Color from the 1930s??

[nyoung]

Been looking at the work of Hitler's personal photographer Hugh Jaeger on the Life Magazine site.

http://www.life.com/image/50714733/i...itler-up-close

The story notes that the pictures were transparencies so my question is what film would he have been using in the 1930s-40s?

I know Kodachrome was around but, I assume, not redily available in the Reich during the war.

[tiberiustibz]

There was Kodachrome, AgfaChrome/anscochrome of some sort, color seperation methods, and hand coloring. Probably agfachrome/anscochrome. It was a color film invented in germany which used integrated dye couplers like E6 style films today. There's a wikipedia article on it somewhere...

[DannL]

Found these . . .

http://www.historicphotoarchive.com/f2/ansco.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agfacolor

[Mark Antony]

It was probably Agfacolour Neu which was released in the mid 1930's just around the time of the Berlin Olympics. There was an earlier Agfacolour which was similar to Autochrome (non integral tripack). In the UK there was Dufay colour.
I have some articles about early colour on my blog if you are interested (link below)

[AgX]

There was no Agfa-"chrome". It was Agfacolor or rather Agfacolor-Neu [New], as there already was an Agfacolor film which was a much refined type of Autochrome film.

That "-chrome" suffix was later introduced as suffix indicating a film to be reversal processed following the Kodak style. By the way, Orwo was the last company to introduce that suffix.

[Chazzy]

Fascinating stuff. I hope that Life puts even more of it online.

[railwayman3]

Been looking at the work of Hitler's personal photographer Hugh Jaeger on the Life Magazine site.]

The story notes that the pictures were transparencies so my question is what film would he have been using in the 1930s-40s?

I know Kodachrome was around but, I assume, not redily available in the Reich during the war.

I've seen a similar question elsewhere (I can't track the reference at the moment) and recall a fairly authoratative answer that:- Kodachrome was used in Germany right up to the time the US joined the Allies (when any remaining Kodak representation/processing services, etc., in Berlin would obviously have ceased). And that it was used for preference for official portraits and pictures of the Nazi bigwigs.
It would be interested to know more definitely if this were true.

[nyoung]

It was probably Agfacolour Neu which was released in the mid 1930's just around the time of the Berlin Olympics. There was an earlier Agfacolour which was similar to Autochrome (non integral tripack). In the UK there was Dufay colour.
I have some articles about early colour on my blog if you are interested (link below)

Thanks for the info, I'm not much of a materials history buff but I thought I remembered hearing of Agfa in a discussion of very early color materials.

[AgX]

Railwayman,

I have heard this story about post-war Eastern Block nomenclatura portrays and Western colour films...

[Photo Engineer]

Both Kodak and Agfa were active in the production of various types of color films and print materials in the early part of the 20th century. Names were often reused. Kodacolor was applied to several color films.

Agfacolor and Kodachrome were two of the first to survive to the modern day using much the same type of chemistry, but Kodachrome was the closest to its original roots. Agfacolor had morphed more into the Kodak model. In Japan, Konica was the first big maker of color films, using an Agfacolor type formula. After the plant was nearly destroyed, Fuji took over much of the film manufacturing in Japan.

The formulas for the original Agfacolor film, and the synthetic routes to the chemicals were totally disclosed in the FIAT reports. This includes emulsion formulas, AH layers, CLS layers, dyes and etc. In fact, with the cross references, you find that the Brovira paper formulas were used for the color paper and etc... So the means to make it are out there for those interested.

PE