RNZAF Photography question

[Dave Homewood]

Does anyone know when it was that the RNZAF switched to coloured photography as a standard?

And had they done a mix of black and wite and coloured for some time before that or was it all b&w?

[phil]

I don't know if there was an official date, Mathew at the museum would probably know if there was. I expect there would have been a policy change to switch to colour for PR work. From my time at CPE I think the images we held from the '70s showed an increase in the use of colour film, as well as an increase in the use of 35mm. Most of the older stuff we kept at CPE was either medium format or even 4x5. There remained a mix of colour and B&W, much of the tech work and groups were B&W even while the PR stuff was colour. We still used the very occaisional black and white medium format film as late as '01.

When we switched from film to digital it wasn't a hard and fast 'from monday we will do everything digital' sort of thing, it was gradual over a couple of years until we got cameras that we found were doing a good enough job. This was about '03 when the D1Xs arrived. From about '02 onwards there wasn't much 35mm being used, the horrible Fuji S1 replacing 35mm for most jobs. Medium format remained another year or so after that. We still did large group photos on medium format until about '04 when we found the lab we were using was scanning the negs to print them anyway, and the finished result was no better than shooting digital.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks for that Phil. So basically we cannot expect to find any coloured official photos from before around 1969 then, I guess?

[phil]

I wouldn't say that, it was just a ball park date after which I recall seeing more colour in the archives. I've sure there were colour images taken earlier.

I recall scanning a medium format neg of a Bristol Freighter over Singapore that might have been 60s, and it was colour.

[Dave Homewood]

OK, thanks.