
Rare color photos of Berlin from the 1930s to the 1960s - chrtze
http://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/historisches-berlin-in-farbe/
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jp_sc
The one thing that bothers me more than it should, it's than the new photos
are not taken at the same angle and/or distance than the original ones, making
the comparison worse than it could.

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cmsmith
I recall a talk or possibly HN post I saw once, where they developed some
software to warp photos like this to account for camera position and focal
length.

~~~
jrockway
Photoshop can try to do this with "Align layers". I've found it to be pretty
good.

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fit2rule
I'm a sucker for these kinds of photo comparison essays .. always great to
see, and as a recent implant to Europe its been a decade now of looking at
people's old pictures, before/during WW2, and comparing to how it is now in
the modern age .. and I'm always struck by how modern things seemed to have
looked in 1930's/40's ..

The first two pictures in this article for example include buildings which to
my modern eye look out of place "in the early part of the last century", as
they are 'too modern'.

But then I wander around these places now and see these buildings in their
physical form, and I'm filled with even more wonder that they survived so long
and still have a feeling of modernity to them. I wonder where this bubble came
from and how it came to be that I cannot see the modern world for the
centuries-long process it is, and only feel connected with 'modernity' formed
in the recent decade or so. I think this is something that changes as one gets
older and starts to care about these things - never in my youth would I have
been concerned with the trivial meanderings of comparison with the then and
now.

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johnchristopher
I think the era we are born into define us way more than we'd like to admit
and it includes our feeling of being at home in the architectural environment
we grew up into.

There is something along that line in Rice's vampire chronicles where she
states vampires tend to prefer and retain the taste for what was considered
beautiful or worthwhile when they were humane.

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simplicio
Interesting how much of the prominent architecture is still in ruins
(presumably from WWII era bombing) into the 50's and 60's.

I mean, I guess it makes sense, since there was a lot of stuff to repair and
important infrastructure and industry was probably higher on the to-do list
than Cathedral and Courthouse repair. But I hadn't really thought about how
long the prominent war-time damage would've lasted.

~~~
paublyrne
I think Berlin is unusual. Construction happens very slowly here. Things don't
get fixed quickly. And there is a lack of desire to change the city too much,
physically.

As an example, the paving on the pathways is in a constant state of being
repaired because the design is such that the little stone blocks pop out very
easily. Many of the side roads are still cobbled (and a nightmare to cycle
on). People don't worry about it.

~~~
brightsize
As an American, I think those cobbled streets are one of the most charming
things about Berlin. IIRC, many of the sidewalks are of some stone-like
construction as well, quite a delightful change from the flat, poured concrete
that I have to walk on in the US. When there are sidewalks at all that is.

It's almost as if it was all designed to lure one outside.

~~~
DKnoll
Cobblestone is really nice until you have to walk on it for hours. My inferior
North American knees couldn't take it.

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takeda
Was the Google's self driving car based on the one from 60s? (last picture)

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danielam
In Soviet-satellite East Germany, car drives you!

~~~
atomwaffel
Very droll. That photo was taken in West Berlin and the car in question is a
BMW 600[1], built between 1957 and 1959. (Oddly enough, I saw its little
sister[2] not far from that spot a few days ago.)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_600](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_600)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta)

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POTUS
The picture of the City Palace (Stadtschloss) is interesting. It looks like
they accidentally swapped the old and the new picture. The building is
complete in 1939 and far from finished in 2015. Upon further research (Ok, I
wiki'd it) I found out the original building had been knocked down to make way
for parking in 2008 and only 5 years later in 2013 they decided to start
rebuilding it.

~~~
ibuildthings
The site has an interesting history. The former Stadtschloss suffered serious
destruction during WWII (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Palace,_Berlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Palace,_Berlin)
) and the Communist East tore it completely down to build the Palace of the
Republic
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Republic,_Berlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Republic,_Berlin)
and acted as the hub of DDR government. Once the wall fell, and DDR
disintegrated, in 2008 DDR's Palace of Republic was almost completed
demolished, and work on new Stadtschloss which very much resembles the
original commenced.

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smazga
I hope they intend to add back the decoration. Comparing the photos the old
building had character, but the new one is all blocks and smooth faces.

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udev
Surprising how they had much more street advertising back in the day compared
to now.

~~~
lordnacho
Perhaps there are more alternatives to neon signs now? TV, Internet, etc.

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joca
Fantastic - I really like this kind of documentary.

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rogerbraun
How do you take photos that look like the old ones? They seem to have much
more interesting colors.

~~~
jrockway
Films behave a little differently than digital sensors. Films don't have
perfect reciprocity characteristics (1/2 the exposure doesn't necessarily
yield 1/2 the negative density, but digital sensors essentially count photons
and obey the reciprocity law quite well), nor does slide film have the dynamic
range of digital sensors, so the look tends to be different. I was recently
taking some pictures around town with Velvia 50 and immediately thought "wow,
this looks like it was taken in 1990". It really does give a distinct look.
The sky gives it away:
[https://goo.gl/photos/ciawuX28bbBhnehc7](https://goo.gl/photos/ciawuX28bbBhnehc7)

There are also other characteristics that come into play. With digital
sensors, you're capturing colors as seen by the color matrix on top of the
sensor; Nikon, Canon, and Sony make these differently. With film, you're
physically activating dye, and the dyes are also chosen uniquely for each
film. So the colors can end up looking different, both because of process
difference and intentional changes of the color. (Velvia 50 does not provide
what one would call accurate color, but the inaccuracy is quite pleasing. The
same goes for the Kodachrome/Ektachrome which were very popular in their
times.)

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paulmd
IMO the most important characteristic that digital lacks is the "shoulder" of
negative films. Once you exceed the target exposure of the film by several
stops, it starts to take exponentially more light to further expose those
areas. This translates into the ability to capture more detail in the
highlights. It's not ideal - the tones of the film are certainly "blocked up",
and color film may start to show color shifts (usually to yellow). It's better
to hit the exposure properly. But with proper scanning or wet-printing
technique (particularly split-filter printing) you can recover quite a lot of
detail.

On digital - when the pixel goes to 255 light intensity, it's just gone.
There's no way to recover data that isn't there. The Magic Lantern firmware
has the ability to scan out lines alternating between high and low ISOs to
capture blown-out areas, but it's not perfect either.

"Modern" films tend to be very well-behaved with regards to these kind of
characteristics, actually. Acros 100 has virtually no reciprocity failure -
for exposures between 2 minutes and 10 minutes you need to add 1/2 stop of
light. I've recovered pictures off negatives with virtually no visible
exposure. The tonality is great and the grain is virtually invisible even with
Rodinal. The new Portra 400 is also extremely forgiving - you can get
something workable up to about ISO 1600 or 3200 with standard processing, and
if you push process (develop longer) it's even better.

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jrockway
For color I mostly use Velvia 50 and Ektar 100 both which have poor
reciprocity characteristics. When the meter indicates 10 seconds I expose for
20, and the results are pretty good:
[https://goo.gl/photos/uL3a8Ezf3NJfhdP49](https://goo.gl/photos/uL3a8Ezf3NJfhdP49)
Note that it's turning white lights green because of the reciprocity effects,
but I kind of like that color. (The datasheet recommends a filter to correct
this, making the exposure even longer. Given that I took this picture on a
bridge, 40 seconds without a car going over and ruining the photo was going to
be a stretch. Indeed, this picture is a little blurred because the bridge
moved; my digital camera took a much better picture under these conditions.)

I have some Provia 100F which works to something like 160 seconds, I will try
that in the future for long exposures.

I haven't tried the Portra films yet, as I mostly do landscapes, not
portraits, and prefer Fuji's inaccurate colors for that application. (Ektar is
a bit more muted color-wise, which yields a nice calming effect:
[https://goo.gl/photos/jMLY9UwS5Uwn2TQW7](https://goo.gl/photos/jMLY9UwS5Uwn2TQW7)
)

One other thing: digital camera tend to get rated on shadow detail, not
highlight detail, so their built-in light meters tend to "expose to the
right", discarding highlights in favor of collecting more shadow detail. If
you meter off an 18% grey card, a real light meter tends to give a shorter
exposure than the camera's built-in meter, better preserving highlights. As
someone who likes a well-defined sky, I'm betrayed by the camera manufacturers
here. (But you'll of course notice it on the screen, and you can just turn the
exposure compensation wheel to underexpose, and you're golden. It is not quite
so easy with slide film, involving a lot of measurements and very careful spot
metering. Therein lies the fun.)

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BallinBige
this is amazing

