How come color photographs from different eras look so different?

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I look at the pictures of me from when I was a baby and the paper and color seem so different. In books with color photos from the 70s there's just something... different about the colors. I like it.

― Jon in R'lyeh (ex machina), Sunday, 13 June 2004 17:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Color prints start can to fade within 10-15 years and the colors will look bleached.

The other is differences in film - new color films are more saturated and less grainy than print film from the '70s, and old Kodachrome-type slide films just look different (and mostly no longer exist).

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Sunday, 13 June 2004 17:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Film chemistry (stock, development process), preservation (or lack thereof), different techniques of color rendition (3-strip vs. 1-strip...that's really more a film difference, for the most part, though).

Etc.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 13 June 2004 18:05 (twenty-two years ago)

You can, with a fair bit of effort, duplicate the 70s look on photos. A lot of the difference is because you probably don't get your pictures on matt paper, which makes a huge difference.

― ___ (___), Sunday, 13 June 2004 18:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I just heard about this book, which is old Depression-era Kodachrome pictures!

― teeny (teeny), Sunday, 13 June 2004 18:52 (twenty-two years ago)

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0810943484.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

it's very striking.

― teeny (teeny), Sunday, 13 June 2004 18:53 (twenty-two years ago)

old Kodachrome-type slide films just look different (and mostly no longer exist).

You can still get Kodachrome, and it's still the same as it always was. If I want to use colour film, it's definitely my favourite.

― caitlin (caitlin), Sunday, 13 June 2004 19:11 (twenty-two years ago)

NY Times slideshow of Depression-era Kodachromes - I think they're from that book.

You can, with a fair bit of effort, duplicate the 70s look on photos. A lot of the difference is because you probably don't get your pictures on matt paper, which makes a huge difference.
Thanks to scanners and Photoshop, it's not that much effort to get the look. If you don't want to do digital, I guess you could talk a professional lab into rigging up some kind of bleach-bypass thing (ala Hollywood films like Three Kings) where the colors will be desaturated and contrasty.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Sunday, 13 June 2004 19:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Er, yeah, Kodachrome 25 was discontinued a couple of years ago, 64/200 are still available (but expensive). I've heard rumors of those being discontinued, and they've shut down a lot of the development centers.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Sunday, 13 June 2004 19:22 (twenty-two years ago)

thanks for the link milo!

― teeny (teeny), Sunday, 13 June 2004 19:32 (twenty-two years ago)

35mm Kodachrome costs about £10 for a 36-frame roll, including processing. They only ever had the one processing centre in Britain anyway.

― caitlin (caitlin), Sunday, 13 June 2004 19:45 (twenty-two years ago)

what is it about the film used in british movies that is different from american movies?

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 13 June 2004 19:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Which movies?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 13 June 2004 19:52 (twenty-two years ago)

also, people wore different clothes in the 70s.

― Huk-El (Horace Mann), Sunday, 13 June 2004 19:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I know what cutty's talking about. Dude, it's more lighting than film though I think. American movies and TV almost always stick to three poing lighting while it seems like in the UK they often just use natural lighting (so the viewer ends up getting that "home movie" feeling).

― Dan I., Sunday, 13 June 2004 20:01 (twenty-two years ago)

We should start a new thread for that though cause it's not on topic but I've always been sort of interested in those differences

― Dan I., Sunday, 13 June 2004 20:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Three point lighting (a joke that doesn't exist much in feature films to begin with) or lighting saturation? It's hard to think of a Hollywood film that uses three point lighting when the average scene is lit with 10-100 lights.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 13 June 2004 20:03 (twenty-two years ago)

i always suspected it was the film stock. maybe it's a result of NTSC to PAL transfer?

― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 13 June 2004 20:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Girolamo I'm sure you are right. I just knew it amounted to a lot more lighting.

― Dan I., Sunday, 13 June 2004 20:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Film stock is unlikely, since you can get everything from Kodak and Fuji pretty much anywhere. And the difference in pricing between different kinds are virtually nil to begin with. Transfer maybe, maybe other things. Hard to say. Of course, it has a lot to do with so many different factors that w/o a direct comparison of two example films, it would be hard to do any sort of even vaguely informed discussion on it to begin with.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 13 June 2004 20:12 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to work a job colour checking professional photographers work. I asked the same question. Basically the simple answer is, advances in technology have made it easier to get realistic colour. Usually older photos have one colour "pushed" too far. Which give them that "old" look. If it were a simple matter of fading, all of your old photos would have a cyan/magenta bias, as it's the yellow that fades first.

― ipsofacto (ipsofacto), Sunday, 13 June 2004 20:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, the yellow fades first b/c it's the top layer, IIRC. (In negatives, this is the blue layer...which in positive/negative colors is the same thing, of course.)

Fuji and Kodak have made some great color advances in the past couple of years with a fourth-layer emulsion technology that apparently affects the reds. Dunno exactly what it is, though.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 13 June 2004 21:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never heard about changes in technology affecting this, at least as far as prints and negatives go. Type-C prints have been around for a long time, I think the newer processes are more stable.

The breakdown of dye layers can affect any of the layers depending on how they're being faded/changed - direct sunlight, indoor UV, heat, humidity, ozone, skin oils, etc. But most older photographs I've seen take on a bluish tint, which would indicate a lack of yellow, I think.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 14 June 2004 00:40 (twenty-two years ago)

excellent link milo - cheers.

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 14 June 2004 01:00 (twenty-two years ago)

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