Help explaining strange rendering of tones in portraits from 1900-1920ish

[landsknechte]

I've noticed some unexpected rendering of values in some old vintage German military portraits from the early part of the last century (before 1920 or so), and was wondering if any of the experts on here might be able to help me figure out what's going on. Dark "royal" blue being rendered as a very light gray, and school bus yellow turns into a shade of gray very near black.

Is that a particular sort of film, or something else?

Thanks,
--Chris

 

[rxmd]

Orthochromatic characteristics of glass plates and early film? Its sensitivity drops towards the red end of the spectrum, meaning blue looks brighter than it actually is while red and to some extent yellow look darker. That's why 19th century glass plate photographs tend to have the sky looking completely white unless the photographer was using a filter.

 

[Toby]

What rxmd said, early film wasn't panchromatic.

 

[thafred]

I heard that in the first Movie productions on Ortochromatic film the actors got blue makeup to match the tones to the Film (black lips aperently weren´t sexy back then) ... btw you can buy and shoot Orto film even nowadays!! (rollei 25 Ort)

 

[Harry Lime]

Until the late 1930's most film was orthochromatic. It didn't see the entire color spectrum and rendered reds as dark shades or black. Red lipstick would appear as nearly black and caucassian skin tones may have been rendered with a burnished shade.

You can still get orthochromatic films from Adox (formerly EFE?) and Rollei.
Use an old style developer like D23, Rodinal or Stoekler amd a vintage uncoated lens. Tungsten hot lights, no flash.

You could also try something like Delta100 with a pale bule filter.

 

[einolu]

learn-something-new-every-day bump