Orthochromatic B/W film question with regard to yellow ringed roundels!

[Ralph]

Nothing like a really obscure questions, but something that has piqued my interest! On lots of pics from the Second World War, the yellow rings on RAF roundels often appears as a really dark colour, darker even than the red of the roundel.I have come to understand that this is due to the use of orthochromatic Black and White film being used, but a lot of it (not being a camera expert!) rather goes over my head as to the hows and whys of this.

 

Anyway, it's become relevant to me because I am taking part in the 80th Anniversary Battle of Britain Group build. I want to do a 234 sqn spitfire with their circular badge of a hand smashing a swastika. These have always been portrayed as yellow backgrounds, but the recently released spitfire mk1 book notes that they think it is grey or blue rather than yellow. In coming to this conclusion they use an orthochromatic film shot of a 234 sqn where the badge remains a light coloured (but clearly not white) background despite the yellow ring of the roundel being very dark indeed - again apparently due to the orthochromatic film being used.

 

OK so far, aside from that it makes all 234 sqn badge decals wrong but hey ho. Then I found this pic on two spitfires from the BoB. The nearest clearly has a yellow ring in the 'ortho' very dark presentation - look closely, it is definitely there - but the spitfire in the background has the yellow clear as day.

 

Might anyone have an explanation for this? Could it be due to the potentially different pigments being used for the yellow used on each aircraft? The nearest aircraft is a factory standard roundel, but the one at the back being rather oversized is probably a field repaint. In any case, aside from just being curious about this, it might have a bearing on my 234 sqn project in as much the yellow paint for the roundel might be different from the yellow paint possibly used for the badge, and thereby creating a different effect when photographed in orthochromatic film.

 

Anyway, a bit of a first world problem, but I'd be interested nonetheless if anyone had any info on this. Cheers, R

Edited August 4, 2020 by Ralph

[Graham Boak]

Ineresting!  I've no answer, but I'd point out that ortho film also shows blue as lighter than red (because it is the red component that is most affected) and the fuselage roundel of the nearest aircraft shows this.  However this effect is not visible on the fin flash of the rear aircraft.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Yes that has me a little perplexed too if I'm honest! I think the simplest explanation could be that we're not looking at the same paint for each yellow ring. That in itself raises more questions than answers but it is perhaps easier to justify than the same paint with the same angles from light source and observer (camera lense) responding so differently to a common light source on the same photograph.

[Graham Boak]

And also diifferent blue paint?  At least we know there were different blue paints.

[Work In Progress]

Why is that ortho film? The rear aircraft has a yellow ring. The nearer aircraft has the yellow ring painted out in fresh camo.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Work In Progress

[Werdna]

9 minutes ago, Work In Progress said:

The nearer aircraft has the yellow ring painted out in fresh camo.

I can't claim any worthwhile knowledge on the general topic, but looking at the pic, that was my first thought as well...

[Work In Progress]

Also: why is it Battle of Britain? 

Looks earlier to me. I would hazard a guess that this is immediately after the introduction of fin flashes, beginning of May, colour schemes are generally all over the place with very little standardisation. Note that the fuselage roundels are of completely different sizes and proportions. 

Here is the full frame:

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Ortho film was much more widely used in the UK at this time, and it's still showing the red as very dark. Ortho film is inherently insensitive to red and does other weird stuff (e.g. to yellow) depending on filters.

 

For clarity I wrote "yellow ring" because we all know the objects on the photo I'm referring to. I don't disagree at all that one of them probably isn't yellow paint and is instead something else entirely. 

[janneman36]

 I am with @Work In Progress on this one it must be a painted out part of the roundel and it is in the basis a different sized roundel...

Also because of the yellow ring on the aircraft behind it certainly not orthochromatic film .

It would portrait the yellow color as a darker color as wel albeit in a lighter or darker tone but would stay in the same range..

Orthochromatic film was available in at least two types which portrayed  certain colors both differently like say bright red as being a very light color (behaving lake a yellow as you would see it on a regular black and white film )  and another one behaving as a black..

Filters could influence the outcome of colors as well!!

I would like to give you some pics about that but I just moved so my book which explains this is buried somewhere in the cellar...

 

a nice link which explaines it a bit better than I do 😉

https://filmphotographyproject.com/content/howto/2018/07/panchromatic-orthochromatic-film/

 

cheers, Jan

[ckw]

The yellow ring is obviously different, but so too is the "blue" ring of the roundel ... a much lighter tone than the assumed blue tones of the other aircraft. Given that other tonalities (letters and camo) seem to match, I don't think this is a light/shadow thing.

 

Could be it be that for whatever reason this is not a RAF roundel?

 

Cheers,

 

Colin

[Work In Progress]

The fin flash blue is likely much newer than the roundel blue, so subject to colour shift, plus not the same paint batch when painted.

The two roundel blues appear identical to me when isolated from their surrounding colours

Edited August 4, 2020 by Work In Progress

[Dave Fleming]

EB-L looks like it has had the large roundel painted out, I suspect what looks like the darker ring outside the blue is the over painted original blue ring

[Graham Boak]

The yellow ring was introduced at the same time as the fin flash.  The roundel was reduced in size, generally, in order to fit the yellow ring on the Spitfire's slender fuselage; not often by repainting but by replacement on later production aircraft.  So had this been a complete repaint of the roundel then this would have the yellow ring.  Unless of course the painter was waiting for the paint to dry before adding the yellow - which would provide a very tight dating for the picture.  However by this repaint theory the blue on the nearer aircraft would be newer and hence darker, like the fin flashes, and the further fuselage roundel would be darker.  That's the opposite to what I see.

 

It does appear that both aircraft were in service before May, judging from the painted-over serial on the nearest one and the large roundel on the more distant.  The tall fin flash also points to an aircraft already in service use being painted locally.  So a repainted fuselage roundel would be possible if unusual, but the paler blue remains odd.  And if this is not ortho film, where are the yellow propeller tips?

[ckw]

1 hour ago, Work In Progress said:

The two roundel blues appear identical to me when isolated from their surrounding colours

I've taken the pic into Photoshop and measured the values, and yes, they are in fact much closer in tone than they appear - not quite identical, but could be allowing for error in measuring a low res image

 

All in all an interesting example of how deceptive a single photo can be - and in this case we 'know' what the colours should be. 

 

Cheers

 

Colin

 

[bobmig]

The October 2017 issue of IPMS Canada's emailed newsletter, beaveRTales (as opposed to their printed magazine, RT) had an article on ortho vs pan film which you might find interesting:  https://www.ipmscanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/beaveRTales_10_2017.pdf

[Antti_K]

Hello all,

 

that first photo appears to be over exposed. This might have happened during the actual photo shoot, processing or digitalizing. I think that the first two options are more viable than the final one. Orthochromatic film is not sensitive to red so it should appear as black.

 

Yellows usually appear rather dark on orthochromatic film; especially if a yellow filter was used. It is possible that the photo was taken using a blue filter that darkens the blue and weakens its opposite colour, orange yellow. The blue looks far too dark to be shot without a filter on orthochromatic film.

 

My money goes for a orthopanchromatic film without a filter. The fin flash colours on the second Spitfire look almost the same and they look "greyish" as they should on panchromatic film. The aircraft in the front makes things somewhat simpler as the red looks clearly darker than the blue, but not black. Yellow is always several steps lighter than blue or red on orthopanchromatic film.

 

One final thought about photo scans and Photoshop. It might sound "scientific" but it won't give you any reliable data about the colours of the original exposure. The most important thing is to know the photographic process in full and also beware of the technical details about the actual film. For example current day Ilford orthochromatic film has different sensitivity curve than the war time Agfa Pankine or Extrarapid creating different looking result of the same subject. Photoshop, Lightroom or any picture enhancing program will lead the user further away from the truth.

 

Cheers,

Antti

[Magpie22]

On 8/5/2020 at 4:08 AM, Antti_K said:

Hello all,

 

that first photo appears to be over exposed. This might have happened during the actual photo shoot, processing or digitalizing. I think that the first two options are more viable than the final one. Orthochromatic film is not sensitive to red so it should appear as black.

 

Yellows usually appear rather dark on orthochromatic film; especially if a yellow filter was used. It is possible that the photo was taken using a blue filter that darkens the blue and weakens its opposite colour, orange yellow. The blue looks far too dark to be shot without a filter on orthochromatic film.

 

My money goes for a orthopanchromatic film without a filter. The fin flash colours on the second Spitfire look almost the same and they look "greyish" as they should on panchromatic film. The aircraft in the front makes things somewhat simpler as the red looks clearly darker than the blue, but not black. Yellow is always several steps lighter than blue or red on orthopanchromatic film.

 

One final thought about photo scans and Photoshop. It might sound "scientific" but it won't give you any reliable data about the colours of the original exposure. The most important thing is to know the photographic process in full and also beware of the technical details about the actual film. For example current day Ilford orthochromatic film has different sensitivity curve than the war time Agfa Pankine or Extrarapid creating different looking result of the same subject. Photoshop, Lightroom or any picture enhancing program will lead the user further away from the truth.

 

Cheers,

Antti

Anti,

 

I think you have your filters confused. When selecting a filter we use the 'reciprocal' rule. I.e. if you want to darken blue, you use a filter colour from the opposite side of the colour wheel, i.e red, orange or yellow, not blue

 

I am not a professional photographer, but am old enough to have used black and white films extensively. In later years I also had to brush up on my theory as we had to use b/w film for photographing coloured dyes used for flow visualisation in a water tunnel, as the establishment could not afford the cost of reproducing coloured prints in publications. Times have changed a lot since then!!

 

There are five basic filters used in b/w photography.:

Red: Darkens blues very much. It is mainly used to increase contrast.

Orange: Darkens blues but not as much as Red filter. Great for making clouds stand out against the sky. 

Yellow: Also darken blues but not as much as red and orange filters. Produce a pleasing sky scape with nice fluffy clouds on medium tone sky background. It tends to even out colours in the yellow-red range and is used mainly for portrait photography. This, or the 'Red/Yellow filter was the bacic filter carried by all photographers.

Green: Rarely used. Useful for photographing plants, but not good for landscapes as they lighten the sky.

Blue: Tends to darken most colours, but renders blue very light.

 

Of course there are variations of 'severity' of filter in each type, and there are filters that try to combine the 'best' of two worlds, e.g. the ubiquitous red/yellow filter.

 

I agree that a filter was probably used in that photo as the sky is rendered as medium grey in tone, but it was not a blue filter, more likely an orange/yellow filter.

That still doesn't solve the problem of known colours re-procing with different tones, but I would be looking at different light levels, (a function of subject distance from the camera), and possibly different incident light, (passing cloud cover etc).

 

EDIT: The above applies to both ortho and panchromatic types of film.

 

Peter M

Edited August 6, 2020 by Magpie22
Addition

[tonyot]

As othes have said...including Dave,..... EB-L looks to have had the original large factory applied red white and blue roundel painted out and replaced by a smaller one, while the aircraft behind has had the same roundel retained and had a yellow outline added to it. It also has so serial present on the rear fuselage,... another indication that it is an earlier delivery. 

[Antti_K]

8 hours ago, Magpie22 said:

Anti,

 

I think you have your filters confused. When selecting a filter we use the 'reciprocal' rule. I.e. if you want to darken blue, you use a filter colour from the opposite side of the colour wheel, i.e red, orange or yellow, not blue

 

Peter M

Of course Peter, you are right. Thank you for pointing that out. What was I thinking...

 

Cheers,

Antti

[Magpie22]

No problems Anti. We all have a brain fart every now and then. 

Cheers,

Peter