analogue photography

Are black-and-white photographs really black and white?

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Black-and-white photography is somewhat of a strange term, because it alludes to the fact that the photograph is black-AND-white. However black-and-white photographs if interpreted correctly would mean an image which contains only black and white (in digital imaging terms a binary image). Alternatively they are sometimes called monochromatic photographs, but that too is a broad term, literally meaning “all colours of a single hue“. This means that cyanotype and sepia-tone prints, are also to be termed monochromatic. A colour image that contains predominantly bright and dark variants of the same hue could also be considered monochromatic.

Using the term black-and-white is therefore somewhat of a misnomer. The correct term might be grayscale, or gray-tone photographs. Prior to the introduction of colour films, B&W film had no designation, it was just called film. With the introduction of colour film, a new term had to be created to differentiate the types of film. Many companies opted for the use terms like panchromatic, which is an oddity because the term means “sensitive to all visible colors of the spectrum“. However in the context of black-and-white films, it implies a B&W photographic emulsion that is sensitive to all wavelengths of visible light. Afga produced IsoPan and AgfaPan, and Kodak Panatomic. Differentially, colour films usually had the term “chrome” in their names.

Fig.1: A black-and-white image of a postcard

All these terms have one thing in common, they represent the shades of gray across the full spectrum from light to dark. In the digital realm, an 8-bit grayscale image has 256 “shades” of gray, from 0 (black) to 255 (white). A 10-bit grayscale image has 1024 shades, from 0→1023. The black-and-white image shown in Fig.1 illustrates quite aptly an 8-bit grayscale image. But grays are colours as well, albeit without chroma, so they would be better termed achromatic colours. It’s tricky because a colour is “a visible light with a specific wavelength”, and neither black nor white are colours because they do not have specific wavelengths. White contains all wavelengths of visible light and black is the absence of visible light. Ironically, true blacks and true whites are rare in photographs. For example the image shown in Fig.1 only contains grayscale values ranging from 24..222, with few if any blacks or whites. We perceive it as a black-and-white photograph only because of our association with that term.

What is a snapshot?

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The term snapshot is an interesting one. In reality all snapshots are photographs, but not all photographs are snapshots. A snapshot is almost an unexpected photograph, one taken quickly without thinking about it too much, and often in a surreptitious manner – an abrupt artifact. Snapshots are ubiquitous with small, pocket-cameras, like the Ricoh GR series, or even mobile phone cameras (although it just isn’t the same). Once a camera is set up using a tripod, or the camera itself is a behemoth dSLR, the whole atmosphere of taking a photograph changes. Often the thing that is to be photographed has already happened, the moment passed. Snapshots involving people also change as they become more self-aware. It’s hard to get a candid shot. Paul Strand [1] suggested that a snapshot is “when it becomes necessary to stop movement“.

A snapshot of the Hotel Spiezerhof in Spiez (Switzerland) taken from a ship moving on the lake, circa 1935.

For the first decades of the photograph, the snapshot did not really exist, for a number of reasons, both technological and sociological. From the 1840s to the turn of the century, the more formal portrait photograph was the mainstay. Cameras were slow, and although the “nuclear” family was considered a well developed entity, casual family life was not really considered a good basis for photographic subject matter. As Steven Halpern [2] suggests the portrait was a means for the masses to achieve a cultural identity. In 1878 Charles Haper Bennett discovered how to sensitize dry gelatin plates, a process which allowed exposures of 1/20th of a second or less. It was now possible to stop movements. The last two decades of the 19th century followed a series of innovations such as handheld cameras, roll film and the astigmat lens, culminating in the Kodak Brownie, which made photography available to everyone. Family life had also changed, and while the portrait had focused on the individual, the snapshot characterized the interaction of the whole family, in a much more laid-back manner.

A snapshot taken from the window of a moving VIARail train in Montreal using an iPhone.

Snapshots are interesting in scenes where there is movement, or change, a visual record of something that won’t happen the same way again. Taking pictures in a downtown core is a great example. Stand at a cross-walk and watch the movement of people. A snapshot will freeze the movement of people, but it is by no means an exact art. People can be partially in focus, partially blurred, or obscured. In that respect a snapshot means short exposures, using a fast shutter speed, and in the case of film, a high ISO film. Long exposures are by no means snapshots. Any photograph that stops movement could therefore be considered a snapshot.

[1] Paul Strand, The Snapshot, Aperture, 19(1), p.49 (1974)
[2] Steven Halpern, The Snapshot, Aperture, 19(1), p.65 (1974)

Why bother with film photography?

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About a year ago I decided to take a relook at film photography. After so many years taking digital photographs it seemed like an odd sort of move. My trip back to film began when I bought a Voigtländer 25mm lens for my Olympus MFT camera. It is completely manual, and at the moment I started focusing, I knew that I had been missing something with digital. Harking back to film seems a move that many amateur photographers have decided to make. Maybe it is a function of becoming a camera aficionado… the form and aesthetic appeal of vintage cameras brings something that modern digital cameras don’t – a sense of character. There is a reason some modern cameras are modelled on the appearance of vintage cameras. Here are some thoughts.

Digital has changed the way we photograph, and although we know we will never bungle a holiday snap, it does verge on clinical at times. I can take 1000 photographs on a 2-week trip, and I do enjoy having instant access to the photograph. Digital is convenient, no doubt about that, but there is some aesthetic appeal missing that algorithms just can not reproduce. Taking a digital image means that each pixel is basically created using an algorithm. Light in, pixel out. Giving an image a “film-look” means applying some form of algorithmic filter after the image is taken. Film on the other hand is more of an organic process, because of how the film is created. Film grains, i.e. silver crystals are not all created equal. Different films have different sized grains, and different colour profiles.

“Tea, Earl Grey, Hot”

There are many elements of photography that are missing with digital. Yes, a digital camera can be used in manual mode, but it’s just not the same. For the average person, one thing missing with digital is an appreciation for the theory behind taking photographs – film speed (meaningless in digital), shutter speed, apertures. Some digital lenses allow a switch over to manual focusing, which opens the door to control over how much of a photograph is in focus – much more fun that auto-focus. Moving to pure analog means that you have to have an understanding of camera fundamentals, and film types.

What type of camera to experiment with? While digital cameras tend to have the same underpinning technology, film cameras can be quite different. A myriad of differing manufacturers, and film sizes. Do you want to use a box camera (aka Brownie), or a foldable one with bellows? A vintage German camera (East or West?), Japanese, or Russian? Full frame or half-frame? SLR or rangefinder? Zone focusing? Fully manual, or with light meter (assuming they work). So many choices.

Another part of the organic nature of film photography is the lenses. Unlike modern lenses which can be extremely complex, and exact, vintage lenses often contain a level of imperfections which means they provide a good amount of character. If you want good Bokeh, or differing colour renditions, then a vintage lens will provide that. They are manual, but that’s the point isn’t it? Lastly there is the film. Each film has it’s own character. Monochrome film to render cinematic ambiance, or colour film that desaturates colours. There are also films which have no (inexpensive) digital equivalent – like infrared film (from Rollei, and not really the same as using a filter).

Apart from pure analog, there is also the cross-over of analog to digital, the hybrid form of photography. This is achieved by using vintage analog lenses on digital cameras, providing the best of both worlds. It does mean that functions such as aperture control, and focusing have to be done manually (which isn’t a bad thing), but also allows for much more creative control. There are also effects such as Bokeh, which can not be reproduced algorithmically in any sort of organic manner.

There is some irony in film though. Many people of course end up digitizing the film. But the essence of the photograph is captured in the film and digitizing it does not take all of that away (it does loose something as the transferral from film to paper adds another layer of appeal). To display your work, digital is still the best way (hard to write a blog post with a paper photograph). My foray into film is partly a longing to relive the experiential side of photography, to play with apertures, to focus a lens – it doesn’t have to be exact, and that’s the point.

The downside is of course you will never get to see the photograph until after it is developed. However it’s best to look at this more from a more expressive point-of-view. The art may lie partially in the unveiling. Maybe film photography lends itself more to an art form.

Lightning strikes!

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Sometimes we tend to forget how exciting first achievements are. You get a good sense of these if you peruse vintage science journals from the late 1800s, many of which are available online as PDFs. When I was looking for an article from La Nature Revue Des Sciences recently from 1884, I came across another interesting article on the photography of lightning strikes by Gaston Tissandier (Vol.12, No.548., pp.118-119), entitled “Les Éclairs, Reproduits par la Photographie Instantanée“, or “The Flashes reproduced by instant photography”. The images show photographic prints of lightning taken by Mr. Robert Haensel of Reichenberg, Bohemia.

Photographs of lightning, taken on July 6th, 1883 at 10pm, when the sky was very dark

These photographs seem very simple, but are like pieces of artwork. They were acquired using silver-bromide gelatin plates, and activated by the lightning flashes themselves. Now the average duration of a flash of lightning is 0.1-0.2 seconds, so it says a lot about the sensitivity of film at the time. Haensel exposed 10 plates, of which four good negatives were produced. The photographs were reproduced for publication using the photogravure process.

This article was also published in The Popular Science Monthly, as, “Photographing a Streak of Lightning”, Vol. 24 pp.752-754 (April 1884). An earlier article appeared in The Photographic News, on January 4th, 1884 (London).

Every colour photograph is a manipulation of the truth

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Previous discussions have focused on the quasi untruths the camera produces. What is the greatest of them? The freezing or blur of movement? The distortion of perspective? Or maybe the manipulation of colour? When it comes to colour, where does the truth lie? Colour is interpreted differently by each person, and even the camera itself. No one may truly understand the complexities of how colour is actually perceived. Most people see a blue sky, but what shade of blue? Consider the following photograph taken at Point Pleasant Park, in Halifax (Nova Scotia). The sky seems over-saturated, but there was no processing done. Is it natural, or an affect of being in the right place at the right time?

Prince of Wales Tower, Point Pleasant Park, Halifax

Colours in a digital photograph are a result of many differing processes – light passes through the various glass optics of the lens, and is absorbed by the sensor which converts the photons into a digital signal. This does not mean that the colours which exist in a scene will be properly interpreted. The pure “light” of white can be used to manipulate the colours of a photograph, something called white balancing. Scroll through the available choices, and the colour temperature of the photograph will change. Sometimes we manipulate colours through white balancing, other times through manipulation of the colour histogram, all to make the contents of the photograph seem more akin to our perception of realism. Sometimes we add colour to add a sense of non-realism. Sometimes we saturate the colours to make them seem bright, and other times we mute them. 

Take a photograph of something. Look at the colours in the scene, and try to remember what they looked like. Maybe take the same photo with different cameras. It is hard to reproduce the exact colour… so in many ways the photograph the camera produces is something of a generic interpretation to be manipulated in a human way to some visual aesthetic. Which takes us to the question of what is the truth? Is there any real truth to a photograph? 

Nothing has a true colour- it is all varying perceptions of the interaction of light and colour pigments, and the human eye. We apply filters in Instagram to make things seem more vivid and hyper real, or desaturated and contemplative. There is no right or wrong way of understanding colour, although our experiences are influenced by the other senses such as smell. I mean, as far as wavelengths go, the Earth’s sky is really more of a bluish violet colour, but because of the human visual system we perceive it as pale blue. So maybe our own eyes are manipulating the truth?

The first 35mm lens

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With the advent of 35mm film cameras came the need to design 35mm lenses. The first still cameras designed to use 35mm film inevitably used lenses modified from use on motion-picture cameras, or microscopes. This made sense when the 35mm cine-film used the 18×24mm frame format, however these lenses only covered part of a 24×36mm frame. The figure below shows frame coverage of a cine (movie) lens versus a 35mm lens.

Frame coverage of pre-35mm lenses

For instance the Tourist Multiple used a Bausch & Lomb Zeiss 4-element Tessar (50mm f / 3.5 lens), which was used on motion picture cameras.

Leitz, founded in 1869, began as a company focused on the manufacture of microscopes, and other optical instruments. When work began on the Ur-Leica, Barnack and Berek tried a number of lenses. The simplest option was the 5cm f / 3.5 Zeiss Kino-Tessar movie camera lens. The problem is that the lens could not provide a light spot able to cover the 24×36mm frame format, as it was designed for a 18×24mm format. In addition it produced vignetting not suitable for a camera. The lens they ended up using was the 6-element 42mm f / 4.5 Leitz Mikro-Summar, in a classic double-Gauss formula. This lens had a number of shortcomings, including edge blurring, and a lack of contrast.

The Leitz Mikro-Summar (from 1907 catalog)

The design of a new 35mm lens was the responsibility of German physicist and mathematician, Max Berek (1886-1949). The first 35mm lens developed at Leica was a 50mm f/3.5 Anastigmat. Based on the “Cooke Triplet” lens design, it had 5 elements in 3 groups. The lens was later marginally redesigned, still containing 5 elements in 3 groups, and was given the name Elmax (The name is derived from Ernst Leitz and Max Berek.). These lenses were used on the pre-production Leica-0, of which 31 were manufactured from 1920-1925.

The Anastigmat / Elmax lenses

At that time, the calculation of such a lens was still very complex. Light beam paths from points near or away from the optical axis had to be calculated for three wavelengths and seven refractive surfaces, all by hand using logarithmic tables. Leitz was granted patent No. 343086 for the Anastigmat in 1920.

The first lens formula was difficult to build, so Berek changed the design to a triplet with the last element a cemented doublet, i.e., 4 elements in 3 groups. This lens was renamed Elmar, and was subsequently manufactured for decades (1925-1961). The lens was similar to a Tessar, except for the location of the diaphragm. On the Elmar the diaphragm was located between the first and second elements, rather than the rear two elements.

The Elmar lens

The first lenses which appeared were of the fixed type used on the Leica I. From 1930-1959, the Elmar was made in a screw mount, and an M (bayonet) mount from 1954-1961. From 1930-1932 the lenses were matched with one body, after which they became interchangeable (M39 mount). The lens would evolve to have a maximum aperture of f/2.8, and a minimum aperture of f/22. .

The Leica Elmar 50mm, with screw mount

Specifications: (Original)
50mm f / 3.5 Elmar lens
Angle of view: 45°
No. of elements: 4
Minimum focusing distance: 1.0m
Minimum aperture: 16
Aperture range: 3.5, 4.5, 6.3, 9, 12.5, 16
Weight: 92g

Here are some links to extra info on early Leica lenses:

The origins of 35mm camera film

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Full-frame sensors take their dimensions from traditional 35mm film, but where did the ubiquitous 35mm come from?

The second half of the 19th Century spirited the development of many photographic materials and processes. Kodak’s first roll-film camera, the No.1 was introduced in 1888. By 1901, the use of roll-film had become quite common, with Kodak releasing the 120 film format, which was approximately 60mm wide and allowed for various frame sizes. Thomas Edison invented¹ the Kinetoscope in 1893, a device for showing basic film loops, and which used 35mm (1⅜”) gauge cine-film, half the size used in Eastman Kodak cameras. In March 1895, The Lumière Brothers introduced their Cinématographe, the first motion picture film camera, using the same width as Edison, 35mm. By 1909, 35mm had become the standard motion picture film.

Why is it called 35mm film? The 35mm represents the width of the film, irrespective of the size of the frame on the film.

A number of manufacturers started using 35mm cine-film for still photography between 1905 and 1913. The first patent for a 35mm camera was issued to Leo, Audobard and Baradat in England in 1908. It represented one of many patents and prototypes, few of which were produced commercially or even built. The first publicly available 35mm cameras were that used 35mm cine-film were the Tourist Multiple, and the Simplex. The Tourist Multiple, built by US company Herbert & Huesgen, was released in 1913. It was a half-frame camera, taking (750) 18×24mm exposures on 35mm cine-film. The Simplex, invented by Alfred Huger Moses, and was released in 1914. It existed in a number of different models, many of which allowed convertible full/half-frame exposures. The Simplex Model B was the only one to use standard 35mm format (it was only produced from 1914-1918).

The Simplex Model B.

It was Oskar Barnack (1879-1936), who produced the first commercially successful 35mm camera, at the Ernst Leitz Optische Werke in Wetzlar. In 1912, Barnack began work on a new motion picture camera, yet he struggled to get shutter timings right, largely because film emulsions were quite inconsistent. Proper exposure in the early days of motion picture was challenging because of the lack of devices such as photoelectric meters. In response to this, Barnack created a film tester to determine correct exposure settings. Barnack’s device would allow small test exposures to be processed, and exposure issues adjusted accordingly. This prototype device became known as the Ur-Leica, where the prefix “Ur” in German means prime, or original. It was equipped with a Mikro-Summar f / 4.5, 6-element, 42mm lens.

The Leica I (1927) © Kameraprojekt Graz 2015 / Wikimedia Commons

Barnack’s design allowed the camera to move the film horizontally, increasing the frame size to increase to 24×36mm, instead of the 18×24mm exposures of cameras that carried film vertically. This essentially created “double-sized” images. The aspect ratio also changed from 3:4 to 2:3. With the onset of WW1, it was not until 1924 that Leica decided to produce the 35mm camera, with the 35mm Leica I (A) making its first appearance as the Leipzig Spring Fair in 1925. The Leica I had an all-metal housing, a collapsible lens, and a focal-plane shutter. The Leica succeeded because it was compact, and the quality of the exposures was as good as the more commonly used roll film.

So why did 35mm film become so successful? It was partially to do with cost. Due to its use in the cinematic industry, 35mm motion picture film was widely available, and inexpensive. The number of exposures which could be loaded into a camera was 40. Initially the film had to be loaded in the dark, however Barnack soon realized this was a problem and developed a reloadable cassette which could easily be inserted into the camera, and could accommodate 36 exposures. By 1932, Leica’s competitor Zeiss had introduced the 35mm Contax, and Kodak entered the market in 1934 with the Retina I.

¹ It is widely believed that the Kinetoscope was actually designed by one of Eastman’s employees, William Dickson.

For more information on early 35mm cameras check out Max Bertacchi’s page dedicated to early 35mm cameras, or early Leica’s.

A move back to manual photography

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When I was in university I dabbled in some photography. I had two Fuji cameras, I think one was a Fuji STX-2 35mm SLR. I had a couple of standard lenses, and a 300mm telephoto that I found at home and bought an adapter for. I did some nature photography, mostly birds, putting the 300mm to good use. I did some B&W and did some of my own processing (our residence had a darkroom). But I grew tired of lugging photographic gear on trips, and eventually in the late 90’s traded in that gear, and bought a compact 35mm camera. It was just handier. When my wife and I went  to Arizona in 2000, we both took our 35mm compact cameras with us. When we came back from that trip we had 12-15 rolls of film, and at that point I concluded that I was done with analogue film, largely because of the inconvenience, and cost (I think some are still unprocessed!). The next year we bought our first digital camera, a 2MP Olympus. We took it on a trip to Switzerland and Germany, and it was great. I never went back to analogue.

Now, 18 off years later, a change of plan. There seems to be an increasing trend, unlike that of records, towards analogue cameras, and film. To this end, I went and bought an Olympus OM-2 with a 50mm f1.4 lens. It feels *awesome*. Film is readily available, and actually quite inexpensive to process. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ditching digital, in fact I’m going to use the analogue lens on my Olympus EM-5(II), and maybe even pick up an E-1. But what I long for is the feel and artistic appeal of the analogue camera… not necessarily for travel afar, but for local photography. I long to experiment with a camera that is very simple. I want to teach my daughter (who uses one of those instant Polaroid type cameras), about the true basic art of photography., and explore the inner workings of the analogue system. In part I believe that playing with film will help me better understand the subtle  nuances with taking good photographs, without the aid of extensive digital controls. The need for more control was brought on when I started using the Voigtländer lens on my EM-5, something that required me to manually focus. It’s easy to forget how much tactile knowledge is discarded when we give over to digital control.

olympus manual camera

Olympus OM-2

The problem with anything digital is that we hand over our innovative processes to the machine… and I’m somewhat over that. I don’t need AI to take the perfect picture, in fact I don’t need the perfect picture. Analog photography was never perfect, but that was its beauty, just as nothing in the world is completely perfect, and maybe we should stop trying to manipulate it so that it is.

P.S. If you’re looking for a manual camera in the GTA, try F-STOP Photo Accessories, in downtown TO. That’s where I bought this camera. It’s a small shop, but they have an amazing selection of manual cameras, at *exceptional* prices.