"Faces of Ground Zero" is a photography exhibit opening tomorrow near the World Trad Center Site. It is also a book, of similar photographs (see below) published by Life.
The subject of the exhibit is powerful, but not for this forum. I was also very interested in the camera(s) used to produce the photographs. I heard an interview this morning on the radio (Imus, for the Americans) of the photographer, Joe McNally. He originally did a piece for National Geographic on this camera, and then decided to use it for this project. The camera is a polaroid, personally built by Land. It is the size of a one car garage. It is quiet literally a camera obscura. It uses a lens taken from a U2 spy plane. The film is ordinary polaroid film, only eight FEET long. I has no shutter. The room is darkened, then the lens cap is removed, and the strobe lights are fired. It is both fixed focus and fixed aperture. Although the aperture is f/64, the depth of field is 1/2 inch (1+cm). The subject has to be moved into focus, obviously very carefully. The image on the film is slightly larger than life size, making it a very large macro lens. The film has no negative, being polaroid, and is to largre to scan. So, how does McNally get the photos for the book? He uses a 6X7 (Could it be a Pentax -- he didn't name the camera) with slide fim connected to fire at the same moment as the super camera. I certainly would like to know what he does use. I know this is a bit OT, but I was fascinated by the camera details, and thought that others might also be. Dan -- Daniel J. Matyola mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Stanley, Powers & Matyola mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Suite203, 1170 US Highway 22 East http://geocities.com/dmatyola/ Bridgewater, NJ 08807 (908)725-3322 fax: (908)707-0399
