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

[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/ca...gn-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.