Kodacolor Process (1930s) style camera

yulia_s_rey · Mar 31, 2011

Not sure if best category: I'm recently have become interested on modifying an old 35mm VF & a 16mm movie cam camera to make color photos on regular panchromatic stock using a lenticular lens on the focal plane & a three color filter in front of the lens for color separation.
I know Kodacolor 16mm (Process 1 I think) used an etching of fine lines on the back of the base acting as a lenticular lens.
Instead I want a camera using a tricolor filter that can use regular film stock using maybe a plastic lenticular lens (like the 90s cereal box giveaways) on the focal plane, touching the emulsion to emulate this. I wonder can this be possible, anyone else have any experience w/ this? Does this sound possible? Also can one use Red Blue-Green 2 color instead of tricolor, r,g,b filters?

yulia_s_rey · Apr 16, 2011

partial success. I mounted a lenticular sheet used to magnify roadmaps (approx 100 lines per inch) onto the focal plane of my Pentax. Shot on Valca 6 Din processed reversal. I then used the same camera setup as an enlarger to view the projection. It worked poorly which I attributed to the lines per inch of the plastic sheet I used. My mission is now to find a 3000+ line per inch sheet or even double that so I can shoot on s16mm.

holmburgers · Apr 18, 2011

I'm very interested in this project, I don't know how I missed it!

Wow, so you actually got workable color using a lenticular process?? That's quite an achievement! If you could post pictures or something, that would be awesome.

If you're a reader, check out J.S. Friedman's "History of Color Photography". He has a lot of information devoted to the lenticular processes.

Following with interest, but I need a refresher/primer before I can be of much use.

holmburgers · Apr 18, 2011

Ok, so after refilling my coffee, let me see if I have this right... somewhat for my sake and also for other reader's sake.

You have a filter over the lens with 3 strips of RGB, running parallel to your lenticular screen, which is placed as close to the film plane as possible. Right?

A lenticular screen is "uni-directionally discriminating", or in this case, "horizontally diffusing". This means that it only makes an image in one plane, and not in the other. That's a confusing way to say it, I know, but what it means in this case is that it's seeing the 3 strips and imaging them in a different spot behind the "lenticle" (seems like a good time to make up new words). Thus, upon projection, the 3 color-separations that are "coded" behind the lenticle are projected back through the lens/filter to produce additive-color synthesis by projection, all from the same piece of film and in b&w.

I would think that your biggest troubles will come from registration, and this will get worse and worse as you increase the resolution of the lenticular screen. Also, not having the lenticles at the film plane, as was the case in Kodak's specialized film base, this might compound the problem, but I don't really know to what extent.

Furthermore, a 2-color scheme would most definitely work.

All told, I think it's way cool that you're experimenting with lenticular color processes; a completely forgotten beast.

yulia_s_rey · Apr 18, 2011

holmburgers said:
You have a filter over the lens with 3 strips of RGB, running parallel to your lenticular screen, which is placed as close to the film plane as possible. Right?

A lenticular screen is "uni-directionally discriminating", or in this case, "horizontally diffusing". This means that it only makes an image in one plane, and not in the other. That's a confusing way to say it, I know, but what it means in this case is that it's seeing the 3 strips and imaging them in a different spot behind the "lenticle" (seems like a good time to make up new words). Thus, upon projection, the 3 color-separations that are "coded" behind the lenticle are projected back through the lens/filter to produce additive-color synthesis by projection, all from the same piece of film and in b&w.

I would think that your biggest troubles will come from registration, and this will get worse and worse as you increase the resolution of the lenticular screen. Also, not having the lenticles at the film plane, as was the case in Kodak's specialized film base, this might compound the problem, but I don't really know to what extent.

pretty much nailed it on the spot. ironically, i stumbled upon this when I compelled to research a 3D digital cinema system for work. seems that the forgotten beast might be making a come back for now (or at least until 3D fades out from overexposure) i will post some pix as soon as I have some free time. My best results insofar for additive color are by using micro meshes. Basically, I take a very fine cloth or nylon mesh (a stocking will even work) that is dyed red-orange and secure it on the focal plane of a 120, then I use a green filter and snap away. I will be working on these some more during the upcoming holidays. Also thanks for the book recomendation I am sure to buy it for myself.

holmburgers · Apr 19, 2011

Wow, very fascinating.. this micro mesh idea is new to me; I'm gonna need to chew on that one for a while... How exactly does it work?!

I look forward to seeing the results and take your time, but know that at least 1 person is keenly interested. (hopefully others as well)

The Friedman book is an excellent investment. Everytime I open it up I learn something new.

- take care -

yulia_s_rey · Apr 19, 2011

you can check out the thread I made on quick n' fun color screens in the Alternative Process forum, I am constantly looking to refine these. my goal ultimately is to be able to make an attachment that would work with any old camera on any old B&W pan stock.(heck I'll sacrifice a little quality for that) I have attached a few images here that I made using (photo paper!) recently using a 120mm Kiev camera w/ green filter and red mesh. Now heres the fun part, originally I was scanning these in through a similar mesh/filter arrangement but the colors were pretty dull. then I found it best to do a digital intermediate process making separate CMYK layers. I then print these out at the local Photo Lab. as you can see classic color discrepancies are very apparent, and totally lacking red info, any reds are more like violet. Unfortunately, I get all my film & supplies from work and we mainly use 16mm and I haven't had the time to go to buy my own, i'm limited to 16mm tri-x reversal, orthro 35 (asa 3!) and a whole bunch of photopaper. I think maybe on nice pan 120mm rollfim I can start to more promising results. please excuse the pics as there a bit hastily done, and the mesh had a tendency to wrinkle just look at the bottom left corner of my backyard snap.

yulia_s_rey · Apr 20, 2011

as much fun as additive screens can be, I personally prefer bi-packing! as these are my best results in so far with the 2 cent mesh/green arrangment.

holmburgers · Apr 20, 2011

I admit, I don't get how the mesh arrangement leads to color reproduction. Can you shed some light on the matter?

The still life is really awesome. From my screen plate experiments, that rainbow-y look is very familiar, and I also know that the right colors can pop when the registration is spot on = Awesome!

yulia_s_rey · Apr 20, 2011

i'm by no means an expert on color theory as my knowledge lies mainly in motion camera operation & lighting. but i do believe its works in a similar manner to early additive color screens like those made so popular at the turn of the previous century, except my matrix is only made up of red and green. if you want a sample of the same mesh I use I'll be happy to send one over to you as the postage costs more than the mesh, just let me know what film format you need. I use a green (X1) filter and some gaffers tape to secure the mesh on the back of my Kiev 88. i like to call it "magecolor" magically turns b&W to "color"

holmburgers · Apr 20, 2011

For one, true color reproduction is impossible without panchromatic b&w film/paper. But I suppose 2-color results are possible with orthochromatic emulsions, in which case you'd need to use blue & green, as the red will have no effect.

Is the mesh transparent? Obviously it has holes, but if the threads are dyed red and yet are not transparent, it will just act to block the light and not necessarily modify or separate the red light.

At any rate, it's still fun and the lenticular scheme holds a lot of promise.

yulia_s_rey · Apr 20, 2011

agreed, hence the magentas. anything yellow or red comes out black and simply acts as an"off" gate in not allowing light to pass. notice the bush on the right, its supposed to be a nice yellow. fortunately I'm off for the holidays past tomorrow so I'll be able to work on the lenticular system (using tri-x on that one) just curious, have you ever done in-camera bi-packing/tripacking? it is by far the easiest and in my opinion most reliable for method color reproduction. these quick color screens are really more like a hobby for me (like building rc planes) as I'd never actually show it to my clients for obvious reasons.

holmburgers · Apr 20, 2011

I haven't attempted any "packing" in the traditional sense, but the idea is very interesting. I am trying to glue two sheets of film together w/ glycerin, the front element being a shot of an RGB TV-grid on slide film.

yulia_s_rey · Apr 21, 2011

sounds awesome! This is very similar to what Bayer Mosaic does for single CCD consumer video cams, and I wouldn't see why it wouldn't work. As far as using a TV or even LCD monitor to capture a slide it may be inherently difficult: I have a lot of experience with analog & digital video and I can tell you right of the bat that getting a nice, crisp r,g,b mosaic will be very difficult, NTSC is often jokingly referred to as "Never Twice the Same Color" as color shifts are noticed between fields (or every half "frame") even the most high-end cathode tubes we use in the studio have this problem, its just the nature of video. You may have some luck with progressive scan systems (like a PC monitor) but you'd need to figure out the optimal camera distance/dof to get nice crisp r,g,b mosaic. The best (traditional) method of getting video is using a flying disk scanner, but these are slow and expensive beasts that run a lot of $$$ and mainly used by movie houses and are now being replaced by scanners that use a 3-filter ccd or hi-end cmos sensors at native res. I have done something on the same grounds to what you are shooting for only onto a different medium. My other hobby is building Mechanical Televisions which use a Nipkow disc and a photodiode as the scanning device, to do colorization I printed out a red-orange & cyan mosaic onto a transparent paper, these were lined up precisely to each of the "pixels" that made up the screen it works "nicely" Have you tried a halftone pattern of r,g,b printed out onto transparency by a professional printing house? this might save you some time in experimentation. packing is fun and you don't even need an adhesive, as long as you keep the sprockets aligned on 35mm & 16mm (double-perf is better for obvious reasons) the top of the pack is ortho (emulsion down) and the bottom pan and a yellow filter is sandwiched in between, these are contact printed inside the camera, gives you a lot of flexibility.

holmburgers · Apr 21, 2011

I've gotten some unexpectedly good results so far, and with not that superior of a lens either. It helps that I'm using 4x5" though. I think that if I had a process lens... it could be very good!

That's hilarious about NTSC... luckily my exposures are relatively long, so perhaps there's a homogenizing effect? PC monitor was tricky because of the fluorescent backlighting, but I haven't tried more than once to tame it. Haven't gone the printing route yet either, but Stephen Frizza has on the same thread, and he's had some great results.

Here's a good synopsis of the project so far -> (there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Ok, this Nipkow disc things sounds very intriguing. I've got to read up on that. Are you familiar with H.E. Ives at all? I think he was an early color-TV pioneer, son of F.E. Ives (all around photographic genius!).

Now with the bipacking, isn't the front element's anit-halation layer a problem?

yulia_s_rey · Apr 21, 2011

very awesome indeed! I think you're process will work quite well and judging from your results your not far off. Most additive color systems had very specific colors (dyes) that were perfected through good-old-fashion trail and error and patience, and from the looks of it your doing the same so I have no doubt you'll achieve your ultimate goal. I'll have the Psuedo-Kodacolor Process 1 results up soon.
Mechanical TVs are awesome and easily built. The name Ives did come up in one of my courses back in college but I will read up some more on him (and his father)
There are some specialized films stocks meant for packing that have no a h backing, hence the Valca Din 6 I use in a lot of my experiments, we use it at work for optical printing.

holmburgers · Apr 25, 2011

Can't wait to see the results of the pseudo-kodacolor.

Very interested about the Valca and bipacking though. Indeed, a slow ortho film with no AH would be totally ideal.

yulia_s_rey · Apr 27, 2011

kodacolor mixed results...

had some time over the holiday weekend to finally take snaps of the Psuedo Kodacolor Process 1. As you can see not the best. The second attempt worked a bit better than my first trial (whole trick is too have a fast enough lens to for the tricolor filter to work) It is very tricky as far as registration goes. Also the vertical lines are quite noticeable. I need to get my hands on a more "serious" lenticular screen. One thing I realized was that I had to adjust the colors of the tricolor filter to better suit the film which took some trial and error.

holmburgers · Apr 27, 2011

So are you shooting these as stills or motion?

yulia_s_rey · Apr 27, 2011

these are stills. but my ultimate goal is for motion 16mm (home movies: family, travel etc

yulia_s_rey · Apr 27, 2011

damn emoticons! meant to say "etc; )"

holmburgers · Apr 29, 2011

haha, you can disable them if necessary you know.

By the way, have you seen this footage?? -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osqjdVZDxCg (don't worry, much like the Wizard of OZ, it turns color!)

yulia_s_rey · Apr 30, 2011

that is a great reel and must've been a fun party too, Mr. Ives makes an apperance as well-awesome! That shot of Mr. Eastman and Mr. Edison is very iconic & often found in many texts and encyclopedias. The color is very vibrant. Although great for home movies Kodacolor (I) did have its drawbacks, and never caught on. I live very close to Edison and West Orange , NJ and collect Edison memorabilia I'd love to get my hands on a copy of this reel.

holmburgers · May 2, 2011

Yeah, to see Ives in color is too fitting! Some people freak out for the Beatles... New Kids on the Block.... Justin Bieber... give me Ives!

(and yes, I know that it's sacrilege to mention those two in the same breath as the Beatles)

yulia_s_rey · May 7, 2011

holms, now i got the additive color buzz! after doing a some tinkering and research i'm much closer to a having an u16mm lenticular camera for own unique home movies! like i stated before my experience in this realm is quite limited and lately two questions have come to mind:
1) while i am using panchromatic stock for 16mm. i've played with orthro films and have noticed that some indoor scenes (fake flowers etc) include some "reds" too come out, outdoors i get pinkish whites. i believe that this maybe due to the orange-red filter allowing uv light to pass thru in a similar way as Maxwell famous Tartan Ribbon photograph, would this be sound reasoning or is something else at play here? Have you ever had a similar occurrence with your mosaic screens on more blue-sensitive stocks? One idea i have now would be to write a code for PC to "put in or leave out the reds" kinda like if: its not blue or green or any shade in between its gotta be red-orange type deal.

Kodacolor Process (1930s) style camera

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