Russia in color a century ago

What struck me most about the photos was the formality of the clothing. People used to dress nicer. I remember seeing an old Yankee Stadium crowd shot and almost everyone was wearing a tie. It makes for nicer imagery, but I'm not sure I would want to return to that.

Like Justin Timberlake in #32.

From a technical point of view, one of many interesting things there is the discussion of how the separately-made color frames were stitched into RGB images (he made separate R, G, and B exposures with a few seconds between them, so in many cases his models changed position, etc.): http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/prok/process.html

(While merging similar images with the same color response is a fairly well-studied problem, merging different channels is an interesting challenge. Consider, for example, trying to algorithmically merge separate R, G, and B exposures of an Italian flag flapping in the breeze. It’s slightly, although not very much, like interpolating the Bayer array in a consumer camera.)

Another interesting bit of metadata here is the rights, from http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/237_prok.html :

There are no known restrictions on the use of these images. The issue of copyright was not addressed during the purchase of the collection from Prokudin-Gorskii's heirs in France in 1948. French law is unclear as to whether the heirs own any rights. However, they have expressed concern about "commercial use," and, as a courtesy to them, the Library is supplying interested researchers with the following contact information: [address given].

P.s.: the LOC’s photo and print collections in general are outstanding. They make extremely high-res scans of things like Matthew Brady’s Civil War portraits, political cartoons from the Russo-Japanese War, Hiroshige’s ukiyo-e prints, and Dorothea Lange’s dust bowl photos available for free over HTTP.

Also, digital cameras have no shutter lag, at least not noticeable. The problem is autofocus, that’s what takes time.

Pretty much all non-DSLR cameras use contrast detection for focusing. The lens quickly shifts from the closest possible focus distance to infinity and the camera looks for contrast changes on the picture. If the contrast is high the camera knows that the picture is sharp. (This leads to dismal failures whenever you want to take a photo of something with inherently low contrast like a white wall.) DSLRs use optical phase detectors which give direct distance readings, the lens is then shifted to the correct setting. (As you can imagine, this method is faster than contrast detection.)

This process just takes time. That didn’t happen to you with older cameras because they don’t have autofocus. All you have to do is remember to focus long before you plan on taking the picture, that was the case when you could only manually focus and that is still the case today. Half-press the shutter button and be happy.

You will notice that most Russian men in there are wearing spiffy shiny uniforms. Russians loved their uniforms in the late Tsarist period. You can even see why during the revolution the Tsar's supporters were called the Whites. Notice how the top bosses in the railroads pics always wear shiny white uniforms.