Well, I’m not one of them. I have anxiously waited for untold eons for the return of some photos…..Only to be disappointed in what actually developed.
But…..I would persevere and do it all again, it would reinforce the learning process.
16
I have an FE2, an F3 and a Bronica sitting here within mere feet of me.
10
Some of you are too young to know what it feels like to share the telephone line with your neighbor, aka a party line. Two quick rings meant it was for your house, a normal ring meant it was time to quietly pick the reciever and listen in since it was for you neighbor.
28
What was really bad was when you got the film back to find out that you did not get the end of the film locked into the take-up reel so the entire roll was blank.
18
In 1976, I was an imagery interpreter in the Air Force. I worked with film from the KH-8 Gambit-3 satellite. It used actual photographic film that was jettisoned from the satellite over the Pacific Ocean. After a fiery reentry, an Air Force plane snatched it mid-air as it drifted down on a parachute. The image quality was simply the best. In fact, it still holds the world record for image resolution from a space based platform. It attained the highest resolution possible because the laws of physics prevented higher resolution. Kodak developed and produced the special film for the NRO/Air Force spy satellites. During that same year, the first digital image satellite, the KH-11, came on line and I was privileged to see the first images it beamed down to our receiving dishes. The image quality didn’t come close to the film. It got a little better as the bugs were worked out, but never matched the real McCoy. The images did arrive much quicker, but still, not as clear. Later, the Hubble Space Telescope was derived from the Air Force KH-11. They look almost identical.
24
@The Gunny, in fourth grade I learned what a party line was when we read the short story “Sorry, Wrong Number.” At the time I couldn’t figure out the details or how the kid who sat near me understood who was behind it all (murder mystery, sort of). But I let go of my frustration quickly in favor of my obsession with the idea of a party line. My friends and I used to pretend we had one of those old-fashioned phones where you have to stand right at it to talk and put the bell-shaped piece to your ear. We made up outrageous stories of things we “overheard” our neighbors talking about, in the end concocting quite the drama.
For the longest I really wanted to actually have one of those phones, though nowadays it’s one of those old-school radios I’d love to have.
11
Some of us were able to purchase a Polaroid Land camera as soon as they were available. Bad picture? Take another one 5 minutes later. The only downside was the cost of the film, compared to Kodak. Plus you couldn’t get reprints. Oh, well…
10
Speaking of film cameras. How about waiting till you returned to earth after a short stop on the moon to get your film developed?
The moon landing was a giant leap for movies, too.
” Those images, broadcast live on television, were crucial proof for the mission. Filmmaker Todd Michael Douglas, whose archival-based “Apollo 11” has been one of the year’s most acclaimed and popular documentaries, believes they constitute some of the most important images in cinema history.
“How could you argue with Buzz Aldrin’s landing shot with a 16mm camera using variable frame rate and shutter exposures out the lunar module window?” marvels Douglas. “I mean, come up with a better shot in cinema history than the landing on the moon. And likewise, Michael Collins in the command module seeing the lunar module come off the surface of the moon. They’re incredible shots on their own and they’re also technical astute.” ”
My cousin was a “PHOTOMAT” clerk. Do you remember those booths in the shopping center parking lots?
Often, people would drop off film and ask “Does anyone actually see these photos while they are being developed?”. She would always respond “Our process is fully automatic and our policy is to not review our customer’s photos”. She would then make a special mark on the film envelope as they drove away…and then check out the photos when they came back from the processing plant.
She saw some really crazy stuff captured in those photos!
16
Yeah. I got pictures back that didn’t even belong to me.
I used that mail-order photo-processing … can’t recall the name.
izlamo delenda est …
4
JdHasty
My favorite before I went digital was an F4s. Had the F3 with motor. Canon Rangefinders were fun. Had a Nikon S3 for a while.
I use Fujifilm cameras now, X-Pro2 and XT20. I keep maybe 10% of what I shoot, same with film.
4
Took two rolls of Pic’s at the 1979 Street Nationals in Indy.
Dropped Them off at the Local Red Fox Supermarket…and went into the
USAF for four Years….Got out of the Service…dropped off some Film
to the same Store….and when I went to pick it up…They still had
My Film from 79….They were perfect !!!
I’ve got a Canon Rebel T5 Thank God for Digital !!!! (1600 pics in
5 Days for Boat Racing)
4
There was a time where I ONLY shot with Ectachrome 100-400 and would go on many a trip throughout the US visiting many a local drug store that would sell it, for the many times that I ran out.
THE best was getting home and going to the local processing lab, which I could get within 24 hours, oh the slide shows about those trips…
Oh and @Sturge thanks, I was at that show and can be seen at 2:12 at very bottom of screen and mark 3:46 holding my hands over my head.
That was the reunion show and a great one at that.
4
GUNNY
We had a “Party Line” 70 years ago. cost $0.30 a month. Private line was $1.00 monthly. Our ring was 4!
5
Developed within 2 weeks if you were on top of it.
Could be a year or YEARS for forgotten canisters.
This came up recently with some old family photos and a cousin I was working with on our history.
She re-dated some of my contributions to match what was on the photos. Nope! Those dates were when they were developed and printed, not when they were taken.
I had to remind her of the uncertainty of those print dates. Once she saw a family gathering for Christmas was dated in April, she relented on her insistence of going by the developed dates on the photos.
People can get used to today’s digital photos having exact time and dates in them, then transfer that understanding to the old process that did not have that exactitude recorded, yet they have a date on the print confusing when it was actually taken.
2
Now it’s only electrons, nearly free. Take more, I tell my wife, who has an innate ability to see and frame a good picture.
Some of you who nod in agreement never brought enough Kodachrome with you.
I forget:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGK19Pg6sB0
“Some of you are too young to know……..”
Well, I’m not one of them. I have anxiously waited for untold eons for the return of some photos…..Only to be disappointed in what actually developed.
But…..I would persevere and do it all again, it would reinforce the learning process.
I have an FE2, an F3 and a Bronica sitting here within mere feet of me.
Some of you are too young to know what it feels like to share the telephone line with your neighbor, aka a party line. Two quick rings meant it was for your house, a normal ring meant it was time to quietly pick the reciever and listen in since it was for you neighbor.
What was really bad was when you got the film back to find out that you did not get the end of the film locked into the take-up reel so the entire roll was blank.
In 1976, I was an imagery interpreter in the Air Force. I worked with film from the KH-8 Gambit-3 satellite. It used actual photographic film that was jettisoned from the satellite over the Pacific Ocean. After a fiery reentry, an Air Force plane snatched it mid-air as it drifted down on a parachute. The image quality was simply the best. In fact, it still holds the world record for image resolution from a space based platform. It attained the highest resolution possible because the laws of physics prevented higher resolution. Kodak developed and produced the special film for the NRO/Air Force spy satellites. During that same year, the first digital image satellite, the KH-11, came on line and I was privileged to see the first images it beamed down to our receiving dishes. The image quality didn’t come close to the film. It got a little better as the bugs were worked out, but never matched the real McCoy. The images did arrive much quicker, but still, not as clear. Later, the Hubble Space Telescope was derived from the Air Force KH-11. They look almost identical.
@The Gunny, in fourth grade I learned what a party line was when we read the short story “Sorry, Wrong Number.” At the time I couldn’t figure out the details or how the kid who sat near me understood who was behind it all (murder mystery, sort of). But I let go of my frustration quickly in favor of my obsession with the idea of a party line. My friends and I used to pretend we had one of those old-fashioned phones where you have to stand right at it to talk and put the bell-shaped piece to your ear. We made up outrageous stories of things we “overheard” our neighbors talking about, in the end concocting quite the drama.
For the longest I really wanted to actually have one of those phones, though nowadays it’s one of those old-school radios I’d love to have.
Some of us were able to purchase a Polaroid Land camera as soon as they were available. Bad picture? Take another one 5 minutes later. The only downside was the cost of the film, compared to Kodak. Plus you couldn’t get reprints. Oh, well…
Speaking of film cameras. How about waiting till you returned to earth after a short stop on the moon to get your film developed?
The moon landing was a giant leap for movies, too.
” Those images, broadcast live on television, were crucial proof for the mission. Filmmaker Todd Michael Douglas, whose archival-based “Apollo 11” has been one of the year’s most acclaimed and popular documentaries, believes they constitute some of the most important images in cinema history.
“How could you argue with Buzz Aldrin’s landing shot with a 16mm camera using variable frame rate and shutter exposures out the lunar module window?” marvels Douglas. “I mean, come up with a better shot in cinema history than the landing on the moon. And likewise, Michael Collins in the command module seeing the lunar module come off the surface of the moon. They’re incredible shots on their own and they’re also technical astute.” ”
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-moon-giant-movies.html .
Been there……………..
My cousin was a “PHOTOMAT” clerk. Do you remember those booths in the shopping center parking lots?
Often, people would drop off film and ask “Does anyone actually see these photos while they are being developed?”. She would always respond “Our process is fully automatic and our policy is to not review our customer’s photos”. She would then make a special mark on the film envelope as they drove away…and then check out the photos when they came back from the processing plant.
She saw some really crazy stuff captured in those photos!
Yeah. I got pictures back that didn’t even belong to me.
I used that mail-order photo-processing … can’t recall the name.
izlamo delenda est …
JdHasty
My favorite before I went digital was an F4s. Had the F3 with motor. Canon Rangefinders were fun. Had a Nikon S3 for a while.
I use Fujifilm cameras now, X-Pro2 and XT20. I keep maybe 10% of what I shoot, same with film.
Took two rolls of Pic’s at the 1979 Street Nationals in Indy.
Dropped Them off at the Local Red Fox Supermarket…and went into the
USAF for four Years….Got out of the Service…dropped off some Film
to the same Store….and when I went to pick it up…They still had
My Film from 79….They were perfect !!!
I’ve got a Canon Rebel T5 Thank God for Digital !!!! (1600 pics in
5 Days for Boat Racing)
There was a time where I ONLY shot with Ectachrome 100-400 and would go on many a trip throughout the US visiting many a local drug store that would sell it, for the many times that I ran out.
THE best was getting home and going to the local processing lab, which I could get within 24 hours, oh the slide shows about those trips…
Oh and @Sturge thanks, I was at that show and can be seen at 2:12 at very bottom of screen and mark 3:46 holding my hands over my head.
That was the reunion show and a great one at that.
GUNNY
We had a “Party Line” 70 years ago. cost $0.30 a month. Private line was $1.00 monthly. Our ring was 4!
Developed within 2 weeks if you were on top of it.
Could be a year or YEARS for forgotten canisters.
This came up recently with some old family photos and a cousin I was working with on our history.
She re-dated some of my contributions to match what was on the photos. Nope! Those dates were when they were developed and printed, not when they were taken.
I had to remind her of the uncertainty of those print dates. Once she saw a family gathering for Christmas was dated in April, she relented on her insistence of going by the developed dates on the photos.
People can get used to today’s digital photos having exact time and dates in them, then transfer that understanding to the old process that did not have that exactitude recorded, yet they have a date on the print confusing when it was actually taken.
Now it’s only electrons, nearly free. Take more, I tell my wife, who has an innate ability to see and frame a good picture.