Russia in color, a century ago • Hacker News Board

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#11

Post by mgkimsal » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:45 AM UTC

daeken wrote: post #9

mgkimsal wrote: post #8

No one is smiling. Not even the kids. Maybe the woman in #20 is, who knows? I know in general 'old time' photos didn't have people smiling much - very posed pictures and stoic expressions. I wonder if they had any idea how much this would color our impression of them 100+ years later?

It's very difficult to hold a smile very, very precisely. Any movement would've meant the colors would smudge. Not necessarily the reason why they're not smiling, but it's a possibility, I believe.

Agreed, but holding any pose is a challenge - kids sitting on the hill - they'd fidget and move. The water moves. The sun moves if you wait long enough. I wonder how many 'bad' photos there are from the early days of photos where people tried smiling and they had smudged faces.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#12

Post by bradddd » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:53 AM UTC

daeken wrote: post #9

mgkimsal wrote: post #8

No one is smiling. Not even the kids. Maybe the woman in #20 is, who knows? I know in general 'old time' photos didn't have people smiling much - very posed pictures and stoic expressions. I wonder if they had any idea how much this would color our impression of them 100+ years later?

It's very difficult to hold a smile very, very precisely. Any movement would've meant the colors would smudge. Not necessarily the reason why they're not smiling, but it's a possibility, I believe.

That's exactly it. The exposures were much longer then than now. It's also the same reason the bodies of water have the rainbow effect on their surfaces.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#13

Post by artursapek » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:54 AM UTC

daeken wrote: post #7

artursapek wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure he was able to view them well using a projector. Displays like that were the initial purpose of photography like this. Positives of these would have overlapped to make up the same images you see here. By the way, I think it's sort of a shame to even compare smartphone digital photos to film photography. Of course they look better.

Do you happen to have any insight into the processing of the film? I'm very curious as to how you'd process the plates into the specific colors needed for this to get anything close to life-like representations. I imagine these representations of the photos were taken from the raw negatives.

They were black and whites taken with color filters over the lens (R, G, B).

Project each of the three in its corresponding color and overlap them to produce a full-color photo. Overlap them in that color in Photoshop to produce the digital images you see here.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#14

Post by artursapek » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:54 AM UTC

delinka wrote: post #10

derleth wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course they look better. Why?

Because film captures details in molecules while a CCD sensor in your digital camera uses picture elements much, much, much larger than molecules. Or, because it's analog. It's very similar to sound recordings. Whether magnetic or not (say, in vinyl) the resolution of the captured signal can approach the molecular. Digital has a discreet resolution limited by the capturing equipment; for example, CDs reproduce the vo…

Exactly

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#15

Post by twelvechairs » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 1:59 AM UTC

Note that those shown are all heavily restored (also cropped) versions of the originals. They are all from the Library of Congress collection (~1900 of the ~3500 he made). An example of an unrestored version for comparison is at http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/item/prk20000025....

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#16

Post by markiel » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 2:00 AM UTC

This had been in the "news" for the past 5 years if not longer. How many times can it makes the frontage? ;)

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#17

Post by bcl » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 2:00 AM UTC

Previously seen 749 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1621517

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#18

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 2:03 AM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #8

No one is smiling. Not even the kids. Maybe the woman in #20 is, who knows? I know in general 'old time' photos didn't have people smiling much - very posed pictures and stoic expressions. I wonder if they had any idea how much this would color our impression of them 100+ years later?

[deleted]

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#19

Post by parallel » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 2:04 AM UTC

delinka wrote: post #10

derleth wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course they look better. Why?

Because film captures details in molecules while a CCD sensor in your digital camera uses picture elements much, much, much larger than molecules. Or, because it's analog. It's very similar to sound recordings. Whether magnetic or not (say, in vinyl) the resolution of the captured signal can approach the molecular. Digital has a discreet resolution limited by the capturing equipment; for example, CDs reproduce the vo…

The spacial resolution of analog photographs is not at the scale of individual molecules. It is limited by the "grain" of the film [1]. Other factors include distortions from lens shape imperfections in the lens material.

Audio tapes record their signal in magnetic domains. These are areas of tape the are large enough to be written and read. Much larger than anything approaching the scale of individual molecules.

Sound recordings on vinly are similarly limited by other factors. To "read" the signal from a record groove a needle is dragged a needle through a v shaped groove. This needle jiggles up and down and left and right, hence the two channels in stereo. The time resolution of the signal (max frequency) is limited by the physics of the jiggling head. It's inertia prevents it from reading signals over a certain limiting frequency. Again, well before the molecular level.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_grain

[edit] - Changed momentum to inertia in the last paragraph.

Re: Russia in color, a century ago

#20

Post by sukuriant » Sat, Sep 08, 2012, 2:05 AM UTC

markiel wrote: post #16

This had been in the "news" for the past 5 years if not longer. How many times can it makes the frontage? ;) http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/

As many times as we're happy to recall the impressive technical feat of the original artist, or as long as we're fascinated by what life looked like a hundred years ago. The max of those two.