WWII World War II Color developer recipes?

k2adir · May 2, 2018

Hello,
I was watching this video and the fella showed this book and he mentioned there were color pictures during WW II and people use to mix their own chemicals and so on.

Does anyone know what book is that or have it's scanned pdf, formulas, anything related?

I'm not interested in them to try, mine is a more of an archival interest. that is about it. I don't care if those chemicals aren't available anymore and such.

thanks

here is the video, it will start from that part

Arklatexian · May 2, 2018

k2adir said:
Hello,
I was watching this video and the fella showed this book and he mentioned there were color pictures during WW II and people use to mix their own chemicals and so on.

Does anyone know what book is that or have it's scanned pdf, formulas, anything related?

I'm not interested in them to try, mine is a more of an archival interest. that is about it. I don't care if those chemicals aren't available anymore and such.

thanks

here is the video, it will start from that part

Who ever made that statement either was talking about two different things. Shooting color (Kodachrome in 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, 4x5, 8x10) and developing their own .B&W. With proper training you could print dye transfers (color). I only personally knew of one person who made dye transfers and he made those at a class at Eastman Kodak in Rochester shortly after WW2........Regards!

k2adir · May 2, 2018

Arklatexian said:
Who ever made that statement either was talking about two different things. Shooting color (Kodachrome in 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, 4x5, 8x10) and developing their own .B&W. With proper training you could print dye transfers (color). I only personally knew of one person who made dye transfers and he made those at a class at Eastman Kodak in Rochester shortly after WW2........Regards!

I might be mistaken but, wouldn't you need 3 copies of the same picture with taken with different filters to print a color image from it?

I wish someone here knew name of the book.

Craig · May 3, 2018

Kodacolor was introduced in 1942, and it was intended to be able to be processed in "battlefield" conditions, unlike Kodachrome. Obviously, I don't mean literally in the heat of battle, but in a simple darkroom, unlike Kodachrome that needed a lab. Early Kodachrome needed reexposure to do the reversal, which is difficult to do consistently if it's not mechanized.

Helios 1984 · May 3, 2018

Craig said:
Kodacolor was introduced in 1942, and it was intended to be able to be processed in "battlefield" conditions, unlike Kodachrome. Obviously, I don't mean literally in the heat of battle, but in a simple darkroom, unlike Kodachrome that needed a lab. Early Kodachrome needed reexposure to do the reversal, which is difficult to do consistently if it's not mechanized.

On the German side, It was Agfacolor Neu.

k2adir · May 3, 2018

Craig said:
Kodacolor was introduced in 1942, and it was intended to be able to be processed in "battlefield" conditions, unlike Kodachrome. Obviously, I don't mean literally in the heat of battle, but in a simple darkroom, unlike Kodachrome that needed a lab. Early Kodachrome needed reexposure to do the reversal, which is difficult to do consistently if it's not mechanized.

If there is a formula that can be used during the war, I really need to learn it

Craig · May 3, 2018

k2adir said:
If there is a formula that can be used during the war, I really need to learn it

If you can believe Wikipedia, it was process C22.

AgX · May 3, 2018

Natural colour photography goes back to the 19th century, from then on there had been countless processes marketed. That included 3seperations taken either in, even most fast, succession, or simultaneously
The first process successful at a wide clientele was a additive process using a random grid in 1907, called Autochrome. It had successors by competitors.
The next generation was subtractive, with 3layer films, the principle still applied today. That was in 1935 and 1936 with Kodachrome and Agfacolor Neu. But these two processes back then had not not been published for home use. With Kodachrome it even would be hardly possible to do at home.

The topic is much too complex to cover in a post. You should read one of the many textbooks written on this topic. They range from more technical orientated down to patents to more iconographic.

BMbikerider · May 3, 2018

There was another process now largely forgotten. After a search I found this text on a website hosted by the major Museum in UK based in the city of Bradford; (Google National Science and Media Museum for more information)

Dufaycolor first appeared in 1932 as a 16mm cine film, followed in 1935, by a rollfilm version. Devised by Louis Dufay, Dufaycolor employed a regular geometric screen of red lines alternating with rows of green and blue rectangles. Colour reproduction was good and it was comparatively fast—although only one-third of the speed of contemporary black and white film. Whereas autochromes appealed to photographers who liked to do their own processing, Dufaycolor was aimed at the snapshot market. A processing service which returned finished transparencies, mounted and ready for viewing, opened up colour photography to a whole new class of photographers. Dufaycolor, the last of the screen processes, remained on the market up to the 1950s.

Whilst I have never used it or even seen it used, I remember reading about cassettes of out of date 35mm Dufaycolor being offered for sale in the early 1960's, usually in the small adverts at the back of magazines. I have seen the results projected and whilst the overall colour was very pleasant, the obvious shapes of the colour rectangles were the downside. Autochromes, if they were still in use between 1938/45 would be a difficult process to both make and process.

k2adir · May 3, 2018

BMbikerider said:
There was another process now largely forgotten. After a search I found this text on a website hosted by the major Museum in UK based in the city of Bradford; (Google National Science and Media Museum for more information)

Dufaycolor first appeared in 1932 as a 16mm cine film, followed in 1935, by a rollfilm version. Devised by Louis Dufay, Dufaycolor employed a regular geometric screen of red lines alternating with rows of green and blue rectangles. Colour reproduction was good and it was comparatively fast—although only one-third of the speed of contemporary black and white film. Whereas autochromes appealed to photographers who liked to do their own processing, Dufaycolor was aimed at the snapshot market. A processing service which returned finished transparencies, mounted and ready for viewing, opened up colour photography to a whole new class of photographers. Dufaycolor, the last of the screen processes, remained on the market up to the 1950s.

Whilst I have never used it or even seen it used, I remember reading about cassettes of out of date 35mm Dufaycolor being offered for sale in the early 1960's, usually in the small adverts at the back of magazines. I have seen the results projected and whilst the overall colour was very pleasant, the obvious shapes of the colour rectangles were the downside. Autochromes, if they were still in use between 1938/45 would be a difficult process to both make and process.

That Dufaycolor has some very interesting and beautiful colors!
Still, we don't know the book video is referencing

AgX · May 3, 2018

I shall not watch a 20min video on search for a hint on some obscure book.
As I said there have been many books published. If you tell us what kind of book you prefer, we could advise one.

dE fENDER · May 3, 2018

k2adir said:
If there is a formula that can be used during the war, I really need to learn it

About original Kodachrome developers you can look at patents, original is US2252718.
After WW2 Soviet Union adopted german color negative and slide technology and saved them till 1997 with no significant changes (even when Agfa and Orwo had upgraded) and recipes were opened at the time. If you have some intentions to translate from russian, you can check and find some books like Бокиник Я.И. "Теория и практика цветной фотографии", 1941 (with dufaycolor recipe and some others) or Иванов С.П. "О цветной стереоскопической фотографии", 1951 (with negative agfa developer recipe). The whole early agfacolor process was described in first edition of Микулин В. П. "Фоторецептурный справочник". All the books are available at the internet.

Kino · May 3, 2018

The book he has is the "Photo Lab Index".

Sorry, there is a lot of misinformation in that video.

The 35mm Eyemo was NOT typically mounted on a Jeep! It was hand held. That's the whole reason behind using the Eyemo. Maybe he's thinking of the Mitchell NC or a Wall or a Akeley, but NOT an Eyemo. There was also the Cunningham Combat 35mm camera, but it was introduced very late in the War and subsequently not used a lot in actual combat.

I'm not going to pick it apart bit by bit, but it's very loose with the facts...

Kino · May 3, 2018

AgX said:
Natural colour photography goes back to the 19th century, from then on there had been countless processes marketed. That included 3seperations taken either in, even most fast, succession, or simultaneously
The first process successful at a wide clientele was a additive process using a random grid in 1907, called Autochrome. It had successors by competitors.
The next generation was subtractive, with 3layer films, the principle still applied today. That was in 1935 and 1936 with Kodachrome and Agfacolor Neu. But these two processes back then had not not been published for home use. With Kodachrome it even would be hardly possible to do at home.

The topic is much too complex to cover in a post. You should read one of the many textbooks written on this topic. They range from more technical orientated down to patents to more iconographic.

Here... here's a graduate-level course in early color processes...

http://www.archive.org/stream/historyofcolorph00frierich#page/n5/mode/2up
http://archive.org/stream/naturalcolorfilm00clif
http://archive.org/stream/historyofthreeco00ejwa

Photo Engineer · May 3, 2018

All of the information in that video is about B&W and not color. Even Dufaycolor was a B&W film with color filters in the base to give the effect of color images. No company published their color formulas until Agfa's were published in the FIAT and BIOS reports after the war, and then Kodak released color kits after the consent decree. Formulas for processing Kodak films were a long time in coming out to the public.

PE

WWII World War II Color developer recipes?

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