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  4. What was highest ISO in film photography during 1950's?

What was highest ISO in film photography during 1950's?


4 years 10 months ago #645566 by Paul Velasco
A friend and I have a little gentle mans bet going on with this question. 

Would you happen to know the answer? 
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4 years 10 months ago #645579 by Troponin

Paul Velasco wrote: A friend and I have a little gentle mans bet going on with this question. 

Would you happen to know the answer? 


Is this a serious question? ISO is digital. There was no ISO in photography before digital cameras
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4 years 10 months ago - 4 years 10 months ago #645583 by Nikon Shooter
The highest nominal ASA/ISO value given to a film was 1,600 AFAIK
but that was a special technical solution that was not in the mass.

Usual commercial films — say ISO 400 — were often "boosted" up to
1 600 and developed consequently, stop and fix remained the same.

ISO has nothing to do with digital, I mean was not created by or for
digital photography. It was in 1987 — before digital — that ISO was
set to replace ASA & DIN that were the 2 world industry standards.
Light is free… capturing it is not!
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4 years 10 months ago - 4 years 10 months ago #645585 by Shadowfixer1

Troponin wrote:

Paul Velasco wrote: A friend and I have a little gentle mans bet going on with this question. 

Would you happen to know the answer? 


Is this a serious question? ISO is digital. There was no ISO in photography before digital cameras

You might want to rethink that thought.

The ASA and DIN film speed standards have been combined into the ISO standards since 1974.The current International Standard for measuring the speed of color negative film is ISO 5800:2001 [17] (first published in 1979, revised in November 1987) from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Related standards ISO 6:1993 [15] (first published in 1974) and ISO 2240:2003 [16] (first published in July 1982, revised in September 1994, and corrected in October 2003) define scales for speeds of black-and-white negative film and color reversal film, respectively.
www.betterphoto.com/?ramshots
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4 years 10 months ago #645590 by Shadowfixer1
Don't know about negative film but here is the history on Kodachrome. I think it was an ASA of 10 before 1961 but I may be wrong.

In 1961 Kodak released Kodachrome II with sharper images and faster ASA speeds at 25 ASA. In 1962, Kodachrome-X at ASA 64 was introduced. In 1974, with the transition to the K-14 process, Kodachrome II and Kodachrome-X were replaced by Kodachrome 25 and Kodachrome 64.
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4 years 10 months ago #645593 by icepics
I'm not sure when 'faster' higher ISO speed films were developed. Randy found some good info. on ASA/DIN and ISO standards etc. I could look at some of my vintage cameras and see which have camera settings for higher speed films... I know I have older ones that are still ASA/DIN and that probably used speeds of 100/125 or less (or that have no film speed settings at all).

I remember 800 and 1000 speed films. I'd take a wild guess of the '60s maybe before there was 400 speed film. 100 or 125 ASA/DIN could have been the highest in the '50s (125 was a standard for a time). Or maybe it was sooner/later than I'm guessing!
Sharon
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4 years 10 months ago #645595 by Shadowfixer1
Ektachrome

High Speed Ektachrome, announced in 1959 provided an ASA 160 color film, which was much faster than Kodachrome. In 1968, Kodak started offering push processing of this film, allowing it to be used at ASA 400
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4 years 10 months ago #645608 by Troponin
I am aware there was a unit of measurement in film, but it was not called ISO. You’re talking about a relative concept.

i was speaking literally, but y’all are speaking theoretical. It can’t be literal because it’s a digital unit of measurement 
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4 years 10 months ago #645609 by Troponin
And to be clear, I wasn’t trying to be difficult. I literally thought that was the question. :whistle:
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4 years 10 months ago #645612 by Shadowfixer1

Troponin wrote: I am aware there was a unit of measurement in film, but it was not called ISO. You’re talking about a relative concept.

i was speaking literally, but y’all are speaking theoretical. It can’t be literal because it’s a digital unit of measurement 

I must be in the twilight zone. If it wasn't called ISO after 1974 then what was it called? I am not trying to be difficult either but to say ISO is only a digital concept is absurd. Go look at a roll of film and tell me what it says before the 64 or 100 or whatever speed it is. I can assure you it was on the cannister way before digital was thought of. In fact, technically there isn't such a thing as ISO in digital. ISO in digital is actually a signal gain measurement that mimics ISO in film. 
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4 years 10 months ago #645633 by Paul Velasco
Yep that's what I thought the numbers were for.  Perhaps I was wrong. 
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4 years 10 months ago #645692 by icepics
You know what... I just picked up a couple of rolls of film I've got sitting here and realized the Kodak Portra just says Portra 400; the roll of B&W Kodak says Tmax 400, neither says ISO. The rolls of Ilford are marked 125 in larger print and ISO 125 in small print. I hadn't noticed that they're marked differently than they used to be; I'm not sure when some manufacturers changed putting ISO on the cartridge but I guess if you're shooting film they expect you know what the number means!

I threw away the boxes after I opened them so I'll have to go look in the fridge to see how boxes are marked...

The ISO means the measure of light sensitivity according to International Standards (which used to be ASA, American Standards and DIN, the German equivalent that stands for Deutsche standards - don't ask me to translate or spell it!). Like Randy said, been around long before digital photography existed.

Early in photography cameras weren't marked because I think one speed was all there was, I don't think they were making emulsions yet with more/larger silver grains to be more light sensitive. But when they did, eventually they were standardized.
Sharon
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4 years 10 months ago #645694 by Nikon Shooter

Troponin wrote: it’s a digital unit of measurement 


No, it is the only system used in DP but it was established well before.
Light is free… capturing it is not!
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4 years 10 months ago - 4 years 10 months ago #645714 by GaryA
Kodak released Tri-X- ASA 400 in 1954.
Agfa released Isopan Record- ASA 1200 in the late 1950's (I believe).
Ilford released HP3- ASA 400 in 1941.
Illford released HPS- ASA 800 in 1954.
 

Shooting news (1970's-1980's), all I used, (and most everyone else who shot B&W for news), was Tri-X.  For low light we'd push it up to ASA 1600 then overdevelop. 
There are photographs everywhere. It is the call of photographers to see and capture those images.
www: garyayala.com
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4 years 10 months ago #645809 by Moe
I just seem to remember either 200 or 400 ISO film. 
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