Gast
Hello!
I just wanted to ask about this: Lucky also makes colour films and papers.
Can FOTOIMPEX get hold of those too? It’s not that I want cheap films, but rather that they look almost exactly like 50-year-old Agfa material, just a bit more colourful and with a brighter blue-green tint.
As far as I know, there are two types of Lucky: the GBR, with its own Chinese formula, and Lucky Super GBR, a copy of Kodak’s colour range with poorer antihalation protection. Naturally, I’m only interested in the original Lucky film.
If possible, the film can cost a few euros more than a standard colour film in a photo shop – as a sort of special film, so to speak.
If so, I’ll get in touch with you by post or phone to place a firm order for the films.
Regards
Gast
Mirko!
That might interest me too – it sounds like a nice bit of fun, though I wonder if it can be produced at a realistic price.
I don’t think it should end up being as expensive as Kodachrome, though...
I had a look at the Lucky website; they even have baryta paper.
Wolf_XL
Hello,
I’m not sure whether the 1950s look can be attributed solely to the film. I recently took one of my collector’s items (an Exakta Varex IIb) out for a spin. And what can I say – with the two oldest lenses (Bonotar 4.5/105, Pancolar 2/50), I got exactly that Technicolor look that I’d often been missing. In places, the colours looked just like an old ORWO transparency...
Gast
Hello,
I reckon Lucky has set the standard GBR; otherwise, which is fine by me, I’d be happy with Svema’s Ds5 as well.
I can’t quite see what Wolf is getting at; I have an Edixa from 1960 and it makes almost no difference with slides, and absolutely none with negatives.
Besides, the old films were so much coarser-grained that you could sometimes see the grain on 7x10 prints, not to mention the blue shadows and beige highlights and the steep contrast.
Anyway, that’s what my ADOX Color looked like; Agfa or Kodak were simply too expensive for me at the start.
There’s a website I found because I was interested in Efke colour film (I Googled ‘Tito’ because Efke didn’t yield any results).
It looks exactly like ADOX did back then; I don’t care about Tito – if it bothers Mirko, he should please delete it.
But I don’t think they make colour film for just three people.
http://www.titoville.com/images/tito-sitting.jpg
Wolf, I don’t think you can achieve that with any modern film on its own, simply because the green isn’t that beautifully blue-tinted.
Roland
Gast
Because it’s so lovely (Efke, of course), here are two more. As I said, Mirko can delete them if he doesn’t like them.
http://www.titoville.com/images/tito-in-gadafi.jpg
http://www.titoville.com/images/tito-ljudstvo3.jpg
It’s just different colours, not a camera fault; it would actually be even better if only black-and-white films had different colour reproduction.
Gast
Hi,
Does anyone know if this coloured paper will lose all its blue after a few years, just like the old one did? :lol:
Regards,
Martin
Gast
Martin,
Do you mean that odd Agfcolor PE? I reckon Lucky has always worked with Kodak processes; they certainly wouldn’t make the same mistake twice – they just lack the technical know-how and expertise.
But my ancient prints on Adox colour baryta paper from 1960 are still just as good (or bad) as they were back then; that was simply a blip at Agfa.
By the way, I hereby admit that my first film was a colour film, though it was a gift.
Roland
MirkoBoeddecker
Films that appear significantly different in terms of colour reproduction do so not because they were processed differently, but because they were—or are—intended for a different process.
The process plays a far more decisive role in colour development than the three or four emulations of colour coupler-silver nitrate-gelatine mixture.
In other words: either there is now a modern C-41-compatible Lucky that anyone can develop, but which then looks exactly like a supermarket film in this country, or it is still the good old Lucky Color for a completely outdated Kodak process from the 1970s.
I can’t quite remember which process it is at the moment, but there are still some leaflets from the 1990s lying about somewhere.
Does anyone seriously intend to go down this route and have the raw chemicals shipped in by the hundredweight from China?
There were never any handy packs, and it would be a minor miracle of EU bureaucracy if all the substances could be imported legally :lol:
That’s the reason why we’ve steered clear of this sort of thing so far.
Where did you find the film, by the way? On the Lucky website?
Regards,
Mirko
Wolf_XL
Hello,
I’ve had another look at the photos – you’re right, the green isn’t as bluish as it is in the old photos. In my pictures, I mainly see the similarity to the old material in the brown tones. Nevertheless, a difference in colour rendering is clearly visible – I also had a relatively new Orestegor 4/200 and a newer Lydith 3.5/30 with me, which clearly have different colour characteristics.
Gast
It is likely that colour reproduction has little to do with the processing method; at the time, Tetenal offered developer kits that could be used to process Kodacolor, Ektacolor, Agfacolor and Turacolor films – processes which, as is well known, are very different.
If, as a layman, I may venture an opinion (as a retired lawyer, I have of course had experience with judgements and legal proceedings), I suspect that the process merely determines whether a cool or warm colour rendition results, whilst the more significant factors are determined by the colorants and the parallelism of the density curves.
For example, the vivid red of the old films or the blue-green, or the partially collapsed shadows.
But this can be left open; the film simply needs to be requested and subjected to a C41 development process, then the colour rendering could be established beyond doubt. If it cannot be processed using the C41 process and development kits are not available, then the film is probably of no interest.
On the website, I can only find the Super GBR; this is processed using Lucky GP70/C41 and has been significantly improved on its predecessor. You can only find it by clicking on ‘Documentation’ (or something similar – I only skimmed through it briefly).
Erwin
Gast
Wolf,
Now that I’ve seen your post, I’m wondering whether you’re using slides or negatives. Windisch wrote that there are lenses that have a distinctly warm or cool rendering. Depending on which one is used, the image tends to have a reddish or bluish cast when using slide film.
Erwin
MirkoBoeddecker
I’m not entirely sure about colour film (it’s been so long), but I seem to recall that the colour coupler process works in such a way that the actual colour comes from the process itself and simply binds to the correct coupler in the three or four layers of the film.
So, of course, it’s true that the film and the exposure determine the ratio of the colours to one another and the density, but the colour itself comes from the bath.
The fundamental question would be what exactly the users are expecting. It might be possible to achieve this with ‘normal’ films too, through a simple variation of the C-41 process, filtering and changes to the exposure.
Perhaps an expert could comment on this?
Does any of you know how the Becher students created their high-key effect with the yellow cast in the green landscape images?
Heavy overexposure and then BX bypassing, and there was something else...
As I said, mea culpa – I’m not a colour photographer.
Regards,
Mirko
Gast
What’s a Culba? Is it something like a tunic or a tuba, or is it a sweet?
no idea
Thomas
MirkoBoeddecker
I suppose that should be ‘mea culpa’.
Funny, the ‘b’ isn’t even next to the ‘p’ on the keyboard…
Unfortunately, my ‘Saxon’ is very poor, as I’m constantly reminded.
Sadly, my girlfriend refuses to teach me any better.
She thinks it has too many negative connotations.
She always says I just need to take it all in my stride... :-)
But getting back to the topic: does anyone know the answer to the question about that high-key stuff?
I mean those French river landscapes and farmhouses.
Very high-key and yellowish, but with strong reds, browns and greens.
Mirko
