Pin sharp images achieved by early plate cameras.

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

<li style=”text-align: left;”>I recently had the opportunity of inspecting some family portrait photographs taken by professional high street  photographer around the turn of the last century ca 1900 and was struck by the pin sharp clarity of what had been achieved. I have always understood that this was attributed to the high quality of the lenses used in the large format plate cameras of the time but I have since been told that picture quality was in fact more the result of the chemistry behind the manufacture of the glass negatives which I find surprising. Can anyone throw any further light on the subject?

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Well, a huge amount of effort went into improving photographic chemistry during the 19th century.   The sensitivity of the emulsion was greatly increased, so exposures could be completed faster,  greatly reducing blurring due to movement.    Another big improvement was reduced grain size, important because the grains determine the maximum resolution of a photo.   Early photographic chemistry produced rather large grains, making it necessary to use large photographic plates.    Circa 1900 a lot of photographers were still using old-fashioned large plate cameras, even though 20 years of research had covered the plates with ever improved fine-grain emulsions.   The combination of fine grain on a large plate produces excellent results, but isn’t cheap or convenient.

Next step was to put fine-grain emulsion on to small format film, first box camera size, later 35mm.   Resolution considerably suffered because popular cameras are more about portability and economy than high-resolution.  Thus even today product photographers are still liable to use old-fashioned large-format cameras, albeit capturing the image on a high-resolution digital plate rather than film.

The improvement that startles me is  smart-phone cameras.  On the face of it, their small lenses and sensors shouldn’t perform anything like as well as they do.   I suspect it’s because modern electronics are fast enough to do automatically optimise the shot, and then apply advanced image processing to the result.   I’m pretty sure my daughter’s smart phone takes several rapid shots per still, and then frame stacks them.   The output is a combination of the best of each shot, with no help from the photographer!  However it works her smart phone gives my Canon DSLR more than a run for it’s money!

Dave

 

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

It’s only part of the answer, but:

The information-content on a photographic plate is enormous

MichaelG.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Dot forget the image the phone takes is not what you saw but an electronic estimate heavily software manipulated to what it thinks you should see. My images are digital but not manipulated, old fashioned but honest.

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

I suspect a contributing factor is the small aperture lenses (most seem to be f4.5 maximum), and resulting depth of field coupled with the cameras being on a tripod which minimises any camera shake.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I once had to design a camera which would look upwards into a falling cloud of what is best described as dust. All inside a fairly high vacuum. We eventually came up with a pinhole camera with an air bleed sufficient to keep the ‘dust’ out of the hole. It worked a treat, infinite depth of field and a clear picture

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Mostly it is down to the huge size of the negative on those old cameras. Pretty much the glass plate was the same size as the print made from it, say 8  x 10 inches or so. So many many more grains of light-sensitive material that showed up in the final print at a 1 to 1 ratio, giving beautiful details.

A 35mm negative is about 1 x 1.5 inches, so every grain gets blown up 8 times bigger to make an 8 x 10 print. So it looks coarser and grainier and does not capture the detail as well.

To this day, commercial photographers use medium and large format cameras with negatives (or digital panels) in sizes such as 6 x 4 inches, for fashion magazine shoots, product advertising and the like where best image quality is paramount.

 

[bernard towers]

On bernard towers Said:

Dot forget the image the phone takes is not what you saw but an electronic estimate heavily software manipulated to what it thinks you should see. My images are digital but not manipulated, old fashioned but honest.

Very true, but don’t run away with the idea that old-fashioned cameras, film or digital, are honest!

Cameras translate 3D reality into a flat 2D image but even though an entire dimension is missing, the illusion can be reconstructed by our brains.   Can an illusion be described as honest?

Then we get into pin-cushion, moustache and barrel distortion, from which all lens systems suffer, especially zooms.  More: changing the aperture artificially alters depth of field; shutter speed alters what the camera makes of movement; the lens introduces colour distortion, and then the sensor adds further mangling, not enough pixels/grain to capture detail, nor having the dynamic range needed to capture the very bright and very dark parts of a scene.

Pin-cushion, moustache and barrel distortion can all be measured, making it possible to correct the error with software.   As the manipulated result is truer to life, I argue that choosing to not correct the image is dishonest.

Photographs have a long history of dishonesty.   Conan Doyle thought this one proved fairies existed at the end of the garden:

Dave

 

 

 

 

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

[…]  Pin-cushion, moustache and barrel distortion can all be measured, making it possible to correct the error with software. […]

… and in modern cameras those corrections are commonly made by the firmware, without any knowing input from the user.

MichaelG.

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P.S. __ it’s time we gave a nod of respect to Scheimpflug

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Many years ago when young, cash strapped and into photography (late 70’s) I won a bet with someone bragging about their new Nikon SLR that I could take a better picture with my £15 (new cost) camera. The subject was the town hall, enlarged to at least 8″ wide. Four judges two chosen by each of us and not told who took which photo. My shot won 3:1. The camera was a soviet Lubitel 166 Twin Lens Reflex taking 6×6 negatives on 120 roll film through a little glass triplet. Would not have beaten the Nikon (even with the low cost zoom it was equipped with) on a technical assessment but subjectively on an enlagement it won me  pint.
Hard to beat a  large negative.

Robert.

[bernard towers]

On bernard towers Said:

Dot forget the image the phone takes is not what you saw but an electronic estimate heavily software manipulated to what it thinks you should see. My images are digital but not manipulated, old fashioned but honest.

This is not new technology. your brain does the same with what your eyes see.

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

With all this about plate cameras we should not forget that subjects had to remain still for some lengthy exposure times.

Props to rest against and even neck braces could be used to prevent human subjects moving whilst posing in their best clothes (not necessarily their own) during a studio set.

Best to say nothing about the magnesium powder flash systems either.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

I have to say that I have been a keen amateur photographer since the age of 10 and did the whole darkroom thing even doing 10 x 8 plates but have to say that modern digital is just so much fun and easy to play with if thats your bag and cant be beaten for exposure to being viewed on a big monitor in no time at all and now able to be done with wi-fi, absolute magic.

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

P.S. __ it’s time we gave a nod of respect to Scheimpflug

Here is a modern interpretation:

https://apalmanac.com/gear/photograph-mirrors-with-an-invisible-camera-10164

MichaelG.

[Bo’sunParticipant @bosun58570]

Just as an aside, and following on from V8Eng’s comment regarding subject movement, I’m constantly amazed at the images produced by A. E. Beken (Beken of Cowes) in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  He produced some amazing images of large sailing vessels (like J class yachts), often from a small boat, itself bobbing about on the water.  The camera being held with both hands, and the shutter triggered from an air bulb held between his teeth.

The quality (and longevity) of these plate images, not to mention the patience of the photographer, makes for me at least, “point & shoot” images just a little humbling.

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

Thanks for that Bo’sun, I looked up Beken and can only say WOW!

looking into my oddities collection I found the following from a 1922 leaflet of a photographic plate company.

sorry about the quality but it is 102 years old.

Before anyone gets carried away by those amazing H&D speeds they should remember that 640 H&D was probably about 20 ASA (I’m informed).

[Chris MateParticipant @chrismate31303]

I always thought the old camers had something magic better about them, looking/remember back at 1950/60’s photos.

Years ago I bought a Canon 1DMK4 camera. Decided to read up more about inner workings theories etc.
Raw files..Sharpness achieved.
I stumbled on a PDF file about Canon, long file, and one section they describe about RAW files and not so sharp if opened in editor. They explained its by design, so you could get the most out of the RAW file regarding sharpness etc with correct post processing software, unlike in camera processing running in paralel with RAW, your choice. I found this very surprising/interesting then, cannot remember file name however, it may have been something like Canon EOS Digital.PDF….

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Hope Bob Reeve won’t mind me saying, but depth of field issues meant that a photo for his ‘Thread Milling’ article was OK for a small image in the article, but not sharp enough to be a cover, although it was a good illustration of an interesting machining operation.

This is what Topaz Sharpen AI achieved; not that the ‘AI’ component automatically adjusts the degree of sharpening across the image, identifying the subject and not over-sharpening parts already in focus. I’ve moved the comparison slider so you get a better comparison:

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Previous posters have correctly said that many early photographs, from glass plate negatives wer contact prints, and the lenses, although simple (Such as Rapid Rectiliners with a maximum aperture of f/8) were used stopped right down, sometimes to f/64.One church photographer would set his camera on a tripod, and go outside to smoke, at least one pipeful of tobacco while the exposure progressed.

A slow emulsion, on a large plate, with a fully stopped down lens will produce good resolution.

A 35 mm hegative on Ilford HPS would show much more grain when enlarged, particularly since the enlarging lens (TTH, El Nikkor etc ) could reproduce the grain very accurately.

But the exposure time would be very greatly less than the “simple” LARGE format camera and its lens. With Pan F, (Still faster than the 1900 emulsions) things would have been rather different!

With long exposures, strange things can happen. Experimenting with some pre war plates, (H&D 400,  probably about 5 ASA) only the lighter, upper and chromium plated parts of a two tone grey car were recorded; apparently floating in mid air!

Howard

Howard

[Author]

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