Carl Zeiss Super Enlarger 9x9" High Resolution B&W large format

[Tin Can]

Not an auction

However we should see a Dream

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225516251441?hash=item3481d0e931:g:BjgAAOSwJmZikPdi

[nolindan]

It is a 'rectifying enlarger' for correcting perspective in aerial photography. Originally a Wild model, I think.

Good luck at that price. Aerial photography, like most professional applications, is almost entirely digital now. This thing is about as welcome as a process camera with an 8 foot bed - "Get this thing outa here..."

[xkaes]

Does anyone have an explanation for the 9x9" format. If they made it ONE INCH larger it might have caught on!!!:o

[Drew Wiley]

Aerial roll film. It could have had military surveillance or perhaps mapping applications post-WWII, black and white film only. Bigger and far more sophisticated color 9X9 enlargers related to U2 flights were being used by the NSA up to around 20 yr ago, or possibly even a little more recently. Actual film has real advantages over satellite imagery, including much higher detail and the ability for decision-making non-specialists to intuitively evaluate things for themselves. Also, anyone who has stereoscopically viewed sequentially aligned overflight images knows how much better they reveal 3d details than Google Earth, for example. But satellite and drone imagery can be conveyed almost instantly in real-time; and large film and sizable printing had an arduous workflow, including skilled maintenance of those big specialized enlargers, and a continued supply of necessary parts, neither of which exist anymore.

[xkaes]

That's basically how the USGS had mere humans draw all those 7.5 TOPO maps -- by hand.

[Drew Wiley]

Those topo maps were all done machine-stereoscopically, a fairly old but highly accurate method provided the planes flew exactly straight at exactly the same speed. The handwork just filled in the outlines of natural features like glaciers, or artificial ones, or known trails, plus place names. The contour lines were all machine plotted using a parallax differential accentuated by distinct color filters, much like a 3D movie. Actual handmade topos? - that was ground-based, and what we had to learn in Geology and Archaeology classes using a transit. Nearly all the US topo maps were made at the USGS facility at Menlo Park. Then this data base get used to generate all kinds of private maps, including on navigation devices.

When I was young I'd borrow the oldest sets of overlapping 9 inch stereoscopic images I could find and view them through red and green filter stereoscopes. Hards on the eyes; but one can pick out geological and archeological details in an amazing way - or military ones if that is their job. Major battles in WWII were done by women doing that kind of thing all day long. But the problem is that is there was a cloud-free day ideal for this kind of mapping, the enemy could see the plane too and shoot at it. Of course, the Germans themselves were pioneers in aviation optics, so had a good reason to shoot at solo planes flying overhead.

One dirty little secret I learned when my nephew was earning his University expense income by being employed in both Fed and private mapmaking is that nearly all private companies add a few deliberate errors to their own maps to catch any plagiarism - streets that aren't really there, roads and lakes out in the desert. I'll stick with real USGS topo maps or maps which have licensed their own details. Less risky than using a navigation device which takes you on a "shortcut" route way out in the desert toward a lake that doesn't exist, to where the rutted road runs out, along with your gas too. Just remember that possibility if a bunch of vultures try to follow you on the left turn off the main highway.

[Tin Can]

Even Google satellite has anomiles as many have found

Also the wealthy get to hide their holdings

[Dan Fromm]

One dirty little secret I learned when my nephew was earning his University expense income by being employed in both Fed and private mapmaking is that nearly all private companies add a few deliberate errors to their own maps to catch any plagiarism - streets that aren't really there, roads and lakes out in the desert. I'll stick with real USGS topo maps or maps which have licensed their own details. Less risky than using a navigation device which takes you on a "shortcut" route way out in the desert toward a lake that doesn't exist, to where the rutted road runs out, along with your gas too. Just remember that possibility if a bunch of vultures try to follow you on the left turn off the main highway.

I'm not sure that all of the errors in modern digital maps are deliberate. It appears that now Google Earth and competitors use computer programs (AI?) to recognize roads etc. and to put in their road layers. I've been doing fieldwork in the Dominican Republic, have used maps from OpenStreetMap in my routing GPS and to find likely sites (access to rivers). Always check against satellite photos (Google Earth, planet.com) to make sure that a bridge crossing a river isn't a misidentified pipeline, have noted that even small roads clearly visible in satellite photos can't be seen when on the ground. Have found GE's river names unreliable.

[Drew Wiley]

Google Earth is a patchwork of satellite images, some over a decade old, and often taken over different seasons with bizarre interfaces of winter versus summer conditions. Right now, all kinds of roads and bridges in my hometown region of the Sierras simply are no more due to washouts the past few months. Likewise, it's fun to home in on backcountry trails on Google Earth 3D; but that doesn't tell one their current condition after a winter of severe avalanches and landslides. What's more up to date are the street address shots being taken by those little Google drive-by cars with their whirling cameras atop - the burglar's dream tool, along with little drones.

[mmerig]

Those topo maps were all done machine-stereoscopically, a fairly old but highly accurate method provided the planes flew exactly straight at exactly the same speed. The handwork just filled in the outlines of natural features like glaciers, or artificial ones, or known trails, plus place names. The contour lines were all machine plotted using a parallax differential accentuated by distinct color filters, much like a 3D movie. Actual handmade topos? - that was ground-based, and what we had to learn in Geology and Archaeology classes using a transit. Nearly all the US topo maps were made at the USGS facility at Menlo Park. Then this data base get used to generate all kinds of private maps, including on navigation devices.



The stereo images were taken along a flight line with one airplane. They just over-lapped the images along the line about 60%. Images from parallel, adjacent flight lines over-lap as well (about 30%), but not for stereo purposes, just coverage. The USGS used a Kelsh plotter for the contour lines, and these were drawn by hand while guiding a point that looked like it was in contact with the ground at a given elevation. The USGS Circular 357 describes the method (see page 1, Chapter 3F5). I remember using a Kelsh plotter at the University of Idaho about 43 years ago, but just for training purposes. It is very tedious work.

Once they were standardized, aerial photos for most work were on 9 by 9 inch negatives, and contact prints were the norm. But agencies could order enlarged prints (I have seen them up to around 24 by 24", dating to the mid-1940's. I am working with some now, from the North West Rivers Survey by the US Army). The US Fish & Wildlife Service used color infra-red transparencies (9 by 9) for wetland delineation. Topography was not important, but detail on plant stress etc. was very helpful and the IR wavelengths picked this up (water-stressed plants are less red, or even green). The detail was amazing.

[Dan Fromm]

Hmm. My late friend Charlie Barringer bought one of those monstrosities for its lens, a Topogon. The lens has an internal red filter that's part of the formula, so it is useless for taking lens applications.

[Drew Wiley]

The stereo prints I worked came from the same kinds of flights, but earlier, made in relation to agricultural surveys in the 1930's. So not as wide an area as USGS maps, which tried to cover everything, including high mountains and remote desert.
Those older shots were actually more valuable for geological and archaeological studies because there was less urban and suburban development back then.

[bdkphoto]

The stereo images were taken along a flight line with one airplane. They just over-lapped the images along the line about 60%. Images from parallel, adjacent flight lines over-lap as well (about 30%), but not for stereo purposes, just coverage. The USGS used a Kelsh plotter for the contour lines, and these were drawn by hand while guiding a point that looked like it was in contact with the ground at a given elevation. The USGS Circular 357 describes the method (see page 1, Chapter 3F5). I remember using a Kelsh plotter at the University of Idaho about 43 years ago, but just for training purposes. It is very tedious work.

Once they were standardized, aerial photos for most work were on 9 by 9 inch negatives, and contact prints were the norm. But agencies could order enlarged prints (I have seen them up to around 24 by 24", dating to the mid-1940's. I am working with some now, from the North West Rivers Survey by the US Army). The US Fish & Wildlife Service used color infra-red transparencies (9 by 9) for wetland delineation. Topography was not important, but detail on plant stress etc. was very helpful and the IR wavelengths picked this up (water-stressed plants are less red, or even green). The detail was amazing.

I started my career as an aerial photographer for NOAA / National Ocean Survey. Our missions were for coastal mapping / nautical charts and we did airport surveys for the FAA (making the approach charts). The work was fairly complex, besides the basics of exposure you had to set the crab angle for the flight line and match the ground speed of the plane to a traveling grid so that the overlap (usually 60%) stayed consistent throughout. We shot color (ektachrome) color IR, and B&W (plus x of some sort) for the airport charts. Film choice depended on whether we were doing original mapping or just revising existing charts. We used the Wild RC-8 and 10 cameras - the fun part was loading the 250' rolls in the back of the aircraft in a changing bag in flight. The amount of film I shot in those days could be measured in miles ;-) When we weren't on mission I worked in the darkroom - we processed the B&W in house, color got sent off to a specialty lab. We did all the printing in house - up to 40" cibachromes and BW. It was a fantastic environment to learn how to print -especially the color work, and was great foundation for me when I moved into my magazine and commercial career.

[Drew Wiley]

That sounds fascinating. What facility were those large prints made in? Regular 10X10 enlargers or something special?

[Tin Can]

There are WW11 films on youtube of parallel flying that explains it all

Difficulty was getting sideways detail

[Mark Sampson]

In my early days at Kodak we had a Wild enlarger for 9-1/2" aerial film. It was huge and finished in slime-green crackle-finish paint; I called it the "dinosaur". A beautifully made machine; however, it was equipped with a Wild wide-angle lens that had been designed to correct the lens coverage falloff of a Wild aerial camera lens... since we never saw such negatives, we never used the enlarger. It was government-owned and eventually they took it back; it was a monstrously specialized piece of equipment.
Later on, my group took on the task of making promotional color enlargements for the Aerial Systems group. They were sales and support for the commercial aerial photography field. So I made numerous 40x40" color enlargements from 9x9" color negs; mostly "scenic" oblique views for display. At the time, Kodak was introducing new C-41 process aerial color negative films. They were a huge improvement over the older emulsions and the prints (if I say so myself) were spectacular. Those were made with a 10x10" Fotar enlarger and a Super-Chromega F color head; Rodenstock lenses. It did not do rectification, though; photogrammetry and mapping, as described above, was not part of our work. In fact I've learned several new things from this thread!

[bdkphoto]

That sounds fascinating. What facility were those large prints made in? Regular 10X10 enlargers or something special?

The lab was in the Commerce building in DC -for the large prints, the enlargers ( I have no memory of who made the enlargers) must have been specifically designed for the aerial film, which was on rolls so you spooled through it to get to the proper frame that needed be printed-- the film was never cut so you were always dealing with the full 250'rolls. For color we ran a Hope processor dry-to dry, B&W was souped by hand in 50" trays - quite the art to handling the paper. The was a room for automated contact printing, and a full 35 mm/multi format darkroom as well with Omega xl and color head. I spent as much time in there as possible once I finished my required work so I could work on my own projects.

[Tin Can]

During WW11

Women were the best at interepting the film

Lot's of camoflage to fool them

https://www.archives.gov/research/cartographic/aerial-photography/foreign-photography

[Mark J]

That's an impressive beast. It's very interesting to see what impressive kit was made over the years for specialised applications by the big names like Zeiss & Kodak.