Who/what was Wratten?

[Bill_1856]

Reading through Ansel Adams "Examples" for the unptheenth time, I finally noticed that he used "Wratten Panchromatic Glass Plates" when he made the famous Half-Dome picture in 1927.
Of course I've heard of Wratten Filters for years, but it suddenly occured to me that I knew nothing about Wratten. Was it a company who made glass plates and filters? Was it a tradename of Eastman Kodak?
A Google revealed only that he was an English inventor who sold his company to Eastman before WW1.
Any additional information...?

[SocalAstro]

Named after Fredrick Wratten

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Wratten

-Leon


Reading through Ansel Adams "Examples" for the unptheenth time, I finally noticed that he used "Wratten Panchromatic Glass Plates" when he made the famous Half-Dome picture in 1927.
Of course I've heard of Wratten Filters for years, but it suddenly occured to me that I knew nothing about Wratten. Was it a company who made glass plates and filters? Was it a tradename of Eastman Kodak?
A Google revealed only that he was an English inventor who sold his company to Eastman before WW1.
Any additional information...?

[Mark Sampson]

It's a little more interesting than that. George Eastman wanted to hire C.E. Kenneth Mees to found the Kodak Research Labs (the first pure research organization started by an American corporation). Mees was working for Wratten & Wainwright, and one condition of his employment with Kodak was that Eastman should buy W&W. Which Eastman promptly did; Mees moved to Rochester, and thus 90 years later, Kodak gel filters are still branded 'Wratten'.

[Drew Wiley]

In other words, when AA to pictues on Wratten plates, it would have been a brand
name of Eastman Kodak.

[Mark Sampson]

So it seems. I don't know exactly when Eastman bought W&W but I thought that it was the early 1920s. There was a Kodak book about the Research Labs, published in the early 1980s when RL was thriving and before Kodak strangled it, and that may be where i got the story from (I don't have a copy). Kodak may very well have continued making Wratten plates in England after the takeover; I have no idea how they might have differed from a Rochester-made product. Of course I'm no authority, I only worked for EK for nineteen years. It just occurred to me that Wratten filters might always have been (and still may be) made in England.

[jeroldharter]

Wratten was a cryptologist in WWI who later devised a system for naming filters that has been indecipherable ever since.

[Drew Wiley]

What I love about the Wratten system, at least in its present form, is that Kodak has
mfg these fairly precisely for quite awhile, and for each one you can compare spectral characteristics, and even compare fade characteristics which will affect
ongoing use. While I don't like gels over a camera lens, and greater prefer the
superior optical properties of multicoated glass filters, I do use Wratten filters for
surgical spectral modifications to the lightsources I employ for color contact masking, color separation negatives, etc. But gels aren't cheap anymore either!

[Drew Wiley]

Jerold - I think the cryptologist you mentioned intended it this way: how many throbs of pain you experience if you crease or dent a gel filter and find out how
much it costs to replace! The formula would have originally described the agony
when a box Wratten glass plate was dropped.

[John Berry]

Wratten was a cryptologist in WWI who later devised a system for naming filters that has been indecipherable ever since.ROFLMAO

[Frank Petronio]

Jeez these bring back memories... of when they cost $3 each. Just checked B&W and a 3x3 is $27.50!

To be a real architectural photographer ~1985 you had to have a box of 20-50 of them plus a $1000 Minolta color meter.

And in the studio, the anal would hang a 025Y or M just to clean up the inconsistent film. By the 1990s film got so consistent that you rarely had to.

[Mark Sawyer]

While I don't like gels over a camera lens, and greater prefer the superior optical properties of multicoated glass filters...

I believe Wratten filters are equal to the best quality glass filters, and considerably better than the cheaper glass and plastic filters. Plus, you don't get the slight focus shift that happens when you add them after focusing. They do scratch easily though...

[Frank Petronio]

I always thought they were better than hard filters - thinner, less distorting, more clear, clean, and pure - according to the old farts who taught me. They thought the screw-in stuff was for duffers and 35mm photographers.

[Drew Wiley]

In terms of sharpness, all filters affect the image a bit, but the best results I've gotten
are with high-quality multicoated glass ones, the worst with polyester and sandwiched
glass Tiffens. Gels are extremely light and thin, but flap around in the wind and catch dirt easily. I've done plenty of testing, so hold to my original opinion. Things are a little
different today than when glass filters were first intoduced and the mastodon meat at
Safeway was still fresh (they still sell it, it's just not fresh anymore).

[Bill_1856]

Jerold -the agony
when a box Wratten glass plate was dropped.

Oooh! It's something that I've never thought of, and a certain part of my anatomy puckered tight when I read that line and thought about it.

[Rider]

How is the optical quality of polyesters vs. gels? I've seem many people (even pros) refer to a polyester filter as "color gel".

[Frank Petronio]

Certainly for field work a mounted hard filter will be more practical.

[Drew Wiley]

There are several types of plastic filters, typically in squares. Since polyester filter are thin and flexible like gel filters, they are sometimes casually called gels, but so
are the acetate filters sometimes used for studio lighting. Lighting filters are unsuitable over lenses, and polyesters certainly aren't very good optically either, although they are tougher and generally cheaper than true Wratten gels. The other
type of plastic filter, made of stiff acrylic resin, is relatively expensive, and more
scratch and flare prone than good glass filters, but has a cost advantage in especially large sizes. Most often you see these come up used in the Sinar brand.
I purchased a set of Lee polyester filters about twenty years ago, and it was a good
investment for tricky architectural lighting setups when the 4x5 chromes did not need to be enlarged significantly, which is often the case in briefcase portfolios, business ads or brochures, or today, laptop presentations.

[al olson]

The Kodak Data Book, Filters and Pola-screens, 1951, designates all of the filters as Wratten Filters. It states:

Available Forms: Gelatin filter film, cemented in B glass, cemented in A glass, all common sizes.

[Kevin Crisp]

Lead singer of the Sex Pistols?

[jnantz]

johnny wratten

[Kevin Crisp]

I always get those two guys confused.