8x10 lens with 1/500th shutter speed ??

[Walter Glover]

Chris,

I fear that the Nikkor-M 300mm may be close to your best bet amongst readily available kit.

I would point out also that the wind forces of an aircraft will delight in chewing up any sort of bellows unless you are inside with the windows shut. In that case the window will negate any benefit of shooting 8x10.

Please note that I am not being defeatist in saying this but trying to fore warn some of the possible calamities that may befall you.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Peter Gowland makes an 8x10" aerial camera, so I checked over there, and he recommends a 300/f:9 Nikkor M with a 1/400 s. shutter. Info at:


http://www.petergowland.com/camera/

[Dan Fromm]

Chris, look here for vendors: http://www.weblinks.spakka.net/db/15 If you've got the money, they've got the goods. Given how much capable 9x9 cameras with modern lenses cost, your best bet if you insist on pushing the button yourself is probably to rent.

Tim, in this case art happens after the exposure has been made. At the very least Chris needs a motorized camera. Remember that focus will be fixed at infinity, aperture/shutter speed really aren't open to much choice, and that all the camera operator can do is, um, point the aircraft. There are reasons why real serious aerial photography isn't done with hand-held or hand fed cameras. Its quite a different activity from the terrestrial photography most of us do. But you know all this and were just giving me a hard time for the joy of it.

Good luck,

Dan

[tim atherton]

Hey Dan - I just spent most of Tuesday up in a helicopter at -15c (ground level) with the window wide open doing aerials - but that was all 35mm

[tim atherton]

But I'm guessing Chris has an idea for something a little bit out of the normal going here (remeber those two 450mm lenses he wanted to borrow for stereo night shots....)

[chris jordan]

Dan, your comments seem to presume that all aerial photography has to be done survey style, with the camera pointed straight down. Have you ever heard of a photographer named Bradford Washburn? I imagine he might have been interested by your opinion that with aerial photography, "art happens after the exposure has been made. " Most of the photographs he made were aerials, and many of those were composed as artistically and beautifully as anything done on land by anyone. You should check out his work, and maybe Emmet Gowin's, and David Maisel's, and Robert Glenn Ketchum's also, and see some of the potential that aerial photography offers. No one is giving you a hard time for the joy of it; Tim is just pointing out something that you might not have thought of.

[tim atherton]

"Emmet Gowin's, and David Maisel's, and Robert Glenn Ketchum's also, and see some of the potential that aerial photography offers."

And Marilyn Bridges (didn't she get married to Don McCullin?), and Yann Arthus-Bertrand.

Mind you, didn't Washburnuse an Aero Ektar etc? (an 8x10 Hobo would probably do the same job?)

[Dan Fromm]

Chris, I can spell oblique too.

Cheers,

Dan

[Mark Sampson]

Having spent some time printing 9x9 aerial color negatives for display purposes (usually to 30x30"), I'll say you can get beautiful photographs using a real aerial camera mounted in the floor of a plane. But I think out-the-window would be an easier and more effective option. I've never photographed out of the Cessna window with anything above 35mm. .. Marilyn Bridges used to endorse the Pentax 6x7. And for the record- when there was a Bradford Washburn retrospective at the George Eastman House (what a show that was), they displayed one of his cameras- and the lens was a prewar, uncoated 300mm/4.5 Schneider Xenar.

[tor kviljo]

If money is not too limeting, You can use the Rollei PQS shutters running the shutter remotely from the X-act control box. This will give You up to 1/1000 sek for a No 0 lens shutter. The less expensive approach is possibly to butcher an old speed graphic - removing everything except rear portion of camera-frame w/FP-shutter. The Speed graphic FP-shutter went to at least 1/1250 sek and is large enough to mount behind any big lens . Customizing a stiff 8"x10" camera using aero-ektar and this shutter should be within reach for anyone not too hopeless in the toolshed. The speed-graphic shutter is a no-nonsen design where you have to shut the filmholder (=no trouble with sheet film holders) before winding shutter as the exposing aperture is still open when shutter is recharged. See speed-graphic.org or something for more info.