First Flight

The 4x5 box camera flies! There's still no stabilization on it, but I flew it as pictured in fairly light wind from my 6' rokkaku. Following advice from Henry Jebe, who was one of the folks involved in re-creating George Lawrence's famous photograph of San Francisco using a replica of Lawrence's camera, I waited until the rokkaku over-flew its wind and dipped, offering the camera its most stable flying conditions. I haven't developed the film yet, since I can't secure my "dark room" (read that as "bathroom") against stray light during the day. But I'll post as soon as I can.

I wound up shooting at 1/500 seconds, the fastest my shutter will go. This put the aperture at f/11 with 100 speed film under-exposed one stop. If depth of field is an issue, I can switch to TMax 400 film and gain two stops on the aperture. Time will tell if this is necessary or not. I really like the grain of the TMax 100 better, but I'll bend if bending means I get better images.

I'm excited! The first flight was in a location I knew well with wind I'm familiar with, though it's not the most photogenic spot in the world. If the test shots come out ok I need to pick a pretty spot for my next shots.

Wahoooo!! It FLIES!

Tom