Re: Restoration of the tri-color camera. An update.

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Marshall <petermarshall@cix.co.uk>
Sent: Mar 18, 2005 5:35 PM

Allan Connery wrote:
> Speaking of Photoshop and in-camera separations, have a look at
> www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/
>
> It's an amazing display of color photographs taken in pre-Revolutionary
> Russia (1909-1912 and 1915) by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.
>
> Using a special camera, he took three shots of a scene in quick
> succession through red, green and blue filters. All three shots were
> recorded on one plate. A positive from the plate was displayed through a
> three-lens projector with the appropriate filters.
>

.............

> Allan Connery
>

Prokudin-Gorskii took out an English patent for a camera that took 3
simultaneous images using two semi-transparent mirrors to split the
light coming into the camera, which had 3 lenses. This is described in J
S Friedman's 'History of Color Photography' (p54), and I think it is
more than likely that this method was used to make the portraits.

Regards,

-- 
Peter Marshall
I think Allan's explanation is the correct one.  The camera that Prokudin-Gorskii used for his project had a tall aspect-ratio glass plate that fell twice to take 3 photos in quick succesion (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/making.html).  As evidence, some of the photos of people show color artifacts from the subject moving betwen the color exposures.  Some examples: http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87_5275__01067_.jpg, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87_7055__01522_.jpg and http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/images/p87-4240.jpg
--Michael