1945 Metadata from LTM photographs

[pgk]

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W A Poucher's book "From Arran to Ben Cruichan" was published in 1945. At the back it contains photographic data - metadata - which might be of interest to anyone wondering what lenses were favoured by well-known contemporary users of Leica screw thread cameras. Given the situation of impending war, he must have obtained a Summarit lens in 1939, and obviously found it to be very effective for his needs. His choice of three lenses is also interesting given that he was a mountaineer and landscape photographer to whom weight would have been important. By today's 'standards' his use of medium apertures may seem technically less than perfect but with the slow films of the day they were probably the most viable ones to use. Its also interesting that he was happy to publish his use of German built cameras as the war came to an end and when we might thing that such admissions may not have been all that popular. History is fascinating.

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[willeica]

5 minutes ago, pgk said:

W A Poucher's book "From Arran to Ben Cruichan" was published in 1945. At the back it contains photographic data - metadata - which might be of interest to anyone wondering what lenses were favoured by well-known contemporary users of Leica screw thread cameras. Given the situation of impending war, he must have obtained a Summarit lens in 1939, and obviously found it to be very effective for his needs. His choice of three lenses is also interesting given that he was a mountaineer and landscape photographer to whom weight would have been important. By today's 'standards' his use of medium apertures may seem technically less than perfect but with the slow films of the day they were probably the most viable ones to use. Its also interesting that he was happy to publish his use of German built cameras as the war came to an end and when we might thing that such admissions may not have been all that popular. History is fascinating.

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Thanks, Paul

Kruckenhauser did the same in the 1930s with his skiing photos. I think I have posted them here before. Interesting that he was using a x5 orange filter. It must have been because of the landscape content in his photos.

William 

[pgk]

2 minutes ago, willeica said:

Kruckenhauser did the same in the 1930s with his skiing photos.

I have the book and "My Leica and I" (1938) William. I find the information to be a fascinating insight into how photographers worked in the 1930s with the limitations of equipment and film. All too easily we forget that technique has changed because of the limitations imposed by things like film speeds. Poucher's book is well worth getting hold of (all his B&W books are, although the popular and later colour books have not stood the test of time particularly well). My father met him in the 1950s in Snowdonia and he was still using his Leica 111a.

[UliWer]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb pgk:

All too easily we forget that technique has changed because of the limitations imposed by things like film speeds

It‘s interesting though that f/6.3 seems to have been the standard f-stop even when f/2 was available with the Summitar as his most used lens.

[willeica]

5 minutes ago, pgk said:

I have the book and "My Leica and I" (1938) William. I find the information to be a fascinating insight into how photographers worked in the 1930s with the limitations of equipment and film. All too easily we forget that technique has changed because of the limitations imposed by things like film speeds. Poucher's book is well worth getting hold of (all his B&W books are, although the popular and later colour books have not stood the test of time particularly well). My father met him in the 1950s in Snowdonia and he was still using his Leica 111a.

Roland Zwiers from the Netherlands is convinced that Barnack use a yellow filter on the Ur Leica because of the nature of the film stock available around the time of WWI. He is still researching the matter and has assembled a huge amount of data so far. As films became more panchromatic the need for filters lessened except for subjects that needed maximum pop, such as clouds floating over a landscape. It is a fascinating topic. Some people still use filters today with Leica digital Monochroms.

William 

[pgk]

11 minutes ago, UliWer said:

It‘s interesting though that f/6.3 seems to have been the standard f-stop even when f/2 was available with the Summitar as his most used lens.

Landscapes would have required as much depth of field as possible whilst maintaining a handholdable shutter speed (I don't think that Poucher carried a tripod in the mountains) so f/6.3 would have been a compromise based on available film stocks I would think. Today f/11~16 would be used if at all possible. The forgrounds of some of Poucher's photos in the book are softer than we would prefer today. Often he excluded foregrounds which may be the reason he used a 50mm lens so much. The restrictions imposed by slow films would have had quite substantial effects. What somewhat surprises me is that he made rather less use of his 35mm lens than might be expected.

[pgk]

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13 minutes ago, willeica said:

Roland Zwiers from the Netherlands is convinced that Barnack use a yellow filter on the Ur Leica because of the nature of the film stock available around the time of WWI

Makes sense. I assume that sensivity of films back then was still blue biased and not as spectrally 'even' as today. When I studied photography one of my student friends was working on a project to study the sensitometry of late Victorian film emulsions. To do so he was making them as per the available information about how they were made originally. All went well until the lecturers realised that in his zeal he was also making nitrate base to put the emulsions onto😲. He then had to do a bit of a rethink!

[willeica]

26 minutes ago, pgk said:

Makes sense. I assume that sensivity of films back then was still blue biased and not as spectrally 'even' as today. When I studied photography one of my student friends was working on a project to study the sensitometry of late Victorian film emulsions. To do so he was making them as per the available information about how they were made originally. All went well until the lecturers realised that in his zeal he was also making nitrate base to put the emulsions onto😲. He then had to do a bit of a rethink!

I will send you for your comments the research which has been done on Barnack’s potential use of yellow filters. Be prepared for a long read 😇. 
 

William 
 

 

[Pyrogallol]

I tend to leave my early screw lenses on f6.3 and sometimes, like today, use Pan F at 25asa/iso to get a feel of using low speed films, resulting in exposures in the same range that he used. If he had a “mountain” Elmar f6.3 would be wide open. If he regularly used a 5 times orange filter his pictures must have been taken on fairly bright days. His Pan X was 40asa and FP2 about 64asa.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Pyrogallol

[pgk]

1 hour ago, Pyrogallol said:

I tend to leave my early screw lenses on f6.3 and sometimes, like today, use Pan F at 25asa/iso to get a feel of using low speed films, resulting in exposures in the same range that he used. If he had a “mountain” Elmar f6.3 would be wide open. If he regularly used a 5 times orange filter his pictures must have been taken on fairly bright days. His Pan X was 40asa and FP2 about 64asa.

Thanks for that. It would be possible to work out the EV (https://photographylife.com/exposure-value) for the images and see just what sort of brightness this equated too. So if anyone has time to kill .....

[oldwino]

2 hours ago, willeica said:

I will send you for your comments the research which has been done on Barnack’s potential use of yellow filters. Be prepared for a long read 😇. 
 

William 
 

 

Is there a summarized version?

[dpitt]

3 hours ago, UliWer said:

It‘s interesting though that f/6.3 seems to have been the standard f-stop even when f/2 was available with the Summitar as his most used lens.

The Summitar is not as good at f/2 as today's lenses. For landscape I suppose he wanted the best DOF and performance possible with a minimum 1/60s shutter time. (standard rule of 1/focus length)

[willeica]

3 hours ago, oldwino said:

Is there a summarized version?

Not yet, but there should be later. Will post here when all is done.

William 

[qqphot]

by "5x Orange filter" does he mean 2.3 stops? That's a substantially dense orange filter, and if my math is right would bring his effective ISO from 40 down to 8, no?

 

[Pyrogallol]

Yes, give it about two and a half stops extra exposure, that would be normal for a fairly dark orange or light red filter. It is a bit confusing reading numbers like x4 or x6 for filter factors when x4 is two stops not four.

Interesting as well is that 65f was the standard film developing temperate. When did it change to 68f, sometime in the 50’s or 60’s ? I have old thermometers marked at 65f.

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Edited February 9, 2023 by Pyrogallol

[pgk]

1 hour ago, Pyrogallol said:

Interesting as well is that 65f was the standard film developing temperate. When did it change to 68f, sometime in the 50’s or 60’s ? I have old thermometers marked at 65f.

My guess on 65f to 68f was simply due to, dare I say it post-Brexit, perhaps a levelling up towards a more universally understood 20C😉? The slightly reduced processing times would have been a marginal benefit.

In 1865 Samuel Bourne photographed at 18600 feet up in the Himalayas (at the time the highest altitude photograph. It was obviously somewhat below freezing judging from the snow and I am intrigued how he prepared and processed a wet plate in his tent in such conditions. I assume that temperature simply speeds or slows the photographic chemistry process but have never looked into whether it significantly changes the tonality as well (ie. does reciprocity failure occur chemically)?

Edited February 9, 2023 by pgk

[pippy]

1 hour ago, pgk said:

My guess on 65f to 68f was simply due to, dare I say it post-Brexit, perhaps a levelling up towards a more universally understood 20C😉?...

I'm not too sure we can blame Brexit for 68f becoming 'The Norm' as we were already being taught celsius back in my Primary School days - which even pre-date Decimalisation in 1971 - but yes; it would seem likely to be tied in to 20 C.

Certainly when I first studied Photography (as a Minor to my Graphics Major) 20 C. / 68 F. was Standard Dev. Temp. in all the course books and both scales were listed.

Philip.