1) Polaroid basically stopped evolving at the Land camera because Edwin Land ended up essentially developing the National Reconaissance Office. Donald Welzenbach opens his article with the influence of Edwin Land in the development of the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft and Bissell's role in implementing the program. Welzenbach goes on to discuss the involvement of many other government and contractor personnel who were associated with the early development of strategic reconnaissance in the US. He makes it clear that these individuals laid the foundation for Corona, with many of them continuing to be affiliated with the Corona program. What at first might seem to be independent programs is actually a continuum of technological development. Basically from the U-2 to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory all photo reconnaissance for the United States passed through optical blocks and capture technology invented, developed, refined and deployed by Edwin Land. His company, meanwhile, had to effectively fend for itself because its chief scientist was off saving the world from Communism. 2) That's a TLR or Twin Lens Reflex camera. They're horrible. They're the Hipster's Hipster's camera. At least, that's my opinion. They're the sort of thing you use when you want to shoot on gigantic film (they take 120/220) but don't want to spend any money on lenses. The one the hipsters like the best is the Rolleiflex which can still be yours for a mere six grand. 3) The third is a field camera. They're for taking ridiculously large negatives, which made a lot of sense back when film was shit. I had a Voigtlander Avus but never got around to cutting my own film for it because trying to make a 6x9cm of Velvia in perfect darkness was the stuff of nightmares, and then you have to develop it. They're cool to put on a curio shelf. Do not try to use them. ;-)Two individuals were driving forces behind the decision to build a photoreconnaissance satellite for the US. They were James Killian, Jr., president of MIT, and Edwin Land of the Polaroid Corporation. Killian chaired a committee that was established to examine the threat of a surprise attack on the United States. Land chaired a panel that was responsible for finding approaches to monitor the military capabilities of the USSR (Deutch, 1995). Their names come up in a number of the articles in the monograph. A third name, related to implementing the decision, also appears often in Corona's story--Richard Bissell. He was a visionary of the 1950s who saw that the assessment of international tensions during in the Cold War--with its nuclear weapons threat--required more than simply accurate political intelligence, but also accurate factual information to determine the practical effects of tactical and strategic political moves. Bissell saw that the way to collect this kind of information was by applying technology to intelligence problems (Ranelagh, 1987). As a CIA program manager in the U-2 and Corona era, he brought technology to bear on the decisions associated with creating a national-level strategic reconnaissance capability for the US.
It's strange to me how the line between impractical-cool and impractical-you-hipster seems completely arbitrary but so many of us draw it in about the same place. Make some daguerreotypes? That's awesome! Palladium prints by inverting a digital photo and printing it on an overhead transparency? Cheating, but neat! Use a TLR? You hipster.2) That's a TLR or Twin Lens Reflex camera. They're horrible. They're the Hipster's Hipster's camera. At least, that's my opinion. They're the sort of thing you use when you want to shoot on gigantic film (they take 120/220) but don't want to spend any money on lenses. The one the hipsters like the best is the Rolleiflex which can still be yours for a mere six grand.
It's less arbitrary than you think: it's not just about the impracticality, it's about the forced impracticality. Daguerreotypes can't be made any other way than by making a daguerreotype. Palladium prints require palladium printing. TLRs, on the other hand, are just film cameras. They're film cameras that resolve some mechanical difficulties with certain kinds of photographic technique that arose in the 1920s but those difficulties were handily sorted out by the 50s. Nobody who looks at your photos knows you took them with a Rolleiflex. More than that, nobody cares. It's like the Holga movement - nobody gives a shit that you took that picture with a crappy plastic Chinese camera except other hipsters.
So what you're saying is, if you want to be cool, you have to learn how to pull something off that's not so easy to do. I'm on mobile at the moment, but somewhere in my post history is an electronic exhibit of a daguerreotype photo. It's mind boggling how detailed it is, how far you can zoom in. When I get home tonight I'll edit this comment with the link. Edit: Here it is.
Dude. I knew who Edwin Land was, kind of, as a contemporary of people like Howard Hughes (who I also don't know as much about as I probably should). But I did not know that he did such important work for the government. That makes him seem so much bigger than life all of the sudden. I'm kind of surprised I don't hear him mentioned more often. Shoot, if I cared about Reddit Karma, I'd share what you'd share in r/todayilearned. He seems like the kind of guy people would get a kick out of talking about. What I'm about to say might sound stupid, but in my defense I don't know much about cameras. After clicking that link, I just learned an asston. I had no idea that there were twin reflex and single reflex cameras. I just figured the form factor of the Rediflex and cameras like it were because they were cheaper and easier to make, and despite the drawbacks of the viewfinder, easier to use. I didn't even know they were popular among hipsters, but that kind of makes sense because I think I first discovered Through the Viewfinder Photography on Instagram or Pintrest or something of the sort. It's really interesting as to how deep of a rabbit hole photography is. On the surface, it seems pretty easy and straightforward, but I've browsed a book or two on photography techniques before and there's a surprising amount of technical skill that goes into it. It's no wonder so many people get hooked on it as a hobby. As an aside, I'm keeping my eye out for a Kodak Brownie with an Art Deco Face, because it's a cool looking thing. I'll be damned if I pay $150 for one like I usually see them for sale as. I mean, they're cool, but they're not a hundred dollar bauble cool. Shit. I just looked up field cameras on Wikipedia and check out the camera shown in the article. That's a pretty little thing right there. We don't have any film for the cameras and while I think if I tried hard enough we could hunt some down, I don't know if it's worth the effort. That said, I bet with how dirty and scratched the lenses are, the photos themselves might have some interesting effects on them. Thank you. You're like one of Hubski's hobbyist historians and that's pretty awesome.
I wouldn't share it if I didn't find it interesting and didn't have a pretty good guess that you'd find it interesting, too. What's kind of mindblowing about Edwin Land is we know he worked on shit from CORONA to the MOL, but that's only because those projects have been declassified (MOL just last July. Add in the KH-9 HEXAGON and KH-11 KEYHOLE and you're modern. I mean, I watched 'em put up a KH-11 in 2011. KH-9 is still so secret that the NRO just sort of dumped one in a museum on 24 hours notice so that friends and family could finally see it (25 years after they last flew) and then tucked it back into the shadows. Meanwhile, the NRO will literally give KH-11s to NASA but won't tell anybody what they are, where they came from, or who worked on them. Considering the KH-9 was easily the most complicated mechanical device we've ever lofted into space, and considering the KH-11 was hardly developed in a vacuum, it's probable that Edwin Land did their optics, too... which means he basically was the US spy satellite program. William Burrows made the argument (back in '82) that the US space surveillance apparatus prevented nuclear war by allowing verification of things that would have been unverifiable. And while SR-71s and U-2s had dozens of missiles fired at them (sometimes multiple times per flight), the satellites were beyond harm via treaty. There aren't many people who can legitimately lay claim to Saving The World. Edwin Land is one of them, though. 50 years from now a bunch of shit is going to be declassified and it's going to be a hell of a story. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ If'n you're gonna fetish on old cameras, Voigtlanders aren't a bad way to go. They're literally the oldest name in optics, although they were killed from 1965 until the 2000s because - get this - Carl Zeiss purchased them and ate them because ZEISS wanted their optical technology. Zeiss basically allowed them to operate independently back in 1999 or so, and they came out with the Bessa L. They're still making cameras and lenses that you can put on, like, your normal camera and they kinda rip. Price an Avus on eBay. You'll see that you get hella more for your $150.
Isn't Carl Zeiss like the Luxottica of camera lenses? I think I heard someone say somewhere that if it's a plain old digital camera, it probably has Zeiss lenses. Speaking of lenses that are old and scratched and full of character, is it possible to put them on modern cameras? I figure you'd get a more genuine blur/scratch result than anything Photoshop could do. As for Land, I wonder if people gossiped about him when he was away working for the government. I don't know much about space equipment or military devices, but the idea that one guy could be a lynch pin figure during the Cold War in such a way is so exciting to think about. That'd put him really high up there in importance in American history and I really feel like we're doing him a disservice by not talking about him. I might have to pick up a boom about the Cold War. Know any easy reads?
Zeiss optics got diluted a bunch when Sony started slapping that name on everything. This is new, though. Zeiss is the shit, and in real camera terms (not shit point'n'shoot iPhone cameras) they still are. Zeiss Master Primes are the absolute gold standard. There are lots of optics that will go on lots of cameras through easy mount adapters. The question is "screw mount" or "bayonet mount." It's not as easy as all that but, for example, a Nikon F-mount lens from 1959 will screw right onto the Nikon you buy from Amazon today. Canon pissed off a lot of people by switching their mount system in the late '80s, if that tells you how far back you can go. Hasselblad glass? No problem. Field cameras? Well most of them just have a plate on the front that you can literally build something out of plywood. As far as "character" (IE Instagram bullshit), a scratched lens will mostly give you halo. A fungal lens will be cloudy. Actual optics problems never reveal themselves as anything but negative stuff; I mean, yeah, a really fungal lens pointed at the sun will give you pretty wicked flare but most people would rather avoid flare when you're serious about it. All the Instagrammy bullshit we've come to know and love emulates what happens when the negative is abused, not the optics. The thing to keep in mind about Edwin Land is that this shit was super secret squirrel until super recently. I mean, the NRO wasn't declassified until 1992. Like I said, the MOL was totally classified until less than a year ago. As far as books, we can narrow that one down. What really interests you? Because I grew up with this shit and I have opinions.
Fuck me. Some of those lenses are worth more than cars! I'm looking at Zeiss's Wikipedia Page and I see that they make lenses for a ton of other stuff than just photography. It doesn't say why or how they started branching out though. I wonder if they were deliberately trying to diversify or if companies started coming to them because they knew that Zeiss knew how to make good lenses. Similarly, I wonder if the government approached Land, or if Land came to them and said "Hey, want some help?" As for using old lenses, it's nice to see that device manufacturers maintained backwards compatibility. I could swear though, that people like using old lenses, but maybe if it's not for the scratchiness and the fog, maybe it's the older lenses aren't manufactured as well, so the images come out a little bit warped? I dunno. I'll have to look into what I'm thinking of, and when I do, I'll share it on here and tag you. Cold War wise, what I would really love is to read a book on how it affected our pop culture, from video games to movies to comic books. That actually might be a bit of a tall order though, I know, because historians don't seem to pay much mind to pop culture for some reason. So, if you have a book that focuses on the key people of the Cold War and how their actions influenced history, that'd be pretty nifty. Going back to Land, he's a great example of how one person potentially had such a huge impact. That's just something that's amazing to think about.
People came to Zeiss because Zeiss made optics. Those optics were good. They have a reputation on the high end because they've earned it; a shitty Sony pocketcam may not take the best pictures but it's not because the optics suck. Granted, you'll get more effect out of a Zeiss prime the size of your arm than you will a single-element lens the size of an Advil but they still make good glass. People like using old lenses 'cuz they're CHEEP. There's nothing about a lens that gets worse with age, assuming they're well-kept. Glass is glass. Newer lenses are generally better but older lenses work pretty damn well, so long as you don't need all the ultrasonic motors and computer control. This is why the backwards compatibility matters - in this day and age, Moore's Law is likely to make your camera body better every 18 months, but the glass is the glass. This is why once you shoot Nikon you're likely to keep shooting Nikon - you have hella more in glass than you do in the body. There's no useful effect out of old glass other than vignetting, and that just means the lens is poorly matched to the body. So... Cold War. The problem is, you're looking for a set of anecdotes, and while I could give you several about everything, I don't want to write a book for you. It's not that historians pay no mind, it's that it's difficult to come up with a cultural perspective that really says anything. You also have to keep in mind that you're asking for an overview of 40 years of history and that's a tall order. Tony Judt has you covered but it's a slog. You finish that fucker on Audible and they give you a badge. No lie. Lemme give you one you might find more interesting. It isn't particularly about the Cold War, but it might be right up your alley.
Huh. I never knew that about lenses. So, I guess you could say, that cameras themselves lose considerable value over time (barring certain circumstances) but lenses, if well taken care of, are a sound investment. With that in mind, back to repairing my wife's busted cameras, not that we would put the money into them, but I wonder if repairing the. Would increase their value substantially if they were made operable again with new lenses . . . As an aside, I should look into Zeiss's stock history. Not that I'm an investor or anything, but I wonder if there's a correlation between their diverse target markets and the overall health of the company. Both those books look really good. The Amazon description for Postwar make it sound very compelling, but one hell of a chore. You're dead on about The Ten Cent Plague though. Same with A-Z Photography. I think I'm gonna call my bookstore tomorrow and see about ordering them. If I can and I get my hands on them, I'll try to start a thread about them. I think I'd love to discuss both.
Also: people are still taking pictures with Linhof Teknikas. You can still buy them. They're a bit more expensive than Horsemans so you don't see them as often but... shit. I haven't seen a 4x5 in the wild since about 2002. Thing is, you can't get tubthumping images without having a tubthumping neg because nobody is making a sensor that's multiple inches by multiple inches. A contact print off an 8x10 negative? It's something to behold. The trick is...
I don't think we would experiment with film, that's a lot of effort for people who are really passionate. For passing fanciers lime us, it'd be impractical. I am thinking of gathering up a few things though and taking them to a pawnshop to surprise my wife with a gently used DSLR and then maybe find her a book on photography. I think she'd have fun with it.
This is the book. No lie. I owned a couple dozen backintheday and this one is far and away the most useful single book.
Sweet! I'm gonna hunt that down! I don't know if it's up your alley or not, but a few years ago we got some books on colors and layouts by Jim Krause and they're very good books for beginners. Very easy to use.