What colour film was used in Vietnam war?

[benjiboy]

No National Geographic magazines?

He's never seen the colour pictures of the My Lia massacre.
Why anyone would want to re-enact the Vietnam War , or any war for that matter is beyond me.

 

[mitch brown]

Maybe best to not forget

 

[cliveh]

There were many colour images and many iconic:-

https://www.life.com/history/life-behind-the-picture-larry-burrows-reaching-out-vietnam-1966/

 

[Xiong Chiamiov]

Our Vietnam war reenactment group is eager to get some pictures with the period feel, so film is a must. However while Tri-X is well known to be a film of choice for photographers at the time (and place), it was kinda hard to find information on colour films. What did they use? Kodachrome? Ektachrome? Negative films?
What modern film would be the closest in look and feel?

As a side note, modern Tri-X won't really look like Vietnam-era Tri-X; they've reformulated it several times. You probably want to shoot Fomapan. Here's a good thread on the subject: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/trying-to-recreate-vietnam-war-b-w.180676/

 

[AlexP]

As a side note, modern Tri-X won't really look like Vietnam-era Tri-X; they've reformulated it several times. You probably want to shoot Fomapan. Here's a good thread on the subject: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/trying-to-recreate-vietnam-war-b-w.180676/

Thank you for the tip!

 

[grat]

Fomapan, at least the 400 speed, has been reformulated as well. Their datasheet from 2017 is different than their datasheet from 2012.

 

[wiltw]

As a side note, modern Tri-X won't really look like Vietnam-era Tri-X; they've reformulated it several times. You probably want to shoot Fomapan. Here's a good thread on the subject: https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/trying-to-recreate-vietnam-war-b-w.180676/

And someone on another discussion forum contributed:

"Pablito
08-12-2009, 14:47
Tri-X was reformulated several years ago when Kodak built a new smaller facility o coat BW films more efficiently in the digital age when film isn't selling as fast as in the past. They actually had to reformulate all of their BW films, and some were simply discontinued to avoid the cost of doing this. At the time, Kodak said the reformulation was needed because of the new equipment that was designed and built for the plant.

Tri-X got less grainy, Tmax 400 and Tmax 100 got granier in my opinion. Tmax3200 stayed about the same. I switched to Tri-X from Tmax 400 after that because Tmax 400 's image quality suffered so badly. They finally redeemed themselves with the new Tmax 400 that is being made now, which is better that the original Tmax 400 and light-years better than the one they made after the initial reformulation.​

"This is correct. But it had different effects on different users. When Kodak made that change they ruined Tri-X for me. They made it less grainy, true, but it also lost contrast and speed. The negs exposed at ISO 400 looked thin, which may have been good for scanning but did not make the sort of wet prints I like. I changed to Ilford HP5+ which is much closer to the "old" Tri-X. I am much more happy with HP5+ than the "new" Tri-X."​

 

[Lachlan Young]

And someone on another discussion forum contributed:

"Pablito
08-12-2009, 14:47
Tri-X was reformulated several years ago when Kodak built a new smaller facility o coat BW films more efficiently in the digital age when film isn't selling as fast as in the past. They actually had to reformulate all of their BW films, and some were simply discontinued to avoid the cost of doing this. At the time, Kodak said the reformulation was needed because of the new equipment that was designed and built for the plant.

Tri-X got less grainy, Tmax 400 and Tmax 100 got granier in my opinion. Tmax3200 stayed about the same. I switched to Tri-X from Tmax 400 after that because Tmax 400 's image quality suffered so badly. They finally redeemed themselves with the new Tmax 400 that is being made now, which is better that the original Tmax 400 and light-years better than the one they made after the initial reformulation.​

"This is correct. But it had different effects on different users. When Kodak made that change they ruined Tri-X for me. They made it less grainy, true, but it also lost contrast and speed. The negs exposed at ISO 400 looked thin, which may have been good for scanning but did not make the sort of wet prints I like. I changed to Ilford HP5+ which is much closer to the "old" Tri-X. I am much more happy with HP5+ than the "new" Tri-X."​

Pretty much every single technological claim of those lines are nonsensical and wildly contradictory. What they really say is that many end-users have got less than a clue about their own exposure/ processing procedures and any technological improvement that slightly lessens any idiot-proofing can cause issues with the aforesaid users. In an awful lot of cases, using the same process times for HP5+ and Tri-X will deliver a much closer aim contrast than many end users want to believe - and reduce the differences they want to think they can see.

Kodak's B-38 coater is very much more efficient/ scalable than the earlier coating plants used for the main BW film products and there were some emulsion changes (generally improvements overall) to allow use of more modern hardening technology. TMax 400 had moved to B-38 long before TMax 100, Tri-X or Plus-X moved.