speed of first motion picture stocks

[Dennis Couzin]

A certain intermediate stock of today (5234) has ASA approximately 0.8. It can, with effort, be used for certain original camera shooting. Were any nineteenth century films shot on stocks that slow (or perhaps a couple of stops faster since our lenses today are a couple of stops faster)? I'm curious to know the early history of speeds of motion picture stocks.

[David Mullen ASC]

The rating systems we used today didn't come about until the mid 1930's, nor were there light meters much earlier than that, so info on speeds is hard to come by.

 

3-strip Technicolor started out at an effective 3 to 5 ASA (the stocks were faster but the process lost a lot of speed). B&W negative stocks in the early 1930's were around 25 to 40 ASA, probably half that in the 1920's.

[Sam Wells]

If Karl Brown's "Adventures With D.W. Griffith" is still in print I highly reccomend it.

 

I don't know if it would answer your question exactly, but he gets into this stuff, plus a lot about the lab end too.

 

plus pretty good descriptions of early color processes, Kinemacolor and so on.

 

-Sam