Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/11/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Wonderful tale. Thanks. Kevin Hoffberg (925) 942-2772 Visit our website at www.inseon.com - -----Original Message----- From: owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us [mailto:owner-leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us] On Behalf Of Gary Todoroff Sent: Thursday, November 19, 1998 6:16 PM To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: [Leica] Helicopter, Hasselblad and Leica The helicopter aerial photography mapping flights officially ended today. The Coast Guard "co-op" budget has been used up, so the next flights for Humboldt State University will have to be in a rented Cessna fixed wing. After eleven flights in the beautiful Dolphins, a normal airplane will probably not be quite as exciting. But I won't be complaining - any time in the air is an exciting adventure that cameras have made possible for me. Altogether I logged 25 hours in the Dolphins with a diverse and great group of USCG airmen. We ended the missions today with Kevin Kleckner, the same pilot who flew my first flight back on Oct 14. Kevin is the same pilot I described a couple weeks ago who jumped into the Pacific ocean on a rescue operation when the swimmer was hurt by debris in the surf. My hat is off to a great bunch of guys. As for film, I shot 15-20 rolls of Velvia and Astia with the Leicas from the air and around the hanger. Sure is hard to beat the view out the open side door of a helicopter. Today's scenery was especially beautiful as we flew east of Eureka in clear skies over high ridges covered with the first snows of the year. A big slide show is planned for the Group Humboldt Bay "all hands muster" sometime soon. We were heading south this morning towards our second transect when I asked Kevin if he could swing a few degrees east in order to pass on the sunny side of a prominent peak. "No problem," he replied. "How close do you want to be." I looked at the 21mm Elmarit mounted on my M6. "As close as you feel comfortable with," I replied. He filled the frame wonderfully. With frosting covered trees below and snowy slopes just out the door, I was able to bracket several shots as we skimmed by just below the top of the mountain. The Hasselblads have done yeoman's duty during it all, with one ELM pointed straight down to capture stereo pairs and another sitting in the flight bag as a spare. I used the two 70mm backs on a couple of flights and they worked very well. Sixty transparencies on one roll looks quite impressive on the light table. I have spent hours marveling at the beauty in 3D of this part of the world from 1000 feet, picking out little details in the forests and fields below. On today's transects I switched back to the A12 magazines in order to use up some 120 film. However, the 70mm backs will see lots of duty in the future. We still have about 100 more transects to fly with 20 shots per transect. I just acquired a 70mm film processor (will do up to 100' at a time) and a 70mm film dryer. These were surplus military items, both brand new and not very expensive. Now I have a whole new set of variables to test. And so to the darkroom. . . Gary Todoroff Tree LUGger