SH Archive 1900-1915 HD quality photos of the United States cities. Is that normal?

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2018-05-30 05:04:31
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in fact if tech_dancer is to be believed they actually had useless vents everywhere in their houses

The problem we have is the absence of any original construction documentation. We can believe this or that, but it only gives us so much.

 

[Archive]

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Username: The Wack
Date: 2018-07-09 06:31:25
Reaction Score: 5

Didn't want to start a thread for two pics.

Pic 1, inside Krupps exhibition... photo or sketch or mix of both? Bowler hat guys look drawn.

Pic 2, outside Krupps (Chicago expo?). Definitely a photo but another example of the 'whole sky being intentionally 'whited/washed' out. So many 'old' pics have it, it is not exposure related, its manipulation.

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2018-07-09 06:42:27
Reaction Score: 2

The guy definitely looks drawn, lol. Wonder why he needs to be a part of the picture.
Those humongous cannons, by the way, appear to just pop out of nowhere. Just in time for a couple of wars.

Thank you for the sky/cloud reminder. I have an interesting set of photographs I saved a while ago, and pertaining to the same issue. Will look for those.

 

[Archive]

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Username: The Wack
Date: 2018-07-09 07:00:46
Reaction Score: 0

Middle cannon caught my eye originally, how I ended up with the above canons at expo is just hinky coincidence/synchronicity.

I was enjoying some pics on this utube channel, but this pic is disappointing, missed it by a century!

 

[anotherlayer]

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Username: anotherlayer
Date: 2018-07-09 14:20:54
Reaction Score: 15

This fire escape here on this building tells me that "we" didn't build that building. Everything is an after thought on all of these buildings. Sure, progress makes a mess but... whoever built that building didn't need to make sure that whoever was on the top floor had a way to escape during a fire.

This dude cracks me right up. Bro, you gotta wire going through ya!

- "I've made a huge mistake."

 

[Archive]

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Username: humanoidlord
Date: 2018-07-09 19:01:24
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Didn't want to start a thread for two pics.

Pic 1, inside Krupps exhibition... photo or sketch or mix of both? Bowler hat guys look drawn.
View attachment 4243

Pic 2, outside Krupps (Chicago expo?). Definitely a photo but another example of the 'whole sky being intentionally 'whited/washed' out. So many 'old' pics have it, it is not exposure related, its manipulation.
View attachment 4245

it seems we made a lot of pre-photoshop fakes, hah!

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2018-07-10 03:49:26
Reaction Score: 0

@The Wack, What year is that cannon related exhibition type photograph supposed to be?

 

[Archive]

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Username: MoonWatcher
Date: 2018-07-14 17:00:20
Reaction Score: 5

I don't think there's anything special about the O/P pictures besides the high quality of the scan. A 'camera obscura' is merely a 'dark room' that has a pinhole (lens) exposing light onto a surface treated with an organic emulsion (film plate). Theoretically, old cameras could have taken photos with more resolution than the best modern digital cameras. Developing film is another subject altogether. The photos are plausible because of the clear skies indicating plenty of light which can make a good exposure in a brief time. The above videos show a similar film quality - and those exposures had to be much faster than a photo- like 24 frames per second.

 

[Whitewave]

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Username: whitewave
Date: 2018-07-15 18:37:52
Reaction Score: 1

The Krupp Gun Pavilion at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.

If you read the blurb on that pic they mention moving sidewalks!

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2018-07-15 18:40:01
Reaction Score: 1

There was an article on this: Moving sidewalks at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris

 

[Archive]

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Username: The Wack
Date: 2018-07-16 01:52:05
Reaction Score: 2

@The Wack, What year is that cannon related exhibition type photograph supposed to be?

Chicago worlds fair, unsure of year.
Here is a Paris fair (i think they were yearly there)

nice tartarian emblem, two headed bird,

And again on the church

never mind the over-the-top decoration on cannon and Undersized balls. If a tatary thread opens move this post their

 

[Archive]

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Username: RowOfEleven
Date: 2018-08-09 03:54:06
Reaction Score: 2

It's funny how older pictures have no electricity wires strung all over, and the scenery looks so harmonic, whereas with all those cables things are much uglier.

How about these 1903 and 1911 clips?

Second video, I noticed the man with one leg and crutches appears in more than one cut. One near the beginning 1:11 and one around 2:00 in China Town(?). Seems like these were shot in different parts of town. I know I've seen a video of NYC (Edit: It may have been San Francisco) from early 20th century that is clearly staged to look more populated than it is. The same few kids and car come by many times. I'll have to find the link.

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2018-08-09 05:13:53
Reaction Score: 1

I think that video is here in the SF urban fire topic.

 

[Archive]

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Username: aceofarms
Date: 2018-08-10 07:25:50
Reaction Score: 3

Even if scanned the pictures themselves would need to be huge to get the depth and background area. Even though prints are organic and have no pixels the amount of space within still matters. If anyone has scanned Polaroids you will know what I mean.

It legit looks like an HD DSLR picture with a black and white filter.

Either it's a very well done remaster job or these pictures were taken with tech not available to the public.

 

[Whitewave]

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Username: whitewave
Date: 2018-08-13 17:41:04
Reaction Score: 7

"The camera, part of the telescope, or the other way round, has a recorded history of use as an indispensable aid in astronomy going back far more than 2,000 years. When the Sun's rays are projected on to a smooth surface through a tiny hole in a dark room or box, the image of the Sun can been seen projected upside down on the surface. Hence the name from the Italian for dark room - camera obscura.

This idea may have been noticed and made use of for thousands of years, for there are ancient monuments like New Grange in Ireland which make use of a shaft of light from the Sun hitting a particular marked part of a wall at a definite time of the year - the Winter Solstice in this case.

Such a construction was known to have been used by astronomers or astronomer priests or shamans, to fix annual calendars, and to observe the Sun. Chinese astronomers were making records of sun spots, more than 2,000 years ago, as well as of eclipses. They had to draw or paint over the image projected, as it was not until the 19th century that satisfactory methods of preserving the image were developed." Telescope Revolution of the 17th century

"Johann Zahn designed the first camera in 1685. But the first photograph was clicked by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in the year 1814. It was thousands of years back that an Iraqi scientist Ibn- al- Haytham made a mention of this kind of a device in his book, Book of Optics in 1021. The earlier cameras were incapable of saving the images and were huge in size." Who invented camera?

After Daquerre (in 1829) improvements in photography took off at a breakneck pace. Does anyone else find it odd that it took less than 100 years to go from Daquerre type photos to what we have now but it took from at least 1021 AD (or 2000 years ago!) to 1829 to be able to capture photographic images rather than just quickly draw them when the sun shone through a hole at a particular time of year?

Since astronomy (or more accurately-astrology) was one of the first known sciences and the elite priestly classes made their living in that mysterious realm, it seems to me that any advantage over your competitors would have been highly sought after and pursued.

As an aside to the origins of cameras and when they were likely produced, the first link (cosmicelk.net) has other useful info regarding some of the questions pertaining to maps we've discussed on this site. May be worth a perusal.

 

[Archive]

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Username: Username
Date: 2018-08-14 19:17:03
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Even if scanned the pictures themselves would need to be huge to get the depth and background area. Even though prints are organic and have no pixels the amount of space within still matters. If anyone has scanned Polaroids you will know what I mean.

It legit looks like an HD DSLR picture with a black and white filter.

Either it's a very well done remaster job or these pictures were taken with tech not available to the public.

Large format cameras were incredibly common at that time for landscape and architecture photography - they were the preferred format for precisely the reasons you mentioned. 35mm was a much later development. These guys were shooting on 5x7, 8x10, 6x8, and so on. If these sound familiar it's because 1:1 transfer prints were the most common reproduction technique and these large format negatives are where we derived photo sizes from even to this day.

Film sensitivity increased rapidly, grain size decreased, and spring-loaded shutter mechanisms popped up in the mid 1800s. Our familiar single lens reflex systems being developed before the turn of the 20th century and is still the mechanism utilized in high end digital photography. Realistically just after the turn of the century our film quality and shutter mechanisms were outpacing our ability to make quality, clear, low-abberation, low-distortion glass to shoot the photos through and remained that way until we were able to grow large, single crystals to to build our optics.

As a photographer, this looks very typical of photographic technology of the time. We have a large-format photo, taken in broad daylight (faster shutter speed/exposure : clear subjects in motion) and presented to us from a high quality scan. Large format photos of the time still contain higher resolution than we are able to scan today due to the limitations inherit to optical chips utilizing pixels.

 

[Archive]

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Username: The Wack
Date: 2018-09-24 22:49:25
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HOLD THE PHONE...!

was tubing some tunes... and BOWLER-HAT GUY... is on the cover of an album by The Blue Oyster Cult!

Dropped my jaw!

 

[anotherlayer]

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Username: anotherlayer
Date: 2018-09-24 23:54:56
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HOLD THE PHONE...!

was tubing some tunes... and BOWLER-HAT GUY... is on the cover of an album by The Blue Oyster Cult!

Dropped my jaw!

yer high.

 

[Timeshifter]

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Username: Timeshifter
Date: 2018-12-18 08:13:03
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If we believe the official timeline of photography, then yes if indeed these images are from the purposed time period, then what we call HD was possible. An experience photographer with A 5 x 4 of larger (Larger format) camera with a quality fast lens and fast (for the time) film speed would have allowed for fast ish (1/160th - 1/200th of a second exposures in good daylight. Scanning, digitising, altering of the exposures and digital sharpening would also enhance the appearance of the original film. I do however agree with others, as to how out of place everything appears for the suggested time period, but perhaps the high quality and clarity within the images makes the mind wonder, as I am sure in most peoples minds we would only expect to be seeing grainy, fuzzy images from that time period.

 

[Archive]

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Username: RowOfEleven
Date: 2019-01-30 02:36:58
Reaction Score: 1

Second video, I noticed the man with one leg and crutches appears in more than one cut. One near the beginning 1:11 and one around 2:00 in China Town(?). Seems like these were shot in different parts of town. I know I've seen a video of NYC (Edit: It may have been San Francisco) from early 20th century that is clearly staged to look more populated than it is. The same few kids and car come by many times. I'll have to find the link.

I wasn't able to edit my earlier comment, so here is that video link of San Francisco in 1906. There are groups of people that appear many times throughout as well as the same car and cyclists buzzing past much more than once.