STS-95: cameras used on the shuttle mission

[jim_chow]

I saw a magazine yesterday (in Japan) solely devoted to the camera

equipment used on the STS-95 space shuttle flight w/ John Glenn.

Interesting. Most of the stuff was pretty much stock, as it was being

used inside the pressurized crews quarters. The MF cameras used were

two Hassy ELS (motor drives built-in on the bottom, prism on top) w/

the 40, 100, and 250 CF lenses. Other equipment were some Nikon F4's,

lots of video equipment (much more than photography equipment). The

camera used outdoors mounted to the suit on an arm was a custom Nikon

EVA.

 

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They also featured a new camera that is scheduled to fly in April

1999. It's by far the most advanced-looking one. It's made by Linhof.

I think it's for outdoor work (but I couldn't quite translate all the

text) and has two large grips on either side (those big grips Linhof

uses on their LF cameras), sort of like on a device designed for

diving. The magazine appears to be a custom data 70. The lens is a

fixed schneider 90/5.6 super angulon (big...at least a 4 inch

diameter). The aperture and shutter speeds are on the lens and are

switches that slide in a slot rather than a rotating ring. I didn't

see a focusing ring as we know it but the check list on top did say

to focus, so I guess it might be some kind of internal focusing

mechanism. It looked more like a creme-colored, 903swc on steriods

w/out the top viewfinder. All the cameras had checklists imprinted on

metal plates affixed to the top (e.g., set aperture, set speed, check

focus, verify drawslide is removed, etc.). No where did it say

anything about locking up the mirror! :-)

 

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For film, they used 56 rolls of 135 E100S, 2 rolls of velvia 70, 4

rolls of Kodak infrared 70, and 44 rolls of E100S 70.The magazine has

pages listing all the equipment, including part numbers, weights, how

they were stored and in what equipment bags, etc. I guess this is the

only place where a publisher can expect to sell enough issues to

justify printing a magazine of this topic.:-)

[scott_eaton]

I'm possibly wrong on this, but I thought some of those F4's were

utilizing hi-rez capture backs as opposed to film?

 

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//scott