Creating a vintage feel

Kschmid

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This might go in another section but I'll ask it here. I have two film cameras and what I want to create it that 70's /80's feel to my pictures. If possible I'd like to do this without the help of aperture of photoshop. Now the question is, can I buy a certain type of film that will do this? Obviously I have the camera just need to figure out if there is any more to it and I'm hoping its as simple as the film used. :)
 
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Buying expired film is one way. You can get color shift if it's been expired long enough - 10 years maybe? I also seem to remember getting that look when I was shooting cheap consumer film and overexposed by about a stop.
 
This might go in another section but I'll ask it here. I have two film cameras and what I want to create it that 70's /80's feel to my pictures. If possible I'd like to do this without the help of aperture of photoshop. Now the question is, can I buy a certain type of film that will do this? Obviously I have the camera just need to figure out if there is any more to it and I'm hoping its as simple as the film used. :)

Here's an example of one of the "feels".
View attachment 154519

I will move your thread to the Film Photography forum, but I also want to ask if this is your photo? If you do not own the rights, you will need to take it down and provide a link instead.
 
The "vintage look" that you seem to be after can be achieved by one, or preferably more, of the following:
- Use film that is past its expiry date or has been subjected to excessive heat.
- Under or over expose the film.
- Delay processing the film as long as possible and subject it to high temperatures while doing so.
- Have the film processed by someone who does not take much care over temperature control or replenishment of exhausted chemicals.
- Have printing carried out with minimum attention to correct exposure, use of old or poorly stored paper and lack of quality control.
- Store the prints under suboptimal conditions for a few years so that they will suffer degradation of contrast and colour.
 
I agree with @Chris. I remember writing almost that exact formula a couple of years ago on here. Use that formula if you have to make do with fresh film.

In all seriousness, not all film photographs were crappy-looking. The shots made by professionals were actually properly exposed and correctly processed, and did not suffer from loss of contrast and color shift.
 
Film photos that were shot in the 1970's and 1980's actually looked quite GOOD. Even very good. And, if the shooter and lab were both good, the photos looked excellent. As in...excellent. The "vintage look" that 20- and 30- something people seem to want is a creation of the internet era, for the most part. Right now, I am looking at a framed collage of color prints that I had made in the 1982 to 1985 time span...and the images look gorgeous! They still look GOOD! No fading that I can discern. Of course, they've been framed and displayed in less-than-sunlit conditions for a couple of decades now. THE PEOPLE in the images, NOW middle-aged, appear as they did back in their late teens to early- to mid-twenties. These images still,today, look like low-ISO digital images: colorful,vibrant,and gorgeous.
 
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This might go in another section but I'll ask it here. I have two film cameras and what I want to create it that 70's /80's feel to my pictures. If possible I'd like to do this without the help of aperture of photoshop. Now the question is, can I buy a certain type of film that will do this? Obviously I have the camera just need to figure out if there is any more to it and I'm hoping its as simple as the film used. :)

If you mean faded and/or color-shifted (usually reddish) prints, this is a product of time. That is, the photos didn't look like that when they were first printed. They only looked like that after a few decades went by. Color prints from the 60s-80s were not very permanent and their color shifted after a while.

There is a film called Redbird that gives a very reddish look but the color shift is more extreme than the color shift of old prints. Do a Google image search for redbird film and you can see examples.

Using expired print film probably won't work very well because any color shift will likely be corrected by the lab processing equipment. Using expired slide film might work a little if it's very past date. But, then if prints are made from the slides the color will likely be corrected automatically by the lab.

So, no -- it's not just a simple matter of using a certain film.
 
If you mean faded and/or color-shifted (usually reddish) prints, this is a product of time. That is, the photos didn't look like that when they were first printed. They only looked like that after a few decades went by. Color prints from the 60s-80s were not very permanent and their color shifted after a while.

Agreed. In the mid 80's color print process EP-2 was replaced by RA-4. EP-2 longevity was very short and RA-4 replacement fared much better although many cheap labs did not use stabilizer as the last bath.
Many prints I see come into the lab for me to replace the color come in various overall tones.
Most I see are-
Blue/green
Yellow
Red
Purple

Using Curves in Photoshop you can recreate those overall tones. The trick is to have other tones showing but very muted.

One of my family photos printed in 1979 before I restored the color.....

nGDtuEE.jpg
 
vsco presets :p
 
Thanks guys. You gave me somewhere to start and go from there
 
Get some colour film and some self load film cartridges and 're roll the film the wrong way round in a changing bag so you are shooting it red scale, you can join the tapper on the new roll before putting it in the changing bag

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 
Plug-in wizards' consensus on what "vintage" looks like varies but it's usually far-fetched and kinda ugly. Expired film, inept labs, glovebox ageing and damp basements offers no consistency but lots of laughs. Well-calibrated, tuneable plug-ins like the free Nik Collection are worth a serious look and some experimentation to get the look you're after.
 
drop the film in a fish tank, dry it off with a hair dryer, kick it around the house a bit, leave it in your car for a month, spill some coffee on it and send it through an x-ray machine a dozen times
 

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