How can I get a 70s vintage effect?

MartinCrabtree · Jun 16, 2018

So you two who disagreed with my post stating name calling and sarcasm are poor form believe they contribute to a discussion? Really?

DanOstergren · Jun 17, 2018

MartinCrabtree said:
So you two who disagreed with my post stating name calling and sarcasm are poor form believe they contribute to a discussion? Really?

"Old fuddy-duddies and wet darkroom experts" is hardly name calling and absolutely not something to villainize Derrel over.

MartinCrabtree · Jun 17, 2018

Villanize? Never mind.............

limr · Jun 17, 2018

Moving on, folks...

vintagesnaps · Jun 17, 2018

So, to get back to the OP... the examples linked as well as much of what I've seen online that's supposed to look like film images look to me more like someone tried to replicate photos that were stuck in a shoe box in somebody's attic for years. What you've seen that seems to be a '70s look probably really isn't; what you've looked at could be photos particularly in color that shifted over the years and were shot with something like an Instamatic.

If you shoot fresh film with a nice sharp lens on that Canon you could get photos similar to what could be done with other SLRs/DSLRs. My digital camera uses the same manual focus lenses that I use with film rangefinder cameras so the results are comparable; each is a different format of course and there are differences in the paper, gloss, etc. when printed.

It could be possible to get a more vintagey soft look similar to the (apparently) digitally edited images in the links by using a vintage midcentury viewfinder camera that has maybe two aperture settings and a clacky shutter release (like the Agfa Clack, which sounds like its name). It's a matter of figuring out what subject could work with that look.
edit - For some unusual films and more about film photography try these -
Home - The Film Photography Project
Lomography Shop

To get sepia which yes, goes back waaay earlier than the 1970s, you could tone 'wet' prints done in photo chemistry (and don't need a darkroom for toning if I'm remembering right). Or you could digitally edit film scans for a sepia tone.

I don't think Dan meant necessarily for a camera to have a '70s fashion vibe, but someone could get a groovy camera strap. Or maybe wear bell bottoms, but please, no disco.

jcdeboever · Jun 18, 2018

I would start off with shooting a C41 b & w film (Ilford XP2), get them developed at a local lab. If there is an option for your scans to be scanned at higher resolution (standard, enhanced, super), try the enhanced, it will give you a better print of you decide to print an image. You can then download the images from the CD to your computer .

Then it's a matter of what post software you want to use based on the type of hardware your using to edit....phone, tablet, windows PC, laptop, mac etc. let us know that so we can give you some options there.

If you start to shoot C41 color, I would start at box speed (200 and 400 are common) for the first roll, check to see if you like the results. 2nd roll, 1 stop over exposed for the enitire roll and see if you like the results and compare to the first. You could do a third roll of 2 stops over exposed and compare the three. You will be surprised by the difference. I typically shoot color film 1 stop over exposed.

This is how I was told to approach it in the beginning and it works. Now I develop my own at home, scan at home, and can even wet print at home. It's a very slippery slope. It all depends on how much you like it. You can do it all yourself, or send it out and edit the scans on a computer. Either way, it costs money. Figure around $15.00 dollars a roll (not including cost of film), to develop, enhanced scan, CD, shipping, and getting negatives back.

Tim Tucker 2 · Jun 18, 2018

A lot of good advice here and it's all based on actual observation, rather than a definition of the words used to label something.

The 70's *look* was a combination of fashion, aesthetics and the technologies of the day, including print processes.

It is also a purely descriptive term that serves to delineate how these images look different to us today when we are more used to the modern fashions, aesthetics and technologies. It is not really a term that describes how the images *looked* to us in the 70's because they looked much newer and fresher then.

I saw this best summed up in the title of a book; "Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees."

Having said all that the actual images linked to look surprisingly easy to duplicate. To me the Kate Bush images look like push-processed film, blocked shadows and grainy. The other image has a *larger format* feel and is not what I call 70's other than the subject matter. It seems to be a 70's shot trying to replicate the 1870's, (in line with the dress sense of the main character?). The resolution and gradations suggest MF but are possible with 35mm *if* you know how to extract the maximum performance possible from film. Something that won't happen if you send them away to be developed.

Now what must also not be forgotten is that we are viewing all these images on a computer screen and not how they were viewed in the 70's, (or indeed early 80's). So if we take some old push processed Tri-X or HP5 print it in a magazine using 70's press technology and scan that print... Or take a short cut, use modern Tri-X or HP5+ push processed so the shadows are blocked then digitalise it so it shows the limitations of the processes at the time rather than modern aesthetics of contrast and sharpness and I think you will be near. I don't think that the plug-in filters are really worthwhile here.

The other shot though is not one you can duplicate easily with 35mm film. First and foremost you MUST forget about digital methods of sharpening because it is the lack of these that give the appearance of resolution, The other thing is that once scanned and processed you MUST re-size the image using a *soft* algorithm that doesn't overly preserve acutance. It is partly this, the resizing, that can give the image it's clean look when viewed on a computer screen. There is also a lack of clear *mid-tones* as though the interval of middle-grey has somehow been subtracted: