How to do 70's style soft photos
 

I have a manual point and shot camera the powershot A710IS

what i want to know is how can i get soft photos like the ones from the 70's (i believe)

Was it all due to the type of film used back then or did optics play a role as well?

Would fast exposures with a larger aperture help by having less of the image in high detail?

or will i only get this effect with this camera by using image manipulation software?

There would be lots of reasons why 70's photo's look the way they are.

They use older less quality film, the paper it's printed on doesn't age well. Overall less colour accuracy. Auto focus didn't exist for most of the 70's until 1977. Lenses wouldn't be as accurate.

You'd really need some sort of filter that can replicate it, or at least do lots of manual work to manipulate the photo to generate those effects.

As Lenny said, the style you're referring to came about because of the technical limitations of the equipment used in and before the 1970s. It may have a fun, vintage feel to it, but it certainly wasn't anything more than a result of their technology.

I think you could replicate this sort of effect relatively easily with a few simple actions and filters in photoshop. A search of tutorials will probably lead you to some more concrete answers, but I would imagine that a combination of color filters, blur effects, added noise, and maybe vignetting would get you pretty close. Best of luck.

Cling film over the end and a bit of vaseline on that....(technically a viable and accurate solution no matter how dodgy it sounds http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...s/biggrin1.gif)

larger aper. size in bright conditions would most likely end up with faster shutter speeds and would most likely be sharper. i am guessing tho .. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo.../confused1.gif

Well, as far as motion blur is concerned it would be sharper, but in general less of the image would be in focus and the elements that are in focus would be less sharp. I would suggest, however, starting with normal, well exposed, technically sound images just in case you decide you don't want to process them in the 70s style.

i would think with higher aperture size still most of the image would be sharp (at least a wider range)? with lower aperture like 2.8 wouldn't it be more blurry ? (again i am no expert on photography but just was thinking about some settings i use) when i want to take a close up macro shot and want the background to be as blurry as i can get, i usually set my aperture size to say f/2.8 and set a as high shutter speed as i can (or should maybe say shortest exposure time depending on the light).... ....http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo.../confused1.gif ok i am confused by all the things i wrote [rofl]http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo.../confused1.gif[rofl]




man go on ebay buy an old camera and some films which passed their expiry date :-) [rofl]

Well, you're saying two different things between this post and your last. A larger aperture (f/1.4 or f/2.0 etc) will allow for a faster shutter, reducing motion blur. However, the depth of field would be more shallow, leaving less of the image in focus, and at the same time, due to the optical limitations of most lenses, the elements that are in focus would be less sharp (but still not out of focus). With a smaller aperture (f/9 or f/11, etc), the depth of field will be very large, meaning that more elements both in front of and behind the focal plane will be in focus (and those things that are in focus will be sharper).

Imagine that the depth of field at f/1.8 (with an 85mm lens on a crop body from a distance of 10 feet) is 0.28 ft and that the depth of field with the same setup but at an aperture of f/9 (a smaller aperture) is 1.41 ft total. Now, suppose you fill the frame with a sheet of paper and no elements creep into the frame other than that single sheet. In either instance, the entire sheet can be in focus (because the depth of the objects in the field of view is less than the overall depth of field in either instance), but because of the optical properties of any lens, the same image will be sharper at f/9 than it will be at f/1.8. This site will help you understand depth of field better (notice the diagram with the trees and at the bottom of the green table).

That said, I think the OP could serve his purposes with something like a Holga or Diana camera, if he doesn't mind shelling out $25 or so for the camera and ~$8 for film and processing.

wow, thanks for the advice everyone!

I think I will first try playing around with images and I'll see if the short depth of field will help.

Thanks for the heads up on that camera, I'll see if I can get one on the bay.

and for fun I'll try that cling film and vaseline idea!

vaseline will keep making it more n more n more blurry with each passing day tho [rofl][rofl][rofl]