[Leica] Forscher's lights

[rhart76 at gmail.com (Roger Hart)]

The Associated Press hired Forscher to modify a bunch of long Canon glass
(like the 800mm F/5.6) to Nikon mount. I believe the lenses were modified
for shooting the 1980 Olympics, and then were put into the equipment locker
in New York and shipped out for various assignments. I used the 800 several
times shooting auto racing in the 1980s.



On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 6:24 PM, Lawrence Zeitlin <lrzeitlin at 
gmail.com>wrote:

> Slobodan writes:
> "Didn't Forscher modify a Nikon with lights, in order irradiate the
>
> elmusion for low light shooting?"
>
> -------
>
> I don't know if Forscher was the first to do this but pre-exposure and
> latensification used to be old tricks of available light photographers and
> cinematographers to eke out the last residue of sensitivity of films.
> Pre-exposure involved exposing the film to low light levels either prior or
> after exposure. The idea was to get the image exposure over the toe of the
> sensitivity curve. It effectively provided an increase in apparent
> sensitivity of 1/2 to a full stop. Latensification involved exposing the
> film to mercury or ammonia vapors prior to exposure. It could also gain a
> one stop increase in sensitivity. These techniques are rarely used today in
> this era of ultra high speed films. You can find more about them by looking
> through old photo books and magazines. The use of lights in cameras was
> described in 1950s era magazines such as "35 MM Photography".
>
> One construction article suggested gluing 4 grain of wheat incandescent
> bulbs on the inside of a Leica M camera near the corners of the frame. The
> lights would be illuminated briefly by a battery switched on by the flash
> contacts. The article suggested that this would work well with B&W film but
> might give problems with color film because the lights would upset the
> color
> balance of daylight emulsions.
>
> I never tried gluing bulbs to the inside of my camera but I did experiment
> with pre-exposure and latensification. Both worked but there was too much
> variability in the process and it proved to be far more trouble than it was
> worth.
>
> Larry Z
>
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