Hello again,
It's all about the perspective!
When I see you are helping everyone with your databases here & over on Hyperscale... my perception is that you're very organized :)
And I for sure don't want you to see my "work room". I am even ashamed of my own wife...
May I know in which form is DB? Excel file or something even better?
I was afraid that you're not having the full info about the pilot & the Staffel to which it belonged...
Anyhow maybe if we would know for sure which precise colours were used for Staffels of III./JG 26 at the time we could eliminate those that would look dark in the image... (be it White, Black / Red, Brown, Yellow (dark or light...), Blue (dark or light...)... I will try to check in few books I have on hand here in China, but I guess I would have to dig into some JG 26 related books back home when I visit in January / February.
I agree too that the film on which this photo was taken was of Orthochromatic type. But knowing that - based on the suggestion from the paragraph above - we could at least narrow the choices (especially if we would know which of them were using outlined digits and which not).
Please keep in mind that in military service, most of photographers were not often using any filters and similar which will complicate the stories further... Many years ago I compiled few sources where military photographers spoke about these things on AAW forum, which is long gone. Just 2-3 weeks ago, during Shanghai Photo Fair, I spoke with an old gentleman who used to serve in Korean war on a carrier, shooting with Speed Graphic 4x5 (my fav camera of all times)...
Anyhow - would you discard the
idea of unpainted, dull aluminium fuselage that early in the war? I have a photo of Fw 190 A-2 or A-3 (probably WNr 207 - at least it's painted on the cowling, sitting in front of the hangar) with Natural Metal lower surfaces & most probably RLM 02 upper surfaces & ailerons in RLM 76 or 65 with only leading edges of the wings' lower surfaces painted with upper colour - quite similar to late war camouflage. I think photo was published in AJ Press or some similar book long time ago... and it was always surprising me that people were never discussing it :)
Finally, just for the sake of tech reference I have checked the grayscale values of the certain spots of W.Nr 403 - which for me just confirm some of my ideas. :)
Good night from Shanghai,
Misko