Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/11/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Flights last week continued my adventure and education in aerial photography. I sure do enjoy that two million dollar tripod - a Coast Guard Dolphin helicopter. Our mapping transects are getting farther away, so the new technique is to set up the Hasselblad ELM as completely as possible, fly to an air field closest to our first sight and land briefly. With turbines still running, it takes me three or four minutes to pull the camera mount out the open door, strap it and myself down and take off again. Temperatures got down to freezing above mountains on one flight. I suppose the wind chill makes it considerably lower, but I wear an insulated deck suit that has kept me cozy so far. I love the landings at the remote fields. Inland we landed at the tiny settlement called Ruth, flying along the Ruth Lake Reservoir first. Other landings were at Crescent City (80 miles north of Eureka) and Shelter Cove (50 miles south). Both are small airstrips with approaches over open ocean near rocky cliffs. With the side door open on takeoff, I have been taking some shots with the Leica. Last week, I mainly took along a handy CL with 35mm Summicron and 90mm Elmarit. With Velvia, a typical exposure looking straight down is 1/500th at f2.8. Oblique shots get about a stop less light, so I usually go to 1/1000th. I also took up a Graphlex XL once with 6x7 roll film back and got a few photos with it out the open door. We used about 50 Leica slides when Commander Bob Durfey spoke to about 70 guys at our church Men's Fellowship dinner last Monday. With shots of the air base, crews, helicopters and in-flight scenery, they established the kind of job Bob does heading up Group Humboldt Bay. His talk was inspired, using the analogy of "rescuer" in his work to the Rescuer who can save our souls. In all his search and rescue missions, Bob said he had yet to see anyone refusing to get in the hoist basket as their boat was going down! If only people were as willing with the Lord, he added. I printed six Leica slides on 11x14 Cibachromes as appreciation for all the help from the friendly air and ground crews. Much to my delight, they are going to frame and display them in the entrance to the air station. These "Coasties" are really impressive people. My flights in the sunshine are a piece of cake for them, but the real test is in the wild weather they operate in when people are in trouble. Just last week, the base hosted a memorial for three helicopter crews that have been lost off of our Northcoast. One was in 1964, but two others have gone down just in the last couple of years, flying the same Dolphin class aircraft. Then this Saturday, a woman was swept into the sea off of Big Lagoon, just 15 miles north of the air station. Visiting our coast for the first time, she did not realize how dangerous the waves and tides were. She was collecting rocks and turned her back on the ocean, something you learn to never do around here. A wave washed her out. Her daughter nearly went after her but was restrained by a local person or she would have surely been lost, too. The Coast Guard helicopter arrived in a few minutes, but the rescue swimmer was injured by debris in the waves. So Kevin Kleckner, the co-pilot, volunteered to go in. I had just flown with him two days before - in fact, we had circled his house in Eureka just a few blocks from mine to take some photos. Down in the water, he was able to put the woman in the rescue basket, then he and the swimmer were several minutes in open ocean until another Dolphin was able to hoist them aboard. Unfortunately, the woman died at the hospital shortly after. This is not the California coast you see on Baywatch, and it rarely gives second chances to those who do not understand its danger. Back to photography, the 1000' altitude stereo shots with the Hasselblad have been stunning. I am learning to use a stereo viewer with the transparencies on the light table. Tall redwoods seem to just about poke you in the eye and I almost fall into the depths of 3D mountain gorges below. Mostly I have been shooting Ektachrome 100 Plus, and the exposure is really dialed in perfectly now. The 80mm/f2.8 Zeiss Planar T* is serving very well at f4, resolving colors beautifully, with sharpness degraded just a tiny bit by vibrations, even at 1/500th. But we can still count the branches on weathered snags below, so nobody is complaining. If the weather holds, we'll be doing three more flights next week. I'm really looking forward to the one to Point Arena, almost an hour flight south of Eureka. I believe that is where they filmed the final scenes from the "Forever Young" movie with Mel Gibson landing his B25 bomber near the lighthouse. Sure has been a fun way to use Leicas and Hasselblads! Regards, Gary Todoroff Tree LUGger