Photo of Mozart's widow found
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xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
I saw all this in the morning on the BBC news site, and thought that if the daguerreotype , which this paper print is a copy of, was really taken in 1840... man that was cutting edge technology at the time as the daguerreotype process was only a year old at the time.
ClaremontPhoto
Jon Claremont
I suppose they photographed the rich and famous.
Sort of like 'Hello' magazine now.
Sort of like 'Hello' magazine now.
dmr
Registered Abuser
It's amazing that a 160+ year old photo looks this good. Almost too good to be true.
What looks strange is that there is no subject motion at all. I was under the impression that exposures of that era were at least several seconds, and I have seen examples of subject motion (hands, shoulders, etc.) of very early photos.
What looks strange is that there is no subject motion at all. I was under the impression that exposures of that era were at least several seconds, and I have seen examples of subject motion (hands, shoulders, etc.) of very early photos.
sf
Veteran
that's the coolest thing I've seen in a long time.
xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
dmr said:
I was amazed at that too, if it really was taken in 1840.
portraits became more common with the faster Woolcott mirror lens later on , and a faster yet with addition of other chemicals to the sensitizing iodine fumes and even faster a bit later with Voigtlanders Petzval lens equipped tube camera.
bcs89
Contented Oly Owner
So very cool - thank you Jon.
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
Echo ... way, way cool. Thanks, Jon.
N
Nick R.
Guest
What's amazing about Daguerreotypes is that they're as good as any B&W medium ever invented. It's as if the first Edison phonograph had been a high-end stereo. The pure silver surface, polished to a mirror like finish, was capable of capturing almost infinite detail. Although, the process was so impracticle that it was obsolete even as it was invented. Almost all old photos you see, such as those from the civil war era, are of the wet-plate process.
dmr said:
jano
Evil Bokeh
dmr said:
It's a small web image that may have been manipulated 🙂 I have some images that look sharp at small sizes, but soon as you print them on 4x6 or larger, you can see the blur. Make sense?
By the way, this is neat!
Jano
peter_n
Veteran
Awesome! Thanks for posting!
andrealed
Established
KoNickon
Nick Merritt
I had no idea Costanze lived that long. She also looks quite good for someone aged 78 in the mid-1800's.
KoNickon
Nick Merritt
Nick is right about the quality of the daguerrotypes -- in addition, they have a three-dimensionality I don't think has been reproduced since. Remarkable! Seems to me there is at least one guy who does this process; I think he frequents Civil War reenactments here in the U.S. And if I'm not mistaken, he was employed by the makers of "Cold Mountain" to take daguerrotypes of Nicole Kidman and Jude Law.
dll927
Well-known
Mozart lived from 1756 to 1791. His widow must have carried on for quite a while after that. Somehow this seems a little hard to believe time-wise. Isn't it true that the first photos, done in France, were sometime around 1849 or so?
The first American President that there is an actual photo of is reported to be Andrew Jackson, and by then he was quite old and long after his Presidency.
The first American President that there is an actual photo of is reported to be Andrew Jackson, and by then he was quite old and long after his Presidency.
xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
the first practical daguerreotypes were done in 1839
it is also the year that M. Daguerre announced the process to the world.
it is also the year that M. Daguerre announced the process to the world.
lushd
Donald
Or the first computer being a MacBook pro. I've had the same thought. If you have seen one close up they are astounding. Is anyone making them today? They would be boggling with a modern lens.
troym
Established
lushd said:
Yes. Here's an example (I don't know if this links works for non-APUG members):
http://www.apug.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=14834&cat=502
K
Krasnaya_Zvezda
Guest
Interesting that the photo is referred to as "a print", I was under the impression that daguerrotypes were unique positive images, no printing involved.
