Egypt & Istanbul vacation on 35mm nitrate, 1937 Kodak Panatomic X

[Ian Grant]

The only way of getting negatives on reversal film with the black rebates is if each frame is exposed separately, There were Leitz and other 35mm contact printers and other copy apparatus for optical copying.

Ian

 

[Kino]

Well, there are several possible, if implausible, scenarios that could have happened, but I doubt we will ever know for sure.

Frankly, after thinking it over, I don't think any of them are copies; I think they are all originals, but I won't trot out any more speculations, as it tends to cloud the original intent of the post, we have chewed this to death and won't likely agree anyway.

In any event, they are fascinating artifacts that need to be preserved and I salute Dutchsteammachine for doing this work.

 

[Kino]

We are not at the movie industry, but at some amateur(?) darkroom, likely in the 30s.

I don't recall this being established as a fact either way.

 

[Ian Grant]

Frankly, after thinking it over, I don't think any of them are copies; I think they are all originals, but I won't trot out any more speculations, as it tends to cloud the original intent of the post, we have chewed this to death and won't likely agree anyway.

The ones with the black rebates can't be originals there's no negative process where that's possible except by copying onto reversal film frame by frame. It would also be easy to explain if the original was deteriorating so was copied then disposed of.

Ian

 

[Kino]

The ones with the black rebates can't be originals there's no negative process where that's possible except by copying onto reversal film frame by frame. It would also be easy to explain if the original was deteriorating so was copied then disposed of.

Ian

Not true. The negative could have been lightly fogged prior to intensification.

Look, Ian, your's is a plausible explanation. I am not debating that, but it's not the only possible explanation, and I have a strong suspicion due to the color of the emulsion it the negatives in question were chemically toned to intensify them and not copied.

Yes, I agree up to the point where you say they could have been copied with a slide duplicator; that makes perfect sense, but the dense rebate and framelines prohibit me from agreeing beyond that point.

The copy beyond that point would have to be a contact copy and the chance of having undetectable variations in the density of the rebate when using a typical still proof type printer or just a sheet of glass and all the problems of loss of contact and even exposure coverage, ruins it for me.

We only know the film type, roughly the year of exposure, the location and the appearance of the artifacts; beyond that, we don't know for sure what process was used.

I would certainly like to know for sure how it was done, but I doubt we will ever solve it to everyone's satisfaction...

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Some rolls are gray, some brown/yellow, some white, some black.

I dont mind discussion, its interesting. Its likely the originals are gone though, if these are copies. So likely these are the highest resolution and dynamic range examples of these photos in existence.

I did not have much to post anyway as ma scanner broke down. After two repair attempts it works again. Light source didn't work two times after repair for some reason even though i didn't touch any of it. Restart seems to work.

Did some test scans two days ago:

 

[Ian Grant]

Not true. The negative could have been lightly fogged prior to intensification.

Look, Ian, your's is a plausible explanation. I am not debating that, but it's not the only possible explanation, and I have a strong suspicion due to the color of the emulsion it the negatives in question were chemically toned to intensify them and not copied.

There's no possibility of "lightly fogging prior to intensification" this just doesn't happen, yes intensification can cause an overall base staining but anything that causes the rebates to go from clear unexposed (so undeveloped) and fixed to a high Dmax would destroy the image entirely.

We know from the OP that negatives have been marked for Intensification and Reduction and that's reflected in the varying negative colours referred to.

Ian

 

[Kino]

There's no possibility of "lightly fogging prior to intensification" this just doesn't happen, yes intensification can cause an overall base staining but anything that causes the rebates to go from clear unexposed (so undeveloped) and fixed to a high Dmax would destroy the image entirely.

We know from the OP that negatives have been marked for Intensification and Reduction and that's reflected in the varying negative colours referred to.

Ian

Sorry, I should have been more clear; I meant the original negative strip could have been lightly fogged prior to development and subsequent intensification. As in, the lights in the darkroom where accidentally turned on for a moment type fogging just before processing, but anyway that was just a stretch... Dichroic fog can influence subsequent density when toning, but I'll leave that alone.

OK, reversal it is. Now...

As for the varying colors, are you saying it was intensified after copying and reversing?

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Excellent news! I have gotten into contact with a grandchild of the photographer, and have send him some of the photos with people that might have been family of the photographer.
While he said he does not remember them, he will send the photos to aunts and uncles who may remember them.

For me the journey would be complete if the latter were to happen.

Some more glances at a world lost to time:

 

[slackercrurster]

Beautiful!

 

[Kodachromeguy]

These are spectacular. Well done to both the original photographer and you for reviving them!! I love seeing pictures of an older world, one that has disappeared forever. Now you have encouraged me to look at some of my father's negatives from the 1930s and 1940s. If you cannot revive your scanner, I suggest one of the Plustek models, such as the 8200i. It is possibly marginally poorer than the Nikon, but comes with Silverfast Ai software.

Something to consider: Here you have showed us pictures taken 80 years ago. Will our descendants be able to view our 80-year-old digital files? You really think so? I worked at a US Government research lab with professional IT support, and we often could not read media only 15 years old (such as VAX/VMS 4mm DAT backup tapes).

 

[dutchsteammachine]

These are spectacular. Well done to both the original photographer and you for reviving them!! I love seeing pictures of an older world, one that has disappeared forever. Now you have encouraged me to look at some of my father's negatives from the 1930s and 1940s. If you cannot revive your scanner, I suggest one of the Plustek models, such as the 8200i. It is possibly marginally poorer than the Nikon, but comes with Silverfast Ai software.

Something to consider: Here you have showed us pictures taken 80 years ago. Will our descendants be able to view our 80-year-old digital files? You really think so? I worked at a US Government research lab with professional IT support, and we often could not read media only 15 years old (such as VAX/VMS 4mm DAT backup tapes).

The Nikon is working for now, but has been having myriad of strange issues. But I have invested too much money in holders to change.

As for digital photo recovery, who knows? One obvious benefit analog photos have, is that they just...ARE the photo. Not a set of 0s and 1s that have to be decoded in a certain way. An other problem, is that it is not always clear the storage medium in question has digital images. Unless the handler knows what is on the medium, or the medium has specific labels, it could be anything. And those labels can be...nonsense to the untrained eye. The importance of something is not always clear.

Long-term storage and recover ability of digital images defends on a few things: Storage medium, format and metadata.
Lower data density mediums like magtapes are underrated. The data recovery precentage on +40 year old tapes is surprisingly good. This is simply because they were written with quite strong magnetic fields and at high saturation. Unless a tape has been degaused (Something unlikely to happen by accident) and storage conditions were stable, there is a good chance data can still be recovered.

Finding the correct drive can be difficult, but in theory you should be able to digitize any tape as long as you have a head with the correct track geometry, and a stable drive system. Technically you can digitally record the voltage changes from head and convert it into bits. This is basically what the ADC in the drive does with its own firmware. This is something an american computer museum tried to rig up, so they could in theory digitize the raw magnetic flux of virtually every computer tape every made regardless of format or condition. But I think they gave up, real shame.

(Lets just use normal drives)

An other problem with digital files, is that they may have been saved in a system/brand/series/drive specific encoding. THe UNIVAC format is obviously different from the IBM 360 format, and PDP-11. Even within brands, compatibility was not guaranteed. Even drives meant for the same computer could be incompatible! (7/9 track, data density)

After data recovery has been successful, the data needs to be converted to a modern image file. Documentation on the raw image formatting needs to be found, which may have been project-specific. If so, you would be lucky to find one of the people that worked on it, or any documentation at all. If you are blessed by the gods, there will be metadata with dates, names, project titles, exposure settings (Of course this can also be in some kind of strange text format!)

I'll upload some stuff from 78 I am working on with some people as a project. Lets see how far we come. See file1.zip for the binary data from file 1

 

[removed account4]

DutchSteamMachine
What a great thing you have done ! Thank you for perserving a slice of time and history and sense of place.

 

[markjwyatt]

Great images. Any idea what camera he was using?

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Great images. Any idea what camera he was using?

I do not, perhaps we can find out by measuring the exact frame size, and length between frames?

I don't think there were many 35mm camera's at this time? most was 120. Given the quality, Leica?

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Huge update!

Work has paid off, and I have uploaded 85 more photos, and several new panorama's.

I have made a separated album for just the panorama's, here: Dutchsteammachine-archive’s albums | Flickr

Lets look at some new jewels:

People:

Temple of Hatshepsut:

Environments:

Sphinx and great pyramids:

Needless to say the panorama's are fun to make! and the results give you a real sense of scale.
At some point I got to make a video with all the photos. I wonder if the panorama's can be converted to VR videos?

 

[Down Under]

I do not, perhaps we can find out by measuring the exact frame size, and length between frames?

I don't think there were many 35mm camera's at this time? most was 120. Given the quality, Leica?

Maybe Leica or Contax. If the original photographer (who had a fine eye for composition, BTW) was a Dutch academic, he would have been on a well above average salary and likely able to afford either, as well as the travel to Egypt at the time which would not have been cheap.

Excellent images throughout. The photo of the attractive woman on the boat is particularly fine.

He could have been using an early model Kodak Retina 35mm camera, but getting such results with one of these would have been difficult...

I had an uncle (by marriage) who was a banker in Asia in the '20s and '30s and an amateur archaeologist. We discussed his hobby in the '70s when he was long retired (he passed away in 1979 at age 90). I have many notes in old diaries about our discussions and I'll try to find the relevant ones. He talked about archaeological photography in Asia and the Pacific in that era. I recall he said it (the photography) was highly specialised work and large format cameras (4x5 and bigger) on tripods were used. He had Rolleiflex and Contax kits and a state of the art Weston Universal meter (I have it and it still works, but at age 80+ is somewhat unreliable), but he was a well-to-do amateur, as was I suspect the Dutch professor who shot the wonderful images in this thread.

As I said, I'll try to locate those notes and hop back into the thread when I do.

 

[dutchsteammachine]

I messed some more with the photos, and with some editing got the ICE 2.0 software to include the full pyramid in the stitch. It looks a bit wonky, but does a nice job completing the picture.

The bottom photo, taken in 2010, is around the same angle. Interesting to see what has and has not changed.
Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/manna4u/5223979195/in/photostream/

 

[dutchsteammachine]

I have found another picture that fits, the processing of the panorama now takes some time. The files are now also insanely high with +150 megapixels. Download the full-res panorama on Flickr.

Which do you think is the best?

Strange is that at the end of role 7 we suddenly take pictures in the Netherlands?

So either the numbers are wrong, or role 7 was rolled back before it was empty, and completed later.

 

[AgX]

Strange is that at the end of role 7 we suddenly take pictures in the Netherlands?

More so as the row house does not fit for someone making a Egypt travel in the 30s.

 

[dutchsteammachine]

Currently scanning the last roll.

Limbo

Silhouet

Some rolls are silvering unfortunately.

 

[markjwyatt]

Some rolls are silvering unfortunately.[/QUOTE]

Currently scanning the last roll.

Limbo

...

More excellent images! If the above GIF was indeed a single stroke, winding a Contax or Leica in that time would have been challenging (probably not impossible). Does anyone know of a lever advanced 35mm camera from that time? It could have also been two or three strokes just capturing the forward, top, and back portions of the strokes. The changes in apparent background distances would not have been great enough to be noticeable if it were done over a minute or so.

 

[dutchsteammachine]

I used 4 of the 6 photos in the rowing sequence. I did change the order to make it appear more fluid. I used 4 because it looked more fluid to me than using 6.

Here is the complete sequence in order (15MB .gif):
Small 640x gif below (4mb):https://live.staticflickr.com/7826/47505878802_6f510332a3_o_d.gif

 

[AgX]

Those boat photographs are least of the kind I expected from such trip photos.

 

[dutchsteammachine]

This week I scanned the last photos and uploaded everything today.

The Flickr album has been sorted in alphabetical order.

The archive now contains just over 300 photos.

A number of panoramas have been added.

I am now making short animations by using photos taken one after the other, or while the camera was rotating.

I am interested in your favorite individual photos, and favorite panoramas. Perhaps we can choose several for restoration and conversion to color?

I don't know for you, but this project has certainly given me a different perspective in this era.
Hopefully it was interesting to follow.

Cheers,
Niels