[Leica] Helicopter, Hasselblad and Leica

["Gary Todoroff" <datamaster@humboldt1.com>]

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