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If an alien landed on earth......


chris c

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and you had to answer this question WITHOUT mentioning weight or

money what would you say....If you mention either or both of the

unmentionables your out.

 

I have a Leica M7 (M6 etc) and I wish to document my trip to your

planet both in b+w and color. Understanding that I have unlimited

funds and herculean strength what equipment would you use to

accomplish all the tasks of full life long documentation?

 

Be specific: A Noct but only @ 1.0 not 1.4 & greater then a 50 cron

etc. Filters, film, flash etc

 

Thanks...

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Its academic. If the gases in our atmosphere have'nt fried your lungs then our species' rampant xenophobia will ensure you are destroyed within minutes of emerging from your craft. If a mob has'nt lynched you yet then the muggers will have killed you for your Leica M7 and lens(es).

 

If you avoided all that then the authorities will impound you and declare war on your planet. (It doesnt matter that its 100 light years away , they WILL declare war on it anyway!) Your M7 will be blown up in a controlled detonation by an anti-terrorist bomb squad.

 

A friend travelled to CA from here in the UK. He had a mountain bike in the hold of the aircraft and was waiting at the airport to be re-united with it after the flight. After some enquiries it emerged that his bike was in a large plastic bin having been hacksawed into many small pieces by airport security... "In case it contained explosives / narcotics / illegal immigrants / fruit" lurking inside the tubes of the frame!

 

He is an English cyclist and you are from Planet Zort. (or wherever)

 

You would not get 30 yards down the road before the same thing happened to your craft.

 

You will not have a Leica anyway because...

 

Being a stranger your research would indicate that 90 percent of people use some defective plastic P&S that is about 10 years old and still has the same film in it that it was purchased with along with a dead battery. You will naturally assume (being a logical little alien) that the majority of people will be using the best choice of camera so you will seek out a similar piece on E-bay. (And buy a huge quantity of Kodak Zoom Max 800 using the same logic.) And besides this choice helps you to blend in.

 

If you have survived un-molested so far then you are now hungry. Where do most people go for nourishment? MacDonalds of course.

 

Now you are dead.

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If you are short of money (how many aliens get issued with Amex?) then

the surface of the moon is littered with discarded NASA Hasselblads. Stop there first and pick a few up then you can sell all but one of them to collectors here on earth for a small fortune and keep one for your own use.

 

This will keep you in adequate funds for your trip.

 

The one you kept can be sold when your trip is complete to pay for the parking charges for your craft.

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Yes sorry. The juries still out on that one I grant you.

 

Imagine if the Russians had gone there first, the moon littered with old Lubitels and Kievs and faked up Leica 'replicas'. What a mess!

 

I guess the Americans did the Swedes an enormous favour though. In thousands of years time when inter galactic archeologists find these old cameras on the moons surface they will conclude that Swedish , Hasselblad toting Astronauts were the first men to walk on a celestial body.

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Chris, you will be spending most of your time running away from tabloid reporters and FBI agents. You will need a small outfit that you can shoot with quickly, and manage on the run. Use your M7. Get a 28mm Summicron; a 50mm Summicron; and a 90mm Tele-Elmarit. Unobtrusive, light, and a good spread of focal lengths with no need to mess around with external finders. You have to work fast. Keep the extra lenses in your space suit. It's hard to run with a bulky camera bag.

 

Take color slides. Your space vehicle may not have the 115 volts AC needed to run an Ektagraphic, so you'll need a 4x Schneider loup. If you can run a slide projector, don't use those cheap plastic Kodak lenses. You'll never see what your Leica can do. Use Buhl or Golden Navitar lenses; or get a Leica projector with Leica projection lenses. And for heaven's sake, don't show your Leica slides on the bulkhead of your spaceship. The curved surfaces will wreck the focus. Invest in a proper screen from Da-Lite; or at the very least, get a piece of foam-core board and paint it dead white.

 

Have you film processed locally before leaving. The cosmic rays in outer space might fog any undeveloped film. Watch out for airport X-Ray machines. Wait for the light and hold hands (or whatever you have) with the other pedestrians when crossing the street. Stay out of McDonald's and Burger Death. Visit Mexico, but don't drink the water. Ask permission before photographing the people there.

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Trevor,

 

If Ford Prefect could get his hands on an Amex card, then I guess any alien dumb enough to land here wouldn't have too hard a time getting its grubby paws/suckers/digit equivalents on one. Begs the question, though - what would the alien spend its Amex airmiles on?

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C'mon guys, you've never read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I think that's the literary diet Trevor's been snacking on.

 

If you haven't read any of the late great Douglas Adams' works, you ought to. Maybe while sipping a Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster...

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