• context [fae/faer, fae/faer]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    early color photography experiments date back to the 1840s, a color photo from 1896 is plausible, it was just prohibitively expensive for most uses for a long time.

    similarly, italian inventor stefano lavori began working on early versions of what would become the iphone (shortened from italian telephone) in his workshop in ragu, italy in 1864 while attempting to devise a tomato sauce recipe that doesn't require glue.

    • Krem [he/him]
      ·
      4 months ago

      in the 1960s, american scientists spent 500 billion dollars figuring out how to make a t9 keyboard that could be used in zero gravity

      the soviets simply used touchscreen smartphones

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      4 months ago

      I remember something about a photographer who would take three pictures, each with a red, blue, or green filter. Then they'd had tint the images and somehow combine them in to a single color photograph.

      • bazingabrain [comrade/them]
        ·
        4 months ago

        that was a russian photographer, who impressed tsar nicolas 2 so much he was officially commissioned to do a tour of the empire and take as many photographs he could. I havent found a complete source for his pics online yet.

        • context [fae/faer, fae/faer]
          ·
          4 months ago

          these aren't complete and you may already be familiar, but for anyone interested:

          https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/in-search-of-true-color/

          https://tmora.org/online-exhibitions/photographer-to-the-tsar-revealing-the-silk-road/sergei-m-prokudin-gorskii/

          https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/sergei-prokudin-gorskii

      • context [fae/faer, fae/faer]
        ·
        4 months ago

        yep, in many ways that's the easiest way to do it. co-registering the 3 photos can be tricky, especially for close ups. but it's bulky and laborious. it's not really until the filters got incorporated into multilayered film that it became cheap enough for widespread use.