When as a teenager I got my first 35mm camera in the early 1960’s, I took hundreds of pictures with varying degrees of success. I was living in Singapore and my camera was a mid range priced rangefinder with a fixed 45mm f2.8 lens. It was a Samoca, not a name you’ll find nowadays and shortly after getting it I discovered the first of the new SLR’s, the Asahi Pentax. Alas I was never able to upgrade to anything as exoctic as that and had to make do. I therefore purchased a ‘2x converter’- a screw on lens that gave me about a 90mm, losing a stop and a half on the way though. It also had terrible vignetting , which blackend the image making only the centre 2/3rds useable.
Here’s a picture of a Meteor landing at Changi in 1963. Alas like all my pictures at that time it’s in black and white. Colour was only slow speed Kodachrome slides, expensive and they still faded all too easily.
Meteor F8 (TT) WA880 – this one has survived I’m pleased to say!
It obviously isn’t a patch on the pics that modern ‘dynamic autofocus’ cameras can give! Firstly my max shutter speed of 300mSec just couldn’t ‘stop’ motion, so even with panning with the action, I always got some blur. Secondly exposure was by a hand held light meter, or just good old rule of thumb. In the Singapore light most airborne subjects were just too contrasty to get accurately on the film.
Thirdly I was at the mercy of the processing of the local photo shops. This proved to be the undoing of many of my pic, as there was no ‘automatic’ processing machines and therefore temperature control of the chemicals was a hit and miss affair.
Eventually I started to do my own film developing and enlarging and things got better.
I’m still interested in photographing planes and my 70s Olympus OM cameras will need replacing, however I don’t think expensive modern digital gear will ever replace the fantastic access that being a kid on an exciting overseas RAF camp gave me 40 years ago.
KLM Super Connie PH-LKE that exchanged captured Indonesian troops for Dutch ones from the Dutch west Indies. Start of the ‘Confrontation’ – March 1962.
David Taylor.
By: bazv - 24th January 2009 at 23:34
That Shackleton pic is superb 🙂
Absolutely…I love a bit of blurring :D:D:D
I can almost hear the old girl rumbling past !!
cheers baz
By: Dave G - 24th January 2009 at 17:17
That Shackleton pic is superb 🙂
By: Propstrike - 24th January 2009 at 13:39
Love that Shack- keep posting!
By: Postfade - 23rd January 2009 at 23:07
I think the advances in camera technology are fantastic. However I sometimes find aircraft pictures, particularly flying pic, as just too crisp and perfectly focused and rather lacking in the necessary ‘blur’ that the eye perceives when viewing motion. In the 60’s I had the most difficulty with capturing aircraft in flight because of the elements of both exposure and motion. These things are so easily improved on nowadays and I would be tempted to dive into Photoshop and add in some blur I think!
It would however have been great to have got a shot like this one of a Meteor target tug streaming it’s drogue rather crisper. Also a fixed standard lens on a 35mm camera was all I could afford then.
I love the fact that the Singapore locals on the road at the end of the runway ignore this Shackleton doing a very low run and don’t mind the fact that they are blurred! The camera only had 1/300 sec fastest speed, so accurate panning was necessary.
I was also struggling with the vagaries of film development in a tropical country. I finally bought a Durst enlarger and started doing all the processing including the development myself and eventually improved the results.
Here’s a shot of one of the of the last of the scheduled ‘big prop’ flights, a Qantas Super Connie in 1961. The new Qantas 707-138’s arrived within a few weeks.
This could have been a truly beautiful picture if the film grain wasn’t so pronounced. Caused by the incorrect development it received in ‘Georges Photo’ in Changi village!
No grain problem in this night shot of an RAF Brit though.
David Taylor.
By: pagen01 - 23rd January 2009 at 13:40
Aircraft photography has moved on so much in 40 years.
Has it though, yes the technology is greater, especially with digital, but your pictures prove that no technology can improve on nice crisp shots and atmosphere.
By: Jur - 21st January 2009 at 13:56
Beautiful pics! Old B&W photo’s have so much character.
By: PMN - 10th January 2009 at 20:34
PMN
The photos are back now…that’s obviously what happens when your Internet Provider does some maintenance! I noticed that lots of guys on the PPRuNe Historic aircraft forum host their pics on third party websites like Photobucket and they are often removed, after a time, making the thread somewhat ‘threadbare’.
Yes I’m a sound engineer and my company is called Postfade.David Taylor.
The KLM is superb! A wonderful piece of aviation history and very interesting to see.
It’s also nice to see another sound engineer around the forums. 🙂
Paul
By: Postfade - 10th January 2009 at 18:47
PMN
The photos are back now…that’s obviously what happens when your Internet Provider does some maintenance! I noticed that lots of guys on the PPRuNe Historic aircraft forum host their pics on third party websites like Photobucket and they are often removed, after a time, making the thread somewhat ‘threadbare’.
Yes I’m a sound engineer and my company is called Postfade.
David Taylor.
By: PMN - 10th January 2009 at 16:48
The photos arn’t showing at the moment unfortunately but I’d love to see them. I’m a huge fan of older film shots!
Just out of interest, your name doesn’t have any relevance to mixing desks does it? (Pre/post fade).
Paul
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January 10, 2009 at 2:55 pm