The following is a long story, but unlike a certain previous post from me,
this one is entirely true.
Synopsis: Olympus photographer achieves modest published success shooting a
missile launch with infrared film.
It was to be a very complex missile engagement with no less than five
vehicles in flight simultaneously
(http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/10/14/missile.test.ap/index.html) . I arranged
for the company photographer to photograph the mission from several hundred
meters behind the launchers. The Range provides trajectory photography that
is used to calculate the position history of each missile with great
accuracy - typically an order of magnitude better than radar tracking. They
produce excellent work using a large number of very sophisticated long
telescopes and high frame rate cameras, mostly radar-guided. We made no
attempt to duplicate their work. Instead, Scott and I planned to get
something more descriptive and documentary.
With knowledge of the planned mission, I estimated the field of view
necessary to capture the entire flight in one frame. Allowing headroom for
text to be inserted (always plan for that Aviation Week cover. . .), I
decided that the angle of view required dictated a 21 mm lens, shooting
portrait format. While I was discussing these plans with a colleague in
marketing (they pay for such things), he suggested using infrared film. I
explained to him that infrared film did not actually capture the radiant IR
from objects, which is what he was thinking. However, it seemed to me that
the enhanced contrast between a clear sky and a very reflective rocket smoke
plume that Kodak High-Speed Infrared would provide might really help the
image. So, we planned to add a camera with HIE to our arsenal. Scott would
set up a number of his n*k*ns and his Hasselblad XPAN. I asked him to use
two of my OMs, just so I could say that I had used Olympus gear. I contacted
Tom Scales, who had very graciously offered to loan me a lens before, and
asked to borrow a second 21 mm lens. I caught him with his 21 in the shop.
I then went back to the drawing board and convinced myself that a 24 mm
would do. So, the plan was for several wide angle n*k*ns and a Hasselblad
XPAN with color negative film; and my two OMs: an OM-2N/21 mm f/3.5 with
Provia 100F and an OM-4T/24 mm f/2.8 with HIE.
Unfortunately, during the mission I would have to be at my station in the
Range Control Center, some 30 miles (50 km) away, leaving Scott to trip all
of the shutters when things got exciting. The day came, and we all drove out
into the dark desert at 0300 ("oh-dark-thirty"). When we got to our
positions, we learned that the target missile at Ft. Wingate in northern New
Mexico had a problem with guidance software that could not be corrected in
time to shoot that day. The weather was marginal that day for the mission,
but terrible for photography, so it was good that the shot was postponed two
days. Scott, however, had to be in Washington for a major convention on
Saturday. That left me without a qualified photographer and down to two
cameras. First off, I decided to play it safe and swap the Provia for some
400 speed color negative film. Then, I was going to have to pick someone
available at the launch site to trip the winder remote as the missiles flew.
Since it would not be a photographer, I could not count on him to adjust
exposure setting depending on conditions.
The next day I drove an hour out into the desert to the launch site. Most
everyone was resting up for the next morning, so I had the site pretty much
to myself. The site is in the gypsum flat north of Lake Lucero and White
Sands National Monument and is very austere - just some survey stakes, a
couple of porta-potties, some instrumentation trailers, and miles and miles
of white sand (gypsum crystals, actually). I set my tripod up next to a
wooden light pole and began emplacing the cameras on a homemade wooden
bracket. After sighting the cameras in using the launchers for reference, I
secured the tripod to the light pole with lots of duct tape. I would have
to leave the cameras in place for 22 hours and I was concerned not only that
they might be knocked out of alignment, but that the tripod might get run
over by a truck in the night. Both cameras had Winder 2s attached. I had
fabricated a junction box to connect both winders to one Olympus Remote Cord
and had thoroughly checked it out at home. For some reason, it did not work
at all now. On pressing the button once, the OM-2N began running at full
speed through the roll and didn't stop when the button was released. The
OM-4T fired the shutter once, then the winder motor continued to run without
advancing film. I was half way through the roll of color neg before I could
get them stopped. I needed full rolls for the mission, so these now became
test rolls. I was pretty uncertain about the infrared exposure, so that
wasn't all bad. Fortunately, I'd brought spare rolls of each, but only one
each. I fired off a number of shots on each roll for test exposure at my
chosen settings, and bracketed the infrared plus and minus one and two
stops. It wasn't exactly the same time of day, but it was the best I could
do. After that, I troubleshot the winder problem. I never did figure it
out, but they stopped running away when I set both to "single" instead of
"sequence." My shutter tripper was going to have to pace the exposures
anyway, so that wasn't a real problem.
I loaded both camera with the final rolls. For the IR film, that required
removing the camera from the bracket and loading the film inside a changing
bag. For those of you not familiar with Kodak High Speed Infrared, the
cassette must always be handled in total darkness, hence the changing bag.
I reset everything and taped literally everything with ripped duct tape
strips - the camera backs, the camera mode switches, the aperture rings,
focus rings, and the plug connections. On the OM-4T camera back tape I
wrote "Do Not Open except in total Darkness!" Then, I doubled bagged the
setup in white garbage bags to protect it from the gypsum dust, which was
already collecting on every surface.
As I drove back to civilization, I eased the rent car over to the left to
straddle a stick on the pavement. As the last instant, I saw the brown
diamond pattern. I quickly turned around and drove back to face a VERY
angry western diamondback rattlesnake. You'd be pissed, too, if you were
awakened from a pleasant nap on warm asphalt by a car passing over you at 55
mph. We stared at one another for a minute, then the snake moved off the
road and I went into town. Since I was shooting infrared, I took the
survival of this pit viper as a good omen.
In Las Cruces, I found a portrait/one-hour lab that could soup the infrared
for me. After lunch I reviewed the film and determined that my basic
setting seemed to produce a good negative, so I did not go back out to the
site to adjust my camera setting. Then to bed and try to sleep.
Early the next morning, after completing the missile arming and retreating
to the camera site, one of my pad engineers removed the bags from the
cameras and waited. He was quick on the Olympus Remote Release, and got
most of each roll exposed as the missiles flew out.
Some weeks later the company published the one of the IR images on the front
page of a company newsletter. They also made me a set of 16 by 20 prints.
I am very pleasantly surprised that the images held up so well in that large
a print. One of the images can be seen at
http://members.home.com/zuikos/Index.htm
Technical particulars:
Kodak High Speed Infrared film
OM-4T with Zuiko 24 mm f/2.8 lens
Automatic exposure with Exposure Index of 250, metered through a 25A deep
red filter
Lens aperture at f/8, exposure probably at about 1/60 s
dimpled pressure plate covered with backing paper from 120 film
Regards,
Gary Edwards
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