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Path: utzoo!utcsri!greg
From: greg@utcsri.UUCP (Gregory Smith)
Newsgroups: net.rec.photo
Subject: Re: What kind of film do the astronauts use?
Message-ID: <2159@utcsri.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 19-Feb-86 17:08:21 EST
Article-I.D.: utcsri.2159
Posted: Wed Feb 19 17:08:21 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Feb-86 17:26:32 EST
References: <1086@decwrl.DEC.COM> <1972@peora.UUCP> <3250@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: greg@utcsri.UUCP (Gregory Smith)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 31
Summary: How to photograph from airplanes.

In article <3250@sun.uucp> falk@sun.uucp (Ed Falk) writes:
>> If you're just in a commercial airplane and you photograph the ground,
>> the pictures don't usually come out very well, because the haze in the air
>> even at that altitude badly reduces the contrast.  This made me wonder
> Pictures taken out of airplane windows are crummy for two reasons, neither of
>which has much to do with the atmosphere.  First, most commercial airplanes
>are taking off/landing from polluted areas.  Second, the plexiglass used in
>airplane windows is really bad for photography.  I'm not sure, but I think it
>has something to do with the weird filtering effects of plexiglass combined
>with the fact that human eyes and film respond to different frequencies of
>light.

I think the problem only exists when the sun is shining on your window. The
plexiglas is always covered with many tiny scratches, which will scatter
sunlight all over, including into your lens, even if the sun is not
visible through the window. The effect is to 'haze up' the picture.
On an overcast day, the window is receiving large amounts of scattered
light and then rescattering it all over the inside of the plane, giving the
same result. You only want the light rising from the ground, of course.

I have taken pictures of the mountains near LA airport and obtained
fairly decent results. The weather was sunny and my window was on the
shady side. I think that's the only way it works.

As for serious aerial photography ( which was mentioned in the quoted article )
I think that shooting downward through a hood designed to shade the camera
from all skylight would solve many ills.
Of course, the airline passenger has no such option. =->

Greg Smith
University of Toronto