On Sat, 2 Feb 2013 18:13:20 -0800, Savageduck
wrote:

On 2013-02-02 17:13:48 -0800, Peter Jason said:

Evidently WWII German & Russian soldiers were avid
snapshooters, and many of their rolls of film have
been coming available for about 20 years as the
shooters have died off, and their descendants
clear out their chattels.

Many of these and similar ones are available on
the net; especially these, and few are annotated.

First these are all obviously Tumblr sites and have that limitation.
Then these seem to be collected images lifted from elsewhere given that
they don't seem to be limited to WWII Russian & German soldiers'
snapshots.


True, but this is the essence of collecting;
separating the gold from the dross.


http://ohsoromanov.tumblr.com/archive
That looks like a tumblr site owner who is fascinated with the Romanov
family with one or two odd inserts.

Yes.


http://verdwijn.tumblr.com/archive
The first thing I read, was the owner of this T-site was longer going
to maintain his blog as he has become bored with it. That said, there
are some interesting WWII shot with some more recent stuff interspersed
along with a fair amount of flag waiving "Red" propaganda images.


True, but then the few relevant ones may have
links to others.



http://schrumpfgermane.tumblr.com/archive/2012/10
Another eclectic bunch from WWI, WWII, Vietnam, some dated pin ups, a
shot of a 1970's vintage Steve Jobs with a then new Mac, and a Duran
Duran album cover.

Ditto.



http://faith-and-fatherland.tumblr.com/archive/2010/9
Here we have nazis with family shots an a few well known Vietnam War images.


Ditto.



http://ausschreitungen.tumblr.com/archive
This one had some interesting stuff which seems to be the work of an
official photographer, but then there is out of context stuff added in,
contemporary US Army insignia, and a female member of the US Army
taking a shot with an iPhone.

Quite.



http://****yeahhistorycrushes.tumblr.com/archive
etc etc.
Another bunch which didn't come out of a shoe box in the attic. Let's
see, Lorenzo De Medici, Einstein, Lena Horne, Danny Kaye, John Wilkes
Booth, Sara Bernhardt, Edmund Hillary, Rasputin, the "Red Baron",
Admiral Nelson, Charlton Heston, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, etc.


Some sites are better than others.
Here's one more.
Remember the links may refer to more relevant
ones.
http://opacasilentianoctis.tumblr.com/archive/2011/9





With a view to collecting these and sorting them
into sets I ask:

1/ Can such photos be characterized by some camera
or lens (ie aberration) fingerprint, by accurate
aspect ratio and/or sepia tint?

No. You have such an eclectic mix you could create your own system, but
I believe you would be spinning your wheels.

1/ Do cameras of the old sort have any signature
that applies to their photos?

No, but there are many images there which have style signatures which
are very traceable to some famous photographers.

This one from Germany offers some limited hope
because it sorts by color cast and even contrast.
Pretty uneven, though.
(Dump the thumbnails, sort them with the above,
then download the suitable ones.)
http://www.pixolution.de/index.php?id=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL7XbRKRBqY





What a more interesting question would be is, why would you go to the
effort to collect these and produce nothing more than the creators of
those tumblr have?

I'm a manic collector. Have you ever collected
anything?


None of these have come from WWII warrior snapshots. They have all been
collected just as you propose doing. So my suggestion is for you to
browse through these images, understand what it is you are seeing, and
move on to spending your time on something more original. These guys
have already done it, and one has become so bored he has given up.