Re: dreamy Nikon lenses
Yup.
Re: Nikon--she was a dyed in the wool Nikon user but it is possible before
the 50's she used other cameras.
Re: Kodachrome. When I pulled apart a slide it said Kodak safety film
(it's positive, not neg of course). Then I pulled apart a bunch more and
finally found Kodachrome written on it. The color is really luscious in all
these, but there is a difference in the early 40's Kodachrome images into
the 50's and then the later 50's on to 70's. The later shots are super
sharp and saturated so my uneducated guess is, it was a lens change on her
part. But heck, she could have been shooting Pentax at the the time for all
I know as I wasn't born back then and even if I was I didn't take note of
cameras until long after. I just know that when she died I inherited the
Nikon.
I guess I have to agree with Don B. that the look of Kodachrome is very
seductive.
Chris
A couple of questions:
Are these definitely 35mm slides? tha
Why do you think a Nikon was used?
The effect sounds like a soft focus lens but I don't know of any
specificallyl made for 35mm still cameras during the period. Nikon did
have a version of the lens made by Rodenstock and called an Imagon but
that was later.
Uncoated lenses do not produce fuzzy images due to the lack of
coating. The most common result is an overall haze which for color film
lowers saturation and can affect color purity. Some uncoated lenses also
produce "ghost images" of bright objects. The most common reason for
haloes around bright objects is residual spherical aberration. Very few
lenses were coated up to about 1946 when the vacuum coating methods
developed during WW-2 became widely available. Kodak did coat some of its
premium quality lenses using a different method as early as about 1940 and
lens coatings were used for some lenses made for the Technicolor company
in the late 1930s. For instance Technicolor supplied coated projection
lenses for _Gone With the Wind_.
The film was certainly Kodachrome if the slides were made before 1946
and very likely to be Kodachrome if made later. Kodachrome is still
available although Kodak has been trying very hard to kill it for several
years. Early Kodachrome was known for brilliant colors and high contrast.
No other film looks quite like it. The effect was similar to Technicolor
of the period.
One property of Kodachrome is excellent dark storage longevity. Compared
to Ektachrome or Anscochrome its dark storage lifetime is many times as
great and much Kodachrome made in the 1940's still looks pristine.
Ektachrome has better resistance against fading during projection but the
older stuff was quite short lived.
Because Kodachrome does not have the dye producing couplers
incorporated in the emulsion layers it requires a very elaborate
processing method. Originally this was done exclusively by Kodak although
in later years they licensed independant labs to process it.
AFAIK all Kodachrome in all sizes was coated on safety (cellulose
acetate) support.
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@ix.netcom.com