A Leica IIIc in Japan, 1949, with Kodachrome

Here is the very camera and lens that took all these pictures in 1949. It's a 1949 Leica IIIc with a Summitar 50mm f2. And those are a few of the actual slides.

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All the scans are done of my grandfather's pictures of Morioka, Japan in 1949. They are all up at http://gordoncoale.500px.com/my_grandfather_s_photos. Tomorrow I print them all out and do final color corrections and cleaning. Sad to see the last slide. I'm looking forward to seeing this collection as a sent of prints.

My grandfather took this as two pictures. I stitched them together. That would have blown his mind.

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In case anyone else is interested about 玉入れ here is an explanation.

玉入れ in English means `enter or put the ball in`. jonmanjiro correct my translation if you feel mine is inadequate. During sports day the kids are group in colored teams. If the school has three classes per grade then classes #ed 1 from grade one to six are say the blue team, classes #ed 2 from grade one to six are say red team, so and so on.

Now for an explanation of what the game is. Kids from each team are given a basket of balls on ground to throw into another basket stuck to the top of a three-meter/ nine foot pole. The kids have 2-minutes or to try to throw as many balls from the basket on the ground into the basket on the pole. The teams are awarded a set number of points for being 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on.

The kids love it. All the Sport Day events are team orientated. There are no individual events. Team events represent cooperation and harmony.

Mike
 
A good friend in Atlanta is many times more tech savvy than I am, he has had some very underexposed Kodachrome slides -- which he scanned several passes and was quite surprised at the detail and quality that resulted. I believe he was using a Coolscan. Check to see how to do multiple scans on those dark slides.

Many of my slides faded, the ROC function did an excellent job of "restoration of color", and the Digital ICE worked well-- even on Kodachrome. There is a setting for Kodachrome with the Nikon software, though sometimes it toggled itself off, yet the results were good.

Agfachrome used to have a good reputation for reds, plus I got a good deal, so I bought 30 rolls for my first western trip. They were processed by Agfa, yet they faded very badly, and the Coolscan saved the images with excellent correction. They can be further adjusted with Photoshop.

I believe I received a Signet 50 Kodak when I was quite young, yet well after these were shot, and I recall the ASA was 10? My first roll was not so good.

Also, some of the non Kodak processing labs were not so careful, and the drug store processing did not help.

After scanning perhaps a thousand of my slides, I began to "save" the rest for another day.

Hope the free advice is worth the price.

Regards, John
 
I very much enjoyed looking at the collection of images from Japan. Thank you for taking the time to scan them and post them here. My favorite images were the ones taken at the race track. So very different from a modern race track!

I recently came across some Kodachrome slides from 1962 of my parents, my brother and I. The slides were in perfect condition and the color looked great after all these years. I was able to make some excellent prints from them.
 
Great job Gordon. Wonderful pictures indeed. Amazing colors! The IIIc looks to be in pretty good condition. And it has that nice sharkskin vulcanite making it somewhat more special. Nice Elmar you have there sitting on the I Standard... 🙂
 
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