Which film for that "old timey" look

ray*j*gun

ray*j*gun

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After many attempts to find a nice uncoated lens for my RF 35's I have finally gotten a very nice Fed 50mm Elmar knock off from before the war and its very clean glass is uncoated.

I am looking for some advice (based on experience) on which modern films lend themselves to an old fashioned look using this lens. B&W of course is the mail objective but I have seen examples of color that looks like beautiful old oil paintings shot with uncoated lenses.

I understand some of the technical reasons that one film or another might give that look but I would really like to hear from folks that have gotten this result without computer intervention.

Thank you in advance for your help!
 
I think any of the old school slow (ISO 25-125) B&W emulsions from Efke, Foma, Ilford, or Kodak, or even leftover Agfa, can do the job, especially w/the right old school developer like Rodinal. For a real vintage look you'll want to try an ortho(chromatic) film, but I think the only 1 that's available right now in 35mm is the expensive Ortho 25 stuff sold under the Rollei name (made by Maco, I think).
 
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I don't know all of them, but the only real 'old school' B&W emulsion I know of is Efke KB 100 - don't know if it is available anymore. I would think Rodinal would be too 'nice' to give you that old-time look, although it is indeed an old-time developer.
 
Use a blue filter over the lens to get that old time orthochromatic look. A blue sky will be nearly white and lipstick comes out nearly black. A "color conversion" filter designed to use daylight balanced slide film in tungsten light should do the trick. Try an 80A or 80B. The 80C isn't as strong. The 80A and 80B are very similar. The "color correction" filters, 82 series, are much lighter in color and will have little effect on B&W film.

Another possibility is B&W positive print film. I'm not sure if Kodak still makes it anymore. It's designed to make the positive print of a B&W movie film for projection. It's blue sensitive only, similar to enlarging paper. It's v-e-r-y s-l-o-w, about ISO 2 or 3. You can work with it under a safelight and you can develop it in paper developer. Then you can take it and print it on standard enlarging paper or scan it.
 
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Al Kaplan said:
Use a blue filter over the lens to get that old time orthochromatic look. A blue sky will be nearly white and lipstick comes out nearly black. A "color conversion" filter designed to use daylight balanced slide film in tungsten light should do the trick. Try an 80A or 80B. The 80C isn't as strong. The 80A and 80B are very similar. The "color correction" filters, 82 series, are much lighter in color and will have little effect on B&W film.
Click to expand...

That's a very good tip.
 
Point taken. Efke's KB 100 (as well as their 25 & 50) is probably among the most traditional films being produced right now. By "old school" I just meant non-T-grain, so no Ilford Delta or Kodak T-Max, though even Tri-X, etc. are much, much less grainy than films of the same name from the '50s & '60s (I'm sure Al Kaplan can weigh in on this). I also think the current Fuji Neopans are too modern-looking, w/the Neopan SS being more old-fashioned (but not sold outside of Japan AFAIK). I also haven't developed my own film in ages, so I'm sure there are plenty of developers & development routines that can give even modern emulsion negs a vintage look. To the extent that one's expectation of "vintage" is derived from seeing old prints, or scans of those prints, choice of paper, wet printing, &/or Photoshop post-processing techniques have a big effect, too.

bmattock said:
I don't know all of them, but the only real 'old school' B&W emulsion I know of is Efke KB 100 - don't know if it is available anymore. I would think Rodinal would be too 'nice' to give you that old-time look, although it is indeed an old-time developer.
Click to expand...
 
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I agree w/bmattock that that's a good tip, as using a blue filter will also reduce the light (& the effective ISO of the film) & may, if the filter is uncoated, add some potentially picturesque flare.

Al Kaplan said:
Use a blue filter over the lens to get that old time orthochromatic look. A blue sky will be nearly white and lipstick comes out nearly black. A "color conversion" filter designed to use daylight balanced slide film in tungsten light should do the trick. Try an 80A or 80B. The 80C isn't as strong. The 80A and 80B are very similar. The "color correction" filters, 82 series, are much lighter in color and will have little effect on B&W film.
Click to expand...
 
All good suggestions, especially the blue filter trick (which you can bet I'm gonna try!) But personally I don't think there's any substitute for just getting hold of some proper ortho film. ADOX/Efke still produce their 25asa ortho in 35mm and, as well as the colour shift noted, it has a granularity and look all its own.
 
OK furcafe, me be here. Tri-X was introduced in 1954, seven years before I got into photography. It seemed as if every two or three years the words "NEW IMPROVED" would appear on the box, and most times the leaflet inside (none of this namby-pamby stuff printed inside the box!) would have new exposure suggestions and suggested developing times.

Over the years all the films got finer grain. I suspect that ISO 40 Panatomic-X was dropped because Plus-X had become finer grain than the Panatomic-X had been a decade or so earlier. When you talk about "old time look" that covers a pretty broad field! With 35mm an uncoated lens with a rather grainy orthochromatic rendering of the film (not sensitive to red light) is as close as you'll get.

Another "old timey" look would be going to a 4x5 camera, again with an uncoated lens and blue filter for the orthochromatic look. The large negative will give you a nice smooth grainless image, a look you can not get with a small negative. Better yet would be 8x10 film and make contact prints. Then you'll realize just how cheap Leica photography really is.
 
True enough, it all depends on how far back you want to go. I have friends who shoot wet plates & tintypes w/historically accurate equipment (as well as the occasional modern neg or digital file via projection). Now that's old time!

I suspect it's the various looks from the "silver (gelatin) age" of the 1920s to the 1960s that are the hardest to reproduce because although the gear is available, it's not easy to find, & practically impossible to make @ home, many of the materials & media used (unlike 19th century-style stuff where everybody can & does make their own ingredients).

But as proof that you can make the vintage look work, Dave Burnett won 1st prize in the Best of Photojournalism contest's Campaign category w/a shot made on Tri-X using a Speed Graphic & a 60-year old lens:

http://bop.nppa.org/2009/still_photography/winners/?cat=RTO

Al Kaplan said:
When you talk about "old time look" that covers a pretty broad field!
Click to expand...
 
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Who wants to borrow my 4x5 Speed Graphic with the 3.5 inch (90mm) f/6.8 Wollensack Raptar Wide Angle lens? I've even got the side mounted flash for it. The lens coverage is about what you'd get with a 28mm on 35.
 
Out of curiosity, do you have any links to images you consider to have the 'old timey' look you are after? I am a bit fuzzy on which old timey look you are referring to, and I always love looking at vintage 'prints.'
 
What about the Chinese films? Lucky, Colpan and Era?

I've used Colpan 100 and gotten what I felt was a very nice old timey look.

I've been trying to get some Ortho film (Ilford) for some time but can't find it where I live.
 
I recently developed my first Arista.EDU Ultra 200 film from Freestyle. AKA Foma 200. e.i. = 100. Developer was Xtol, 1:3, 12 minutes (Too long-10 minutes next time), continuous agitation. The grain is pleasantly visible in the 4x5 scans. Compared to Delta 100 shot the same day and devloped the same way, the Arista-Foma 200 has a nice old look about it. I might be seeing things, but it can't hurt to try. D-76 1:1 is almost as old as Rodinal. Legend has it that Life & Look used D-76 back in the day.
 
UFG, Acufine, and Diafine, along with Kodak HC-110 pretty much chased D-76 out of the newspaper and magazine darkrooms, but by that point TV news had pretty much wiped out the market for a weekly picture news magazine.

When they were "holding the presses" five minutes in the soup beat ten minutes, two minutes in rapid fix until clear and a quick rinse, then into the negative carrier while still wet. You could finish fixing and washing later.
 
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Thank you all for the great ideas.....I will def try the blue filter.

Merkin, tomorrow I will find some examples of the old time look I have in mind!

Great stuff!


Lots of info here thank you all again.
 
Adox Ortho 25 film in 135.

Adox Ortho 25 film in 135.

There's a strong appeal to orthchromatic films here.

Two links of interest in this regard - and I have not tried this film, which may be too fine-grained for "the look".

First: Adox page on the Ortho 25 film.

Second: Digitaltruth's web page, selling it.

http://tinyurl.com/ch2te4

http://tinyurl.com/cr6kcy
 
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