight areas of the composition. I also found out that he used a century view camera. So that helps explain his complex but wonderful images.
Eric

FWIW, the original links above no longer point to images...

There are entire threads on this subject on the dedicated Large Format forums. Guys have bought turn-of-the-century lenses to duplicate it. Many of those were for whole -plate or 8x10 frame size cameras. The only contemporary lens I know of that *really* does a credible job is the Cooke PS945 Portrait lens; it is designed for portrait use on 4x5 cameras and the look is nothing short of spectacular. If you are lucky and can even find one for sale, it would likely set you back over $4,000 US.

Later in the century, as lenses got better, manufacturers actually made specialized soft or diffused focus lenses sepcifically for portrait. Most called them portrait lenses, though Wollensak made the Veito and Veritar and they were available in a variety of focal lengths. These lenses used versions of spherical aberrations and an adjustable defocus element to achieve their effect and can be found today in a variety of focal lengths suited for 4x5 and larger formats. Later still, Rodenstock and Fuji brought out a new design using sink-strainer aperture discs and both called this series the Imagon. Again these are available used and there are focal lengths available for medium format and larger. Mamiya copied this aperture design and offered a few versions for their medium format cameras; Rodenstock made one for the Hasselblad. This last series simply doesn't cut it for generating a classic look though. After that, photographers relied on filters and darkroom techniques to render the soft portrait, and now many use Photoshop -- but none of them can match the classic old lens look.

What makes it, is uncorrected spherical aberration, most visible at wide apertures and disappearing as you stop down where the lens also gets sharper. This allows a rage of effect simply by adjusting the aperture. In fact, many of the older lenses have 5 or 6 divisions between the widest one or two whole apertures so the photographer could replicate a desired amount of effect. Leica did make a lens that capitalised on spherical aberration called the Thambar for their M or thread-mount rangefinder cameras -- it is a sought after collectible and usually garners over $3000 on eBay.

Cheers,