THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

[BuckyD]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

"This BUD's for You!"... Reno NCAR - Wed. 9/14/83: Steve Hinton & the Chino POF gang wrenching on Race #1 Super Corsair - 'Bud Light Special' (NX31518). You just HAD to love watchin' that big ole' bent-wing corncob-motored bird polish the pylons! Sure do miss her! DBD

[Jan]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

Great to see nightshots from the days when I wasn´t there. Thanx!

Here is one of mine from this year:

[BuckyD]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

Hi Jan - Looking at your super photo - I feel like I can even 'hear' September Fury's ferocious roar of power, and those prop tips hissing so close by! BIG THX for sharing.

Here's a couple of Reno 1981 night shots of the late & great former Race #5 Red Baron RB-51 crew chief- Randy Scoville working on the prop installation on Don Whittington's Race #09 PRECIOUS METAL (N5483V).

DBD

[BuckyD]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

Here's a trio of midnite oil shots of John Crocker's P-51D Race #6 'SUMTHIN' ELSE' (NX51VC):

The first shot was taken at civil twilight on the evening of Wed. 9/11/83 - capturing a test run of it's Jack Hovey-prepared Merlin engine at power. (I was atop a step ladder using a tripod w/folded legs as a monopod - attempting to be steady enough to capture a blue exhaust flame pic. I found myself handicapped from the ladder vibrating, combined with my own body shake from the chill of the night air (& praying #6 would stay put in her wheel chocks!). You can see I wasn't quite successful. I should mention here, that most all the night shots I've posted for this thread were taken using Kodachrome ASA-64 & sometimes ASA-25 color slide film.

The second pair of photographs were shot on Fri. 9/16/85, and document veteran crew chief - Bill Kerchenfaut (holding the flash light) & Race 6 team members working on the Mustang's propeller assembly. DBD

[sierra fox]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

D@MN Bucky!!!! Some guys have all the opportunity, thanks for all the great shots. Here's a couple i got back in 95. I know they've been posted here and elsewhere a time or two, just wanted to join in the fun

BTW, any night shots of the Red Baron???

[BuckyD]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

D@MN Bucky!!!! Some guys have all the opportunity, thanks for all the great shots. Here's a couple i got back in 95. I know they've been posted here and elsewhere a time or two, just wanted to join in the fun

BTW, any night shots of the Red Baron???

"WOW & WHOA!"- Those are two EXCELLENT nite shots of The Big Buick & Precious Metal Mixmaster running up & thank YOU for posting THEM (& for your kind compliments on my pics). The Race #8 shot has a real 'outer space fantasy' feel & The Griffon Mixmaster makes me think of a genuine Fire Breathing Dragon from Medieval lore!!!

Have a few excellent RB-51 shots, including some sunset stuff, but no nite shots unfortunately. (I WISH!). First started shooting 35mm at Reno '79, but got tied up crewing on #69 Jeannie doing the all paint work with my pal Terry Pyles - so very little free time to take pictures. Plus, I didn't really start experimenting much with night photography until Reno '81.

I was lucky to learn 35mm fundamentals from my talented friend & airshow compadre - Neal Nurmi, and learned the rest from keeping track of my camera mistakes while shooting tons of slow ASA slide film (ASA 25 & 64) & B&W films: Tech-Pan (ASA 25)/Plus-X(ASA 125)/Tri-X(ASA 400)/T-MAX(ASA-400) & Ilford XP1 at their rated ASA speeds AND with all sorts of push & pull shooting. Then going into the dark room for hours on end learning B&W printing techniques, and what these films were capable of. Much has been bypassed in the new high-tech digital age!

BuckyD

[Shawn Aro]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

using CS3 Shawn

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

I was lucky to learn 35mm fundamentals from my talented friend & airshow compadre - Neal Nurmi <--- snip ---> Much has been bypassed in the new high-tech digital age!

Having only dabbled with 35mm, barely touching on the slow film push technique (taught me by Mark K.) I then was one of the first to "go digital" when the D1 came out at the "affordable" price of $5000. (previous DSLR's were closer to 20k )

It is now interesting to watch an "old" film guru (Neal) as he adapts (if you can call it that) and accepts (I think he'd actually say.. he LOVES) digital... !

The nice thing about digi is that you take out the variable of film.. particularly the risk of what can happen at the lab.. if you were doing your own Bucky, you REALLY lessened the risk of stuff I saw when I started spending a lot of $$ on good slide film.. biggest risk seemed to be dirty emulsion... which I can see in some of the scanned slides today.

I don't think there's any question that most will go or have gone digital, the question that remains is archival... how in the world will we ensure we don't loose our work!

Having delt with the loss of what I considered some very valuable work (most of PRS 2007 and all of the last shoot for Thunder Over Reno) by losing an HD... I now double and triple backup... still, no guarantee that some sort of natural or man made electronic/magnetic event will wipe that out..

It's doubtful that 100 years from now, someone will open a long forgotten box and find a workable set of digital images.. now.. how bout same scenario with a box of old transparancies....

Hope someone comes up with a "sure" way to archive someday!

Thanks for sharing your exceptional and very rare work here Bucky!

Wayne

[MRussell]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

This is easily one of my favorite AAFO threads in the past year. Thank you all.

[BuckyD]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

'ARCHIVAL' - appears to be a dubious term relating to both 'vintage' film photography AND digital photography as well. I am convinced that Kodachrome slide transparency color dye emulsions are the most stable film there is - when properly stored in 'archival' protective slide vue sheets in cool & dry stable storage environments. Have copied many original WW2 Kodachromes that are as vivid as when they were first processed. Mine go back to 1979, and they are still perfect. Ecktachrome (E-6) on the other hand, doesn't stand the test of time very well (and same for color print film). Have handled many old Ecktachrome vintage transparencies from the late Forties & early Fifties that have undergone severe color emulsion dye shifts, turning to magenta eventually (rate depends somewhat again on storage & climate standards). B&W is very stable, except for the real old vintage silver nitrate films. Lookout for flood or fire, though! I can see there's alot of issues with digital 'archiving' also, huh? Certainly not a perfect technology yet. Everything's got pros & cons, no matter what.

I went ahead and bought myself a Nikon Coolscan film scanner & Epson Stylus XL large flatbed for the purpose of archiving all my best photos, and sound recordings for posterity. About two years ago, a good photographer & tech hound forwarded a scholarly study done on digital CD media archive life span. I was shocked to read their stated findings regarding the laser-pass type of CD-burning hardware that we all use in our computers: two years before degradation commences, depending again on storage climate, and they recommend backing up anything you want to keep within that period! Even the HD disc suffers the same fate.

Sound recording CD-R media was addressed as how extended playback erodes signal - good for approx. 100 plays and then they start to deteriorate. Store-bought factory-pressed music CD albums last a very long time - being a different manufacturing process. I tried testing that out by comparing two duplicate music CD-Rs I burned from a favorite music CD I bought - one unplayed & the other one subjected to 'continual play' mode on a portable walkman player for a week. (Have no clue how many times the CD-R got spun - but it had to be alot more than a 100 times!). I then compared them both to the factory-pressed 'master' & damn straight - the hard-played CD copy really had an obvious inferior sound quality overall, from both original and unplayed.

Anywho...the paper stated that in their opinion, the most archival recording media was- magnetic tape!!! With that point in mind - I have to admit, that most of my reel-to-reel sound tape recordings made back in the early 1960s still sound great (they've been kept in a stable storage environment during most of the passing decades). Noticed that cassette tape recordings weren't as consistent in lasting signal quality. (BTW - I've recorded most every Unlimited qualifying and race event at Reno since the 1980s onto stereo cassette, so this was relevent to my archiving questions on whether to transfer over to CD-R).

Yes - nonetheless, this old film dinosaur will be purchasing a new Canon EOS 1N MKIII later this year to try on the digital hat at last. If anything, just for the great improvements in exposure lattitute and clarity over film cameras (& the increasing degree of shipping & handling hassles of avoiding xray damage to unexposed & exposed film between assignment destinations and processing labs). Seeing all the fantastic great photography coming from all of you digital shooters finally convinced me it was time to make the switch.

Thanks for your great site, Wayne, and the opportunity to share these oldie goldie night shots with everyone! I've been learning alot of basics in scanning film in the process. (Don't think I'll ever put a dent in all the stuff to learn about Photoshop, though. Yikes!) BuckyD

[BuckyD]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

Here's an interesting group of nite shots for all the round motor fans: Lloyd Hamilton's mighty Super Sea Fury - Race #15 FURIAS (N4434P), getting swarmed by an eager 'turn & burn' night crew inside the CIA Stead hangar - Thur. 9/17/87.

The ground-level shooting vantage is obvious - right up close with the wrenchers (CAREFUL - don't touch those hot work lamps, dude!). In case you haven't as yet figured out the location of my high-angle shooting perch for those eagle's view shots - they were taken from atop those old gray primered USAAF crane hoists that got used alot for engine changes 'back-in-the-day' at Renos Past (believe they are stored inside the fenced compounds at the East end still today). !!!

The first time I utilized one of these lofty shooting 'platforms', was on a dare from 'Sumthin' Else' crewman- Roger Brower, himself a photographer. There's more to the story, but needless to say, it was pretty scary climbing way up there in the dark with the night wind blowing (with two cameras hangin' on me), lemme tell ya! When I reached the top, I thought to myself- "OH BOY! - You better at least get some pictures before you go and bust your ass now, Dawson."

I did manage to get quite a good series of Tri-X B&W shots of the Race 6 crew at work, though I only snapped a couple of Kodachrome 64 color shots - one featured on my previous post.

After that initial Reno test of my prehensile skills, I used the crane several more times over the years to escape the masses of photogs competing for almost identical photo compositions, when an engine or prop change was going on in the pits - much to their chagrin (& my composed glee). Before ascending- I'd make an effort to first 'check-in' with the nearest high-ranking crew person, for their 'semi-official' blessing to climb up and get- 'THE photo'. Yep - I was once young AND dumb, and crazy about air racing too (& I wasn't the only one, thus afflicted, he-he).

(I've always wondered if anyone ever got a photo of ME up there making a fool of myself! During the daytime, you would think so, but so far I haven't found such a photo yet.) BuckyD

[Mark K]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

One of my favorites - from the P1 archives
"Voodoo Night" Photo by Mark Robinson



I never did take any pics myself at night... always banging on the keyboard trying to get the updates on the web. There's a good and bad side to that - but it was always fun.

[T. Adams]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

Good luck with the MkIII. I'd wait awhile though. Canon has finally admitted they screwed up the AF, and just about every MkIII has the problem and needs to be sent in to get fixed. Canon has said that the cameras in stores now have the fix already, but I have yet to see a test that proves it from people who's opinions I trust.

Me, I'm getting a 40D in the spring to go with my 30D. The 20D is going to Ebay.

[jarrodeu]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

That Voodoo shot is really cool!!!

I will get a 40D eventually, hopefully before Reno next year.

Jarrod

[P-Screamer]

Re: THINGS THAT GO- 'BUMP!' IN THE NIGHT

Bucky:

Did you receive the Thompson Coin I sent you? Sent several messages with no reply. Drop me a line---pscreamer@gmail.com. Need your help with a couple of book projects. Say hi to Linda for me.

Best,

Kev.