In the 'bad old days' (pre-digital imaging)

[Dave_D]

Was talking to my kids today about astronomy, physics and such like and we got onto the subject of imaging. They're (for non-practical-astro types) quite knowledgeable on imaging and how it all works which led me on to telling them about pre-digital imaging. I remember when i was their age, lusting over articles on cold cameras, dry ice cooling, single frame film imaging and kodaks all-new ISO3200 superfine grain black and white film.  (not that i ever got chance to try anything as exotic, only having a pair of binos and a 50mm frac when i was their age. Anyhow, this kind of got me wondering if any of the forum members used to use this kind of equipment, and what kind of results did they get?

[ronin]

I don't, but a couple of months back someone was showing some old images taken on film and the star colours were (appeared) somewhat more pronounced.

Did make me wonder if on film the colour gets "deeper" but on digital it goes to "white".

I suspect that less the 1% of the images we have presented to use are real, someone has sat and processed them usually for some extended time. I recall on an imaging course a grey image of the Rosetta Nebula was processed to the expected Rose. The original didn't have a hint of anything other then grey in it.

[Ant]

I did some imaging on Film.

I cannot remember too much about it to be honest, except waiting for months to finish a roll of film, getting it processed to find that that most were out of focus or over exposed.

I do remember buying TechPan2415 which I seem to remember keeping it in the freezer, and from memory could be push processed to increase sensitivity.

Got some nice Aurora images with film. not much else...

Ant

Ant

[laser_jock99]

Some of my 'real photography' images. The Cygnus image was almost certainly done with gas hypersensitized Scotch Chrome 400 slide film. 

HALE BOPP

1989 AURORA

CYGNUS

[DaveS]

I remember lusting after single-frame dry ice cold cameras, after seeing the first article in (I think) Scientific American, their Amateur Scientist section, then when it went into production.

My only attempts at AP were on slide film with un-tracked cameras on a tripod. No, actually I did have a go at building a couple of trackers but they were less than totaly successfull.

[Merlin66]

Back in the 70's I was the Astrophotographic Section Director for the ASV ( for ten years!).

We used a variety of films -hypered Ektachrome and hypered 2415.

The resolution was around 40 micron - equivalent to a 9 micron pixel camera today.

Sorry Olly, but 90% of the section members used SCT's and OAG's with a Mk1 eyeball for their imaging.

Ahhhh those were the days.

Ask the ol' timer's about "nose bump"!!!!!

[Dave_D]

Back in the 70's I was the Astrophotographic Section Director for the ASV ( for ten years!).

We used a variety of films -hypered Ektachrome and hypered 2415.

The resolution was around 40 micron - equivalent to a 9 micron pixel camera today.

Sorry Olly, but 90% of the section members used SCT's and OAG's with a Mk1 eyeball for their imaging.

Ahhhh those were the days.

Ask the ol' timer's about "nose bump"!!!!!

i remember hypered 2415 being all the rage 

so ccd resolution is now higher than film? my ex wife is a photographer and one of the few things we agreed on was that film produces an aesthetically more pleasing image... ho hum.

sounds like you had a fine job there... i did a short contract doing IT support for the Square Kilometer Array project at Jodrell Bank. Perfect job, less than perfect contract duration...

[Ant]

These are scan from prints - so less than ideal - of the Aurora that I saw in Hawkwell Essex, back in the last 80's.

Cheers

Ant

[Peter Drew]

I'm not an imager but I have made dry ice cold cameras and Schmidt cameras for others which used film. 

[laser_jock99]

Some more from the archive.......

Hyakutake - when 'stacking' literally meant stacking. Three colour slides manually stacked and re-photographed. Deep Sky Stacker? You lot have it easy now! Notice my poor registration in the corner.....

An all sky aurora from 1989

Conjunction of Jupiter & Venus

[Merlin66]

We used David Malin's "multi-exposure" registration frame idea on the enlarger to "stack" images onto a new piece of print paper.

(Described in his book "Colour's of the Stars")

[baggywrinkle]

Could never afford the film and processing as a youngster.

For those that have shared their pics...thanks.

[Davey-T]

Used to have a go with my old Pentax Spotmatic (still got it) using colour slides so I could develop myself, think the last thing I did was Hale Bop, couldn't afford anything else having wife, three kids, two dogs and mortgage to support

I have a copy of "Night Sky Photography" by H. J. P. Arnold, friend of SPM, and sometime S@N contributor, makes interesting reading now.

Dave

[Beulah]

Fabulous images Laser_Jock!!

[houston]

Got some good shots of the moon and saturn on film but long lost. Can remember sending film off and only get one photo back. Ended up putting a note in with film saying to post all photos back and it helped a bit.

[ronin]

I got a good shot of Hale-Bop, at least on the negative.

The printers decided that the"smudge" was something that had gone wrong and didn't print it. :eek:

Cannot recall if it was on the T-90 with a 300mm lens or the Zenit-B with a 400.

I know it was by the bridge under the A1 just North of Gravely - darkest and easiest place I could then.

[andrew63]

Some lovely images - i forgot just what a splendid sight Hale Bopp was.  There is someone on this site from the USA, who has posted some glorious images from film taken recently on a medium format camera - Sagittarius star fields i think.

andrew

[starman1969]

I was looking at some star field images scanned from negatives and they were quite impressive.

One thing about film is that as long as its kept in a protective sleeve & stored it will last a lifetime or more. Not sure if many digital images will, unless copied to death. Compatibility may be an issue with digital in the future.

[Merlin66]

Don't get me started on archival storage of images!!!!!

In the ol' days it was a shoebox under the bed - you could always find the photo of granny and the kids....

Now it's going to be lost "in the Cloud"