Color Robert Capa WWII Photos

Thanks for the link! It's interesting that to me, B+W photography seems more serious, while these colour images seem more like snapshots. I got a chuckle from the photo of the camerel with 2 passengers on page 5 or 6. 🙂
 
Thanks for the link. I've been to that site tons of times and never saw those color images.

edit: The more i look at the film the more i like it. The colors look a lot different than modern film. Anyone know a modern film that behaves in this way?
 
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The other possibility, seeing these, is Anscochrome 25. That was prefered by some because they published the process (it's in detail in my 1947 copy of Graphic Graflex Photography).

William
 
kbg32 said:
They were most likely Kodachrome 25. 64 came about many, many years later. Kodachrome 25 came off the market in 2002 I believe.
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I think, at the time, it was simply called Kodachrome and was asa 10 or 15. I remember Kodachrome II coming on the market at asa 25. Later they brought out Kodachrome 64 and renamed Kodachrome II to Kodachrome 25. At least that's how I remember it...

Gene
 
kbg32 said:
They were most likely Kodachrome 25. 64 came about many, many years later. Kodachrome 25 came off the market in 2002 I believe.
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Not to show my real age, but when I first shot my first roll of Kodachrome, it was 25 and Kodachrome II, the original Kodachrome being 10.
 
I think Gene's right. The original Kodachrome (introduced for movie cameras in 1935 and 35mm still cameras in 1936) had a film speed rating of 10. Kodachrome II, at "ASA" 25, didn't appear until 1961.

The "ASA 64" version originally was called Kodachrome X. I haven't been able to find a date of introduction for it.

Other potential color films in the '30s included various additive-process films (b&w emulsion with some form of RGB color filter.) Names back then included Autochrome, Dufaycolor, and Findlaycolor. These all produced a muted, pastel image somewhat like that of Polachrome film (a modern version of the same process.) The filter particles became visible if the film was enlarged too much, so these films were more commonly used in larger cameras, rather than 35mm. They were the standard for color photography for "National Geographic" for many years -- the magazine strongly resisted 35mm photos and Kodachrome. But the images on the Magnum page certainly look more like Kodachromes than additive-process shots.

So, most probably Capa made these on ASA10 original Kodachrome. The low speed rating may help explain why they're not as dramatic as his better-known b&w shots: with the old Kodachrome, you were pretty much limited to brightly-lit subjects that weren't moving too fast.
 
jlw said:
The "ASA 64" version originally was called Kodachrome X. I haven't been able to find a date of introduction for it.
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I'm sure it was around when I was still in high school, which would make it early 70's. I think it came out about the time of the original High Speed Ektachrome, which I think was originally 160.

with the old Kodachrome, you were pretty much limited to brightly-lit subjects that weren't moving too fast.
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Wasn't most of the old 50's vintage 8mm movie film actually Kodachrome? I remember the amateur movie cameras of that vintage used a light array of maybe 4 obnoxiously bright flood lights. With ASA/ISO 10 I can see why those were needed.
 
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