A rifle and face from the past-

[Merc]

It's because of very good lenses and the large formats used. The smallest formats back then could give you a 4x4" or 5x7" contact print (slap the negative right on the paper print it nd you have a useable picture) and the lenses were capable of much finer resolution than you'd think. We're talking about a time when some optics that were much finer optics than you'd expect were being produced. Heck, sophisticated optical rangefinders capable of being used to direct gunfire at very long ranges in naval engagements had been in use for over a quarter century at the time. The cameras of the period weren't small but they were capable of producing great images. As time went on and the formats got smaller, down to 35mm finer grain films were needed to produce a similar result because of the amount of enlargement needed to produce a usable photograph. That's why the larger format 120 and 220 film formats held on so long for things like portrait and wedding photograph. In film photography generally the larger the format the better the result. Nothing good happens in emulsion photography when you start enlarging. The more you have to enlarge...the worse the result.

Today the best digital cameras can exceed the quality of the old large format film jobs, even the later ones like the Hasselblads but that's super high tech and super high price (like ah Hasselblad wasn't real pricey.) The average DSLR kit camera Joe Dokes uses really usually doesn't produce a better image than you could with an old 35mm Nikon or Canon with the right film. It just does it much more easily with a lot less mess and waste.

Thanks for the informative reply. My collection of Civil War era CDVs is a great example of how quickly the science of photography progressed.

Merc

[JB White]

Digital photography means discovering 100 year old photos will not likely happen 100 years from now.
How many photos never get printed? How many times has the format changed in the past 20 years? When was the last time you tried to read a floppy disk?

[IditarodJoe]

Sadly true JB. Not only photographs, but personal correspondence as well. And the day to day record of our society that was once captured for posterity in newspapers and magazines is fading fast. As technology effectively erases our footprints behind us, the task of the legitimate historian will become more difficult while that of the historical revisionist will become increasingly easier.

[JBinIll]

Sadly true JB. Not only photographs, but personal correspondence as well. And the day to day record of our society that was once captured for posterity in newspapers and magazines is fading fast. As technology effectively erases our footprints behind us, the task of the legitimate historian will become more difficult while that of the historical revisionist will become increasingly easier.

Makes you wonder what people will collect 100 years from now as many of us collect things from our past now.Those photos were on glass plates.How long will a memory chip or CD last if thrown in a box and left in an attic or basement
.

[John Sukey]

About the only thing I could identify in the original pic is the soldier on the left is Royal Artillery going by the cap badge

[mike webb]

The Battle of the Somme was a horrible day of slaughter for the British Army, 20,000 dead, over 37,000 wounded IN ONE DAY!! The Royal Newfoundland Regiment was attached to the British 29th Division and attacked at Beaumont Hamel. Newfoundland was a separate colony of Great Britain and not attached to Canadian forces. The regiment attacked with around 800 men as part of the third wave of assaults(the first two were decimated, nothing like reinforcing failure). At sundown on July 1st, 1916 only 68 men answered the roll call in the Regiment.
July 1st is still a day of mourning in Newfoundland and a large statue of a caribou stands at Beaumont Hamel as a memorial to the regiment.

[PhillipM]

Sadly true JB. Not only photographs, but personal correspondence as well. And the day to day record of our society that was once captured for posterity in newspapers and magazines is fading fast. As technology effectively erases our footprints behind us, the task of the legitimate historian will become more difficult while that of the historical revisionist will become increasingly easier.

I still lament all that was lost when jouster crashed in 2009. We lost a ton of good information from members no longer with us.