My father (soon turning 91) worked for Hasselblad in Sweden. He was responsible for the development of all the space adapted Hasselblads. Travelled back and forth to USA and met all the famoust astronauts.
I'm a bit of a film photography nerd, so one of my favourite bits of space photography is how Luna 3 got pictures of the far side of the moon in 1959. It had a film camera, took the pictures, then developed the film onboard, scanned it with a cathode ray tube and a photomultiplier, and transmitted the pictures back as an analog video signal. Pretty amazing stuff.
Another interesting bit is that the film they used was actually captured by the Soviets from American Project Genetrix spy balloons that had been sent over the Soviet Union and recovered by the Soviets. They couldn't make radiation resistant film suitable for the Luna 3 requirements, but discovered that the American film met the requirements, so they cut it down and perforated it so it would work in their camera system.
During the Apollo program my family had an automotive paint store in San Diego. One day an engineer came in with an urgent need for a pint of our best paint. We had no problem filling the order in minutes. Today our paint is still on the moon. On the camara on the first Lunar rover. The urgency was they had to ship the camara so it could be lainched.
You forgot probably the biggest, highest resolution camera that flew on Shuttle missions - the IMAX movie camera. I went to a talk at the National Air and Space Museum given by one of the principals for that program coincident with the premiere of "The Dream is Alive", the first IMAX film shot in space in 1984. It was really quite interesting! Consider that the IMAX film format is just frigging HUGE - 70mm, so the film reels are quite massive... and they spin! With enough angular momentum that the gyroscopic effects assert themselves if you want to pan the camera during a shoot. I think I recall that a single reel of film was something like 3 minutes of shooting time. On subsequent missions, I believe they had an IMAX camera in the payload bay.
I love that you love to talk about space hardware. I love it even more that you record yourself doing such things and then allow me to absorb all that delicious space knowledge.
I showed this episode to my wife, a professional photographer, she was very impressed. Thank you for all the hard work you do researching and making these episodes.
My dad was a big-time photographer in his early years, especially when he was stationed in Japan during his time in the USAF. He used a Nikon F body with an exposure meter viewfinder for much of the time he used that camera. He did a lot of his own processing and enlarging. That said, he would have likely loved this video. As someone who followed in his footsteps in that bit of enthusiasm, I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Scott, thanks for once more going into a subject that most of the other common space centered TH-cam channels don't cover. Your fascination with the "other" things connected to space gives us lots of very interesting insights into the space programs.
@nasty buzzard It's not always ignorance. Some of them simply can't process reality correctly. Their wiring is screwed up. Half the people living on the street have a mental issue of one kind or another. These people live in a world constructed from their fantasies and it's the only reality that is.. real to them. And some are just twats.
@nasty buzzard they also have another extreme claim that if you do see the earths curvature, even in a picture, you're just delusional and hallucinating it to make yourself feel better. i made them mad by calling that assertion what it is: tactical stupidity. it's not that they're stupid, it's that they're actively stupid which is far worse cause they will get subhuman with you if they can't 'win.'
Wow, I saw John Glenn's Ansco and recognized it, but I couldn't recall ever hearing that name. Then you showed the Minolta and I went "Aha! That's Mom and Dad's Minolta!" My parents were semi-pro photographers when I was a kid, and they had a Minolta that looked exactly like the one shown, plus a couple of Nikon SLRs, and Dad dreamed of having a Hasselblad (he eventually did get one in the 80s). My sisters and I learned photography on the Minolta, because it was the easiest to use of their cameras. He had worked at Edwards AFB during the X-15 era, and I remember him making a model of the Saturn V. I knew his desire for a Hasselblad was inspired by Apollo, but I had no idea that the "lowly" Minolta was also a "space camera". Thanks for the new knowledge, and for bringing back some great memories!
Ok seriously... who are the 40 people who end up disliking a video like this. Scott talks with such passion and genuine interest in his topics! Bizarre info and knowledge that you’re unlikely to see anywhere else... thanks for all your amazing work! 👍🏻
I held a presentation about rocket propulsion a few months ago and used some of your videos as reference, got the best grade in my class together with a friend. Keep doing what you're doing and thank you.
@@jasoonpittard9900 DDR5 memory has built in ECC now even for standard modules, so we're getting there. Now we just need processor modes where cores become redundant processors executing the same instructions, and ECC on processor cache. Probably not very useful for consumer hardware though.
Jasoon Pittard image sensors are inherently radiation sensitive, it’s how they work after all. Not sure how resistant you can make them maybe some sort of self healing structure
Very cool Scott. My dad, now deceased, worked for Berkey Photo in NYC as a repair tech. He cleaned and modified one of the first movie cameras used to test lubricants in a soccer ball sized satellite. We found it in the Air and Space Museum, hiding in the corner, in 1972. I still have a box of lubricants, lol.
Listened to you for years. Since I got into kerbal. I’m on the dumb end of attention span. I come back now and again and tour amazing mate. Sending love
Really enjoyed the video Scott. My dad was in the photo business, did some stuff for NASA. His specialty was film development [actually had a bit part in developing the film from Cuba 1962, but that's another story.] When Challenger broke up NASA had phased out filming launches, preferring video instead; but they kept one film camera and one developer to film the launch, and that's what they had to use to blow up the image and discover the cause of the cataclysm. And my dad's stuff did the developing and helped with some of the imaging. Neat stuff. Thanx.
Scott, thanks for covering some of the more mundane pieces if space hardware, this reinforces the magnitude of effort required for space travel. There was a camera that was lost on a EVA at some point, winder if it is still up there. Also, how about a vid in the shower of sparks at the launch pad? You covered this briefly in your " how to light a rocket engine " vid.
I used to love the full page Hasablad ads in National Geographic or Popular Science or wherever they were in the old magazines I used to read through growing up, the pictures of the moon or various spacey things. Always made me want one lol
@@cladoxylopsida568 yup, as an amature astrophotographer this is 100% the case, all you need to get started is a basic kitlens and a sturdy tripod, everything beyond that is just a bonus
As a space enthusiast and hobby phographer it's really interesting to see the development of cameras in space. I didn't know most of the facts in the video, quite surprising that the first astronauts bought camera's on their own expense. Now I know why I've always been a fan of the Nikon cameras... 😉
Very cool! My dad was an Analytical Photogrametrist working for NASA JSC 1969-1985. He was one of those guys you mentioned that did science with the cameras. It was amazing to grow up next to NASA with a dad who had access to the cameras, photos, and astronauts. Another cool thing is that the fixed mounted Apollo CSM Hasseblads had a omega wrist watch mounted in the view frame so them new exactly when the photo was taken. That and some orbital mechanics and they knew spacecraft position and sun angle and could use the lengths of the shadows to calculate crater heights. They could also use multiple photo shots for limited stereography.
A very good brief video. I'll add a few C&C. 1. Hasselblad don't talk about when they were dropped from the STS. I did drag it out of them but don't have the flight # handy. The last film cameras on STS were likely the Linhof Aero Technicas that were flown. 2. Four Hass ELMs were ganged in a rig and flown on later Apollos, for remote multi-spectral use if I remember. 3. Sigma got onto the ISS by way of a fisheye and a very long lens they built, an 800 I believe. At the time NASA was hauling up a lot of long glass not only for earth observation, but for surveys of the approaching shuttle's tiles looking for damage. This was a time consuming flip at distance it was required to do. 4. Nikon had a high res (24MP) Nikon D3X on the station that wasn't announced. My belief is that it was delivered on the Japanese lab module and wasn't NASA owned. I found this out searching EXIF info at the time. 5. NASA bought 50 Nikon D2Xs cameras at the end of their production cycle. I believe these are the last of the external hand held cameras you see although they may have been upgraded. I don't follow this like I used to anymore.
Excellent topic choice, Scott. It really brings home the idea of astronauts as not only test pilots but also as documentarians who made the effort to share their experience with the RAMs. I hope you can get more information on the Soviet cameras; maybe someone from over there who is reading this can help out.
Nice video Scott. My dad was on the team of Sales, Marketing and Engineers who sold Nikon to NASA and the Navy in the 1960's and 70's when Nikon was distributed in the U.S. by Ehrenrich Photo Optical Industries (EPOI). He was closely involved with creating the Nikon/Skylab advertisement you referenced.
Actually, early this year Nasa replaced their D5 by sending fifty D6 (or rather D5S should I said...) to the ISS, so the D6 is the current main DSLR body on the station.
Fantastic topic. Almost missed it due to a deluge of content from space-focused channels (when OLF edits hit your feed + multiple scrubtober live stream notifications, it gets busy!) thanks for the follow up YT post (card? notice? It's like a tweet but not)
Nice detour from Rocket motors, back in the 1970's I was a camera nut and had a Nikon F2, a real good camera with little plastic. Nice info on the Hasselblad. Thanks-
Thank you for helping me to dredge up some memories. In 1973 I was in college, taking a history of photography course. As part of the activities, the class went to the Eastman House Museum (i.e., George Eastman Museum) in Rochester, NY. While there, I was allowed to handle the ORIGINAL large format rolls of developed film from one of the Apollo missions. Wish I could remember which mission. One of those life events you don't ever forget, but of which you need to be reminded. I suspect that film is still buried in their archives.
My dad saved up a long time to buy a Hasselblad 500C for his high school photography class in the late 1960s. He used it to photograph Yosemite as well and even has Ansel Adams' signature addressed to him by name. Seeing this makes me wonder if this is the reason he wanted that specific model; he was always a space geek.
Thank you Sir! Very informative video! I was a studio manager for a fashion photographer with an extensive collection of Leicas. But his favorite camera was a Hasselblad/NASA (practice?) beauty. It was a light blue color! Anyway, looking forward to seeing your other videos! Subscribed!
I have to ask, have you tried astrophotography? Because it's really fun, even just a kitlens or a nifty 50 is enough to try it, a sturdy tripod or a small sky tracker mount helps with the long exposures quite a bit too. This hobby is most of the reason I even have a proper camera xD, and the last year or so I've taken many a thousand of shots, successful or not it's been a lot of fun learning how to really use it and find what I want to add to it
I bought an old medium format camera last year, and haven't used it yet. I also have a Nikon 35mm camera. Neither of them need batteries to operate. This video is inspiring me to go out and shoot. 📸
Great video! Maybe do moving picture cameras next? I am especially interested in why they still have that hue or tint to them and why no fix, like a filter of sorts is implemented yet...
I can relate to Titov on Vostok 2 having to guess his exposure times, and it's not that difficult to imagine, as anyone who used other than 'instant' 110mm cameras knew about this stuff. When my dad bought a new camera, in the late 60s, he gave me his *old* Argus 35mm SLR (manual), but kept his light meter. I was a poor teenager, so after a brief lecture from him, and a lifetime helping him take photos and movies, I just estimated my own exposures and my photos were fine. I used that camera way into adulthood, on many travels, without a light meter, until I got my first Nikon (and kept that Nikon on manual most of the time lol). It was a great way to learn about cameras, light, and film!
Hey Scott! Great video! I would have loved to have heard about the Linhof though, that took some insane pictures through the shuttle era since they were large format! They had specialty LF cameras before, but the Linhof I think that was from 1990 to around 2000 or so? There's a training video floating around of astronauts using the Linhod on earth. And the longevity of the Hasselblads can't be overstated, the last pictures they took with them (that I can find on their archives) were around 2002-2003, of course using the latest series of 70mm Hasselblads at the time (the 200 series).
I own a very early model Nikon 55mm f/1.2 lens that is what's on the Nikon F that you showed at around 7:14 (although it's been modified) and again at around 8:33 (looks unmodified). Amazing lens that's highly underrated today. Thanks for this cool bit of history. I'm a part-time professional photographer and I mainly shoot Nikon. After the amount of abuse my cameras have laughed off, I can see why NASA has a fondness for them.
Nikon just announced that they’re sending consumer level mirrorless cameras to the space station soon. Glad to see the next generation of cameras heading up to space.
RADIATION damage on cameras can be seen in the inflatable module video, where they first enter it, the dark of the chamber highlights the myriad of holes punched through the sensor.
I recently bought an Ansco Autoset like John Glenns still in the box with all the manuals and paperwork on Ebay for $24. Surprisingly it still works..those cameras have issues over time with the leaf shutter that is incorporated in the lens of the Autoset.
@@scottmanley Plus, as an astronomer, you may spend years crunching data before you have something worth publishing. Reading/listening to space/astro news is about cherry-picking the fun results.
Thanks for this review of NASA camera history. As both a film camera hobbyist and life long follower of space exploration, this is a double whammy for me. Maybe sublimely I must have known. I’ve been a Nikon shooter for 30-years. Good enough for NASA, good enough for me.
Real interesting video especially because I am quite passionate about imaging. I've actually worked for 2 companies who have supplied camera's for the Spaceshuttle missions. One company supplied cameras mounted on the booster to inspect the spaceshuttles wings during acent. The other company supplied cameras for the OBSS system mounted at the end of the Canadarm inspecting potential damage of the tiles.
I'm reading 'Apollo Remastered' at the moment, which showcases high-res prints of photos taken with those Hasselblads (and with the Maurer film camera). The resolution on those photos is massive, even today. I didn't know about the F4 ESC. Only NASA could come up with a plan to stuff a Hubble CCD into an SLR.
Outstanding! The German engineers who made our space program possible didn't see much point in sending humans into space, when that payload capacity could be dedicated to machinery. Even when the idea of astronauts was not optional, they wanted the men to be just passengers, "SPAM in a can." While they were technically correct, they just didn't understand the importance of sending people. I'm slightly amazed that the first astronauts bought their own cameras to take pictures with, and even more amazed that NASA then spent all the resources to convert them. So glad they did!
I've always been facinated by the video cameras used by NASA. The signal from the color cameras used by Apollo had to fit into a much smaller bandwidth than the 6 Mhz used by NTSC cameras at the time. A low frame rate black and white camera with a spinning color wheel was used to send field sequential color pictures from surface of the moon on Apollo 14-17 The Space Shuttle cameras used a similar system with the color wheel built into the lens. That way the Shuttle camers could all be the same model black and white vidicon camera just with different lenses. Even though some were updated, the monochrome cameras in the Shuttle bay continued to use the vidicon cameras well into the 1990's because of their superior low light capability.
I had a couple of Canonets which were very similar to the Ansco. I was a photo assistant at the time. My boss had the Nikon SLRs. Invariably I'd beat him to the shot using the cheaper 'tourist' camera. A rangefinder camera focuses much faster than an SLR because the image is brighter, and because you're just trying to line up two overlapping images. The exposure meter would always be more primitive than the professional Nikon, but you quickly learn to compensate. Know that you want it darker? point it at the sky and set your f-stop. lighter? (almost always needed for people with some sky in the background - point it at their feet to set it.) I used to routinely shoot Kodachrome which requires about a +/- .6 stop for an acceptable exposure. The moon Hasselblads were used similarly. The astronauts took these cameras home and shot family photos with them just to get the feel and figure out the workarounds. Flipping it upside down so the handle and trigger would work. I'm so jealous. In all my years of DIY that never once occurred to me. And of course focusing? Infinity. There's usually distance numbers on the lens barrel. Probably the reason they used Hasselblads was because the lenses were so sharp. The Swedes developed these cameras during WWII for aerial mapping of their country as preparation for a possible invasion. In the 70s through at least the 90s every young fashion photographer wanted one because they were such good cameras, however they were too sharp in many situations for making attractive images of people. So the next thing a lot of these guys purchased were low con and soft filters. (Me? I used a Hassy my partner had, later I got a Kowa which was an unreliable Japanese Hassy knock. The lenses were a bit soft and perfect for portraiture. The real value of medium format is the size of the negative, not so much the lenses. I still occasionally check to see if there's a reasonably priced 65mm to 4x5 digital camera or back. I've got a Nikon D850 which captures more fine detail than any 8x10 camera, but it'll never match the quality of the larger formats.) Unless I'm missing something, the marks on the glass for 'measurement' weren't needed. They didn't 'measure' anything in the image, they just delineated distances on the film, which could be done at anytime later. The glass plate? Seemed like a huge risk for Newton rings. Maybe they added it to keep the film from bulging due to pressure changes, and then added the little crosses because they were already adding the glass. Film? There is nothing that any film can capture that digital can't easily cover and then some. I can shoot a 5 stop under or over exposed image with my Nikon D850 and later easily process back to a normal image. When I shot transparency film 5 stops +/- exposure was a guaranteed pure white or D-max black. Also digital captures 'all' possible colors, no film has ever been able to do that. College kids, "I want to do film 'cause it's better' should 'do film' but it's not better. There's no specific 'film quality' that can't be matched by post processing (tweaking). I don't know if any of this is useful. If your two camera guys read it and say, 'ah that guy's full of it,' they're probably correct. I'm just surprised how quickly so much of this photography stuff can be forgotten. In my darkroom in the 1990s I was doing things that later I found out guys in the 40s had done but which apparently had been completely forgotten for most of the time in between.
The promo video for Virgin Galactic a few months ago stated that "there is no need to bring a camera as the vehicle is equipped with cameras to record your flight into space for you". Excuse me? If I'm paying $200K to take a flight I'm gonna bring my camera.
Another interesting story is why they went with Nikon, and not Canon. This has to do with the type of glass used in the objectives. Canon uses an exotic glass like material, called fluorite, it is a crystal, not a glass, but has special optical properties making it very desirable (high index of refraction, low dispersion and anomalous dispersion, important for correcting for chromatic aberration). Buy it has nasty habit of being toxic when in powder form. Or when subject to high heat, it releases toxic gas fumes. Also during the testing by NASA fluorite elements would crack during vibration simulations or during suddenly temperature changes. And that was primary reason why Canon was rejected. Now days most camera lenses don't contain fluorite, replaced with more complex engineered glasses with sometimes better performance or way lower cost. But fluorite is still used for UV microscopy, semiconductor photo lithography and amateur high end refractive telescopes. It still requires care, as these fluorite elements degrade with moisture in the air. I don't have exact sources on this story, but I heard it few times with supposed backing from NASA employees. I am myself a Canon guy, but most of my lenses are non Canon ones (Some Tokina, Tamron, and such), and I don't think any of them have fluorite crystal glass, but plenty of other fancy glass types.
Nikon developed ED glass which I believer uses fluorite crystals in the glass to give similar dispersion properties, but with better physical properties.
@@scottmanley AFAIK Nikon's ED and Super ED doesn't use fluorite crystals. They might have a small quantity of calcium fluorite in the past, but today even that is probably not the case. They mostly use some weird mixes of lanthanum, zirconium, fluorophospate, titanium, barium, and some other metal oxides. They indeed moved to own formulations, because fluorite crystals are either mined (which is rare to find in perfect shape), or lab grown, which is hard too (and there are maybe 3 companies in the world doing this now). Plus fluorite crystals are really tricky to shape and polish, and protect against moisture or scratches, and use with anti reflective coatings. So fluorite crystal lenses has a lot of technical and economical disadvantages. Today very few lenses are made with fluorite crystal glass. Some old Canons telephotos, and some high end telescopes (AFAIK only Takahashi, Vixen, TEC and Canon Optron via BORG telescope company) do so. In fact I believe Takahashi was the first company in the world to grow synthetic fluorite crystals, later probably sold this part to Canon, which is now only company essentially doing it, at very low volumes, the other being Ohara, Schott, and maybe there is some Russian company too, as I found some Russian patents related to this with now owned by Corning. Others use glasses like Ohara FPL-51 (ED) , FPL-53 (Super ED), Hoya FCD1, FCD1000, which do have similar optical properties to fluorite crystals, but often are completely different chemically. I am not sure if Nikon developed their glass on their own, or with other company (probably with Ohara), but some manufacturers say they are fluorite for some strange, reasons, but that is mostly marketing. Nothing wrong with one or another, all glass and lenses do have trade offs (technical and economical). Fluorite crystal are still one of the best options, if you don't care about cost, your focal length is pretty big and need superb apochromatic system in small number of lens elements, or good transmission in blue, violet or UV areas. For a lot of photography applications it doesn't matter, or can be compensated with just more glass, or now with software. There is a lot of smart people at Cloudy Nights forum, that probably know much more than me on this topic.
My father (soon turning 91) worked for Hasselblad in Sweden. He was responsible for the development of all the space adapted Hasselblads. Travelled back and forth to USA and met all the famoust astronauts.
That is very neat! I'm sure he has many interesting stories from that era, as well as others!
I'm a bit of a film photography nerd, so one of my favourite bits of space photography is how Luna 3 got pictures of the far side of the moon in 1959. It had a film camera, took the pictures, then developed the film onboard, scanned it with a cathode ray tube and a photomultiplier, and transmitted the pictures back as an analog video signal. Pretty amazing stuff.
Woah amazing
You missed a huge part of this story: th-cam.com/video/YDs8rz7pRLQ/w-d-xo.html
Another interesting bit is that the film they used was actually captured by the Soviets from American Project Genetrix spy balloons that had been sent over the Soviet Union and recovered by the Soviets. They couldn't make radiation resistant film suitable for the Luna 3 requirements, but discovered that the American film met the requirements, so they cut it down and perforated it so it would work in their camera system.
Not only that, it _faxed_ the images back to Earth. (Fax is the precursor to video, itself a form of slow scan TV).
During the Apollo program my family had an automotive paint store in San Diego. One day an engineer came in with an urgent need for a pint of our best paint. We had no problem filling the order in minutes. Today our paint is still on the moon. On the camara on the first Lunar rover. The urgency was they had to ship the camara so it could be lainched.
You forgot probably the biggest, highest resolution camera that flew on Shuttle missions - the IMAX movie camera. I went to a talk at the National Air and Space Museum given by one of the principals for that program coincident with the premiere of "The Dream is Alive", the first IMAX film shot in space in 1984. It was really quite interesting! Consider that the IMAX film format is just frigging HUGE - 70mm, so the film reels are quite massive... and they spin! With enough angular momentum that the gyroscopic effects assert themselves if you want to pan the camera during a shoot. I think I recall that a single reel of film was something like 3 minutes of shooting time.
On subsequent missions, I believe they had an IMAX camera in the payload bay.
They also took an IMAX 3d camera on the shuttle and to the ISS:
www.spacetelescope.org/about/history/imax/
Those cameras use twice the film/minute.
Looks like the video is about (commercial) stills cameras, would be interesting to see what kinds of video cameras have been used.
Hubble space telescope...!
Is there a red DSMC2 on the iss now?
@@wodddj Yes it was launched in 2015 I believe. You can see them using it during the hatch opening of the SpaceX DM2 mission.
History of space cameras is an intresting idea.
yuppp...those cameras were heroes too...
I love that you love to talk about space hardware. I love it even more that you record yourself doing such things and then allow me to absorb all that delicious space knowledge.
I showed this episode to my wife, a professional photographer, she was very impressed. Thank you for all the hard work you do researching and making these episodes.
My dad was a big-time photographer in his early years, especially when he was stationed in Japan during his time in the USAF. He used a Nikon F body with an exposure meter viewfinder for much of the time he used that camera. He did a lot of his own processing and enlarging. That said, he would have likely loved this video. As someone who followed in his footsteps in that bit of enthusiasm, I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Scott, thanks for once more going into a subject that most of the other common space centered TH-cam channels don't cover. Your fascination with the "other" things connected to space gives us lots of very interesting insights into the space programs.
I came here from Marathoning SciManDan and his compilation of flerfers who say no-one ever proved curvature. This is a refresher. Thanks.
Thumbs up, Jan. Your comment is right along the same lines I was looking at posting.👍
That takes some commitment!
@nasty buzzard I know. Some of them left the cult, but that is it - each year this cult has more members.
@nasty buzzard It's not always ignorance. Some of them simply can't process reality correctly. Their wiring is screwed up. Half the people living on the street have a mental issue of one kind or another. These people live in a world constructed from their fantasies and it's the only reality that is.. real to them.
And some are just twats.
@nasty buzzard they also have another extreme claim that if you do see the earths curvature, even in a picture, you're just delusional and hallucinating it to make yourself feel better. i made them mad by calling that assertion what it is: tactical stupidity. it's not that they're stupid, it's that they're actively stupid which is far worse cause they will get subhuman with you if they can't 'win.'
Wow, I saw John Glenn's Ansco and recognized it, but I couldn't recall ever hearing that name. Then you showed the Minolta and I went "Aha! That's Mom and Dad's Minolta!" My parents were semi-pro photographers when I was a kid, and they had a Minolta that looked exactly like the one shown, plus a couple of Nikon SLRs, and Dad dreamed of having a Hasselblad (he eventually did get one in the 80s). My sisters and I learned photography on the Minolta, because it was the easiest to use of their cameras. He had worked at Edwards AFB during the X-15 era, and I remember him making a model of the Saturn V. I knew his desire for a Hasselblad was inspired by Apollo, but I had no idea that the "lowly" Minolta was also a "space camera". Thanks for the new knowledge, and for bringing back some great memories!
Ok seriously... who are the 40 people who end up disliking a video like this. Scott talks with such passion and genuine interest in his topics! Bizarre info and knowledge that you’re unlikely to see anywhere else... thanks for all your amazing work! 👍🏻
Unfortunately when it comes to humans, there is always a malcontent immature child in a adult body who likes to call attention to their ignorance.
As a photographer I personally LOVED this video! Awesome job representing photography in space!
I purchased a Hasselblad 500 EL/M on the fiftieth anniversary of the first lunar landing of Armstrong and Aldrin. They’re still great cameras!
this was superb as a photographer using Nikon cameras its nice to see how their basically developed digital cameras for NASA and for consumers than
Great Video! Thank You! 👍
I held a presentation about rocket propulsion a few months ago and used some of your videos as reference, got the best grade in my class together with a friend. Keep doing what you're doing and thank you.
Space and film photography in one video, what a treat :)
In a few years, space tourists will just use their phone cameras.
And phone manufacturers will advertise their phones as being radiation resistant
They've already taken photos with iPads and iPhones
@@scottmanley we made whole sattelites out of those didn't we?
@@jasoonpittard9900 DDR5 memory has built in ECC now even for standard modules, so we're getting there. Now we just need processor modes where cores become redundant processors executing the same instructions, and ECC on processor cache. Probably not very useful for consumer hardware though.
Jasoon Pittard image sensors are inherently radiation sensitive, it’s how they work after all. Not sure how resistant you can make them maybe some sort of self healing structure
7:53 "I don't have time to go into detail on this"
you underestimate your core audience, sir
:)
Ignore this - we have one Tim Dodd already, and one is enough!
@@paulhaynes8045 the difference is that I actually enjoy listening to a professional talk, without constant goofy humor... Lol
Well, apparently this video underperformed as is. Maybe he overestimates us?
Very cool Scott. My dad, now deceased, worked for Berkey Photo in NYC as a repair tech. He cleaned and modified one of the first movie cameras used to test lubricants in a soccer ball sized satellite. We found it in the Air and Space Museum, hiding in the corner, in 1972. I still have a box of lubricants, lol.
Listened to you for years. Since I got into kerbal. I’m on the dumb end of attention span. I come back now and again and tour amazing mate. Sending love
Another brilliant insight from the Scottish space man. Thank you Scott. Fly safe.
So cool. Watching all this growing up. Times be a changing.
This video was genuinely enthralling
This is a video I never would have thought I needed to see. But I did. And thank you!
Really enjoyed the video Scott. My dad was in the photo business, did some stuff for NASA. His specialty was film development [actually had a bit part in developing the film from Cuba 1962, but that's another story.] When Challenger broke up NASA had phased out filming launches, preferring video instead; but they kept one film camera and one developer to film the launch, and that's what they had to use to blow up the image and discover the cause of the cataclysm. And my dad's stuff did the developing and helped with some of the imaging. Neat stuff. Thanx.
I see this hasn't had the views your videos normally do, but from a space geek who grew up on Nikon FM and darkrooms, it's really appreciated.
Scott, thanks for covering some of the more mundane pieces if space hardware, this reinforces the magnitude of effort required for space travel. There was a camera that was lost on a EVA at some point, winder if it is still up there. Also, how about a vid in the shower of sparks at the launch pad? You covered this briefly in your " how to light a rocket engine " vid.
I used to love the full page Hasablad ads in National Geographic or Popular Science or wherever they were in the old magazines I used to read through growing up, the pictures of the moon or various spacey things.
Always made me want one lol
I remember trying to get pictures of stars with a kit lens!!!!!
@@cladoxylopsida568 yup, as an amature astrophotographer this is 100% the case, all you need to get started is a basic kitlens and a sturdy tripod, everything beyond that is just a bonus
Once again proving how much innovation the space program generates.
Once again Scott posts a video about something I'd never considered, but which turns out to be fascinating!
As a space enthusiast and hobby phographer it's really interesting to see the development of cameras in space. I didn't know most of the facts in the video, quite surprising that the first astronauts bought camera's on their own expense. Now I know why I've always been a fan of the Nikon cameras... 😉
Very cool! My dad was an Analytical Photogrametrist working for NASA JSC 1969-1985. He was one of those guys you mentioned that did science with the cameras. It was amazing to grow up next to NASA with a dad who had access to the cameras, photos, and astronauts. Another cool thing is that the fixed mounted Apollo CSM Hasseblads had a omega wrist watch mounted in the view frame so them new exactly when the photo was taken. That and some orbital mechanics and they knew spacecraft position and sun angle and could use the lengths of the shadows to calculate crater heights. They could also use multiple photo shots for limited stereography.
A very good brief video. I'll add a few C&C. 1. Hasselblad don't talk about when they were dropped from the STS. I did drag it out of them but don't have the flight # handy. The last film cameras on STS were likely the Linhof Aero Technicas that were flown. 2. Four Hass ELMs were ganged in a rig and flown on later Apollos, for remote multi-spectral use if I remember. 3. Sigma got onto the ISS by way of a fisheye and a very long lens they built, an 800 I believe. At the time NASA was hauling up a lot of long glass not only for earth observation, but for surveys of the approaching shuttle's tiles looking for damage. This was a time consuming flip at distance it was required to do. 4. Nikon had a high res (24MP) Nikon D3X on the station that wasn't announced. My belief is that it was delivered on the Japanese lab module and wasn't NASA owned. I found this out searching EXIF info at the time. 5. NASA bought 50 Nikon D2Xs cameras at the end of their production cycle. I believe these are the last of the external hand held cameras you see although they may have been upgraded. I don't follow this like I used to anymore.
This is delightful :) I collect old lenses. I might have to get an apollo set
Excellent topic choice, Scott. It really brings home the idea of astronauts as not only test pilots but also as documentarians who made the effort to share their experience with the RAMs. I hope you can get more information on the Soviet cameras; maybe someone from over there who is reading this can help out.
Excellent video Scott!
Nice video Scott. My dad was on the team of Sales, Marketing and Engineers who sold Nikon to NASA and the Navy in the 1960's and 70's when Nikon was distributed in the U.S. by Ehrenrich Photo Optical Industries (EPOI). He was closely involved with creating the Nikon/Skylab advertisement you referenced.
Actually, early this year Nasa replaced their D5 by sending fifty D6 (or rather D5S should I said...) to the ISS, so the D6 is the current main DSLR body on the station.
Dammit!
Did I Just hear your voice on a eve online Scope news report?? Awesome!!!
I've always wanted to see what kind of cameras the astronauts used on the ISS, awesome video!!
Fantastic topic. Almost missed it due to a deluge of content from space-focused channels (when OLF edits hit your feed + multiple scrubtober live stream notifications, it gets busy!) thanks for the follow up YT post (card? notice? It's like a tweet but not)
I had a Leica... Fantastic camera. Not surprised this went to space. Great vlog!
Great subject for this video, very interesting, thanks!
Nice detour from Rocket motors, back in the 1970's I was a camera nut and had a Nikon F2, a real good camera with little plastic. Nice info on the Hasselblad. Thanks-
Thank you for helping me to dredge up some memories. In 1973 I was in college, taking a history of photography course. As part of the activities, the class went to the Eastman House Museum (i.e., George Eastman Museum) in Rochester, NY. While there, I was allowed to handle the ORIGINAL large format rolls of developed film from one of the Apollo missions. Wish I could remember which mission. One of those life events you don't ever forget, but of which you need to be reminded. I suspect that film is still buried in their archives.
1:53 - Taking "photo shoot" to a whole new level.
My dad saved up a long time to buy a Hasselblad 500C for his high school photography class in the late 1960s. He used it to photograph Yosemite as well and even has Ansel Adams' signature addressed to him by name. Seeing this makes me wonder if this is the reason he wanted that specific model; he was always a space geek.
every photographer's dream, to be able to effortlessly lift the largest of lenses
I really enjoy this video and the simplicity of presentation.
11:00 "The camera knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't." 😏
Great episode! Would love to hear about the motion picture cameras used over time too.
Thank you Sir! Very informative video! I was a studio manager for a fashion photographer with an extensive collection of Leicas. But his favorite camera was a Hasselblad/NASA (practice?) beauty. It was a light blue color! Anyway, looking forward to seeing your other videos! Subscribed!
Being both a space and camera nut. This really scratched an itch I didn’t even know I had.
I have to ask, have you tried astrophotography? Because it's really fun, even just a kitlens or a nifty 50 is enough to try it, a sturdy tripod or a small sky tracker mount helps with the long exposures quite a bit too.
This hobby is most of the reason I even have a proper camera xD, and the last year or so I've taken many a thousand of shots, successful or not it's been a lot of fun learning how to really use it and find what I want to add to it
Very interesting insight here scott
Nikons in space is basically the reason I shoot with Nikons here on Earth!
That and they are bloody good cameras!
great video!! makes me wonder about the camera technology used on spacecraft for planetary imagery & such 🤔
12:09 - The Digital Quicksave!
I bought an old medium format camera last year, and haven't used it yet. I also have a Nikon 35mm camera. Neither of them need batteries to operate. This video is inspiring me to go out and shoot. 📸
What a great vid! Loved it. Thank you.
I suggested you do a video on this topic through email like a year ago. Thank you! Been waiting.
Hahaha... 'I'm going to 'focus' on the US side of things" Very witty Scott.
Oh man, glad to see you found your place in New Eden Mr. Scotti.
Great video! Maybe do moving picture cameras next? I am especially interested in why they still have that hue or tint to them and why no fix, like a filter of sorts is implemented yet...
I can relate to Titov on Vostok 2 having to guess his exposure times, and it's not that difficult to imagine, as anyone who used other than 'instant' 110mm cameras knew about this stuff. When my dad bought a new camera, in the late 60s, he gave me his *old* Argus 35mm SLR (manual), but kept his light meter. I was a poor teenager, so after a brief lecture from him, and a lifetime helping him take photos and movies, I just estimated my own exposures and my photos were fine. I used that camera way into adulthood, on many travels, without a light meter, until I got my first Nikon (and kept that Nikon on manual most of the time lol). It was a great way to learn about cameras, light, and film!
I was hoping you do a video on the camera the astronauts used to take pictures of the monolith in 2001:A Space Odyssey.
Great video and I'm not a camera guy! Great to learn about anything space related! Sorry to hear that the video not getting the views.
Great vlog... How about one on digital cameras for Viking, Voyager and cassini?
Very exciting for camera nerds.
Aviation, Space and Cameras. This is going to be a wonderful day.
Hey Scott! Great video!
I would have loved to have heard about the Linhof though, that took some insane pictures through the shuttle era since they were large format! They had specialty LF cameras before, but the Linhof I think that was from 1990 to around 2000 or so? There's a training video floating around of astronauts using the Linhod on earth.
And the longevity of the Hasselblads can't be overstated, the last pictures they took with them (that I can find on their archives) were around 2002-2003, of course using the latest series of 70mm Hasselblads at the time (the 200 series).
I own a very early model Nikon 55mm f/1.2 lens that is what's on the Nikon F that you showed at around 7:14 (although it's been modified) and again at around 8:33 (looks unmodified). Amazing lens that's highly underrated today.
Thanks for this cool bit of history. I'm a part-time professional photographer and I mainly shoot Nikon. After the amount of abuse my cameras have laughed off, I can see why NASA has a fondness for them.
the Hasselblad 500 series of cameras are my favourite type of cameras to use.
Nikon just announced that they’re sending consumer level mirrorless cameras to the space station soon. Glad to see the next generation of cameras heading up to space.
RADIATION damage on cameras can be seen in the inflatable module video, where they first enter it, the dark of the chamber highlights the myriad of holes punched through the sensor.
I recently bought an Ansco Autoset like John Glenns still in the box with all the manuals and paperwork on Ebay for $24. Surprisingly it still works..those cameras have issues over time with the leaf shutter that is incorporated in the lens of the Autoset.
"Astronomy's much more fun when you're not an astronomer."
~Brian May
It’s true, this is a lot more fun since I’m not doing it professionally.
@@scottmanley Plus, as an astronomer, you may spend years crunching data before you have something worth publishing. Reading/listening to space/astro news is about cherry-picking the fun results.
The real life fact is that most things are more fun if you don't do it for a living.
Well, writing grant proposals isn't exactly a laugh..
Fascinating! Thank you, sir.
Thanks for this review of NASA camera history. As both a film camera hobbyist and life long follower of space exploration, this is a double whammy for me. Maybe sublimely I must have known. I’ve been a Nikon shooter for 30-years. Good enough for NASA, good enough for me.
Real interesting video especially because I am quite passionate about imaging. I've actually worked for 2 companies who have supplied camera's for the Spaceshuttle missions. One company supplied cameras mounted on the booster to inspect the spaceshuttles wings during acent. The other company supplied cameras for the OBSS system mounted at the end of the Canadarm inspecting potential damage of the tiles.
Love the shirt Scott. Hope youve checked out the Nomai shuttles. Thanks to you and KSP I was able to fly them no problem!
Nice to know what the crosshairs on the moon pics were for.
The weird modifications of the early cameras to make them operable in gloves and thru the helmet are really fascinating and hacky, but it works :)
I'm reading 'Apollo Remastered' at the moment, which showcases high-res prints of photos taken with those Hasselblads (and with the Maurer film camera). The resolution on those photos is massive, even today.
I didn't know about the F4 ESC. Only NASA could come up with a plan to stuff a Hubble CCD into an SLR.
I got me a Nikon camera,
I love to take a photograph
Outstanding! The German engineers who made our space program possible didn't see much point in sending humans into space, when that payload capacity could be dedicated to machinery. Even when the idea of astronauts was not optional, they wanted the men to be just passengers, "SPAM in a can." While they were technically correct, they just didn't understand the importance of sending people. I'm slightly amazed that the first astronauts bought their own cameras to take pictures with, and even more amazed that NASA then spent all the resources to convert them. So glad they did!
I've always been facinated by the video cameras used by NASA. The signal from the color cameras used by Apollo had to fit into a much smaller bandwidth than the 6 Mhz used by NTSC cameras at the time. A low frame rate black and white camera with a spinning color wheel was used to send field sequential color pictures from surface of the moon on Apollo 14-17 The Space Shuttle cameras used a similar system with the color wheel built into the lens. That way the Shuttle camers could all be the same model black and white vidicon camera just with different lenses. Even though some were updated, the monochrome cameras in the Shuttle bay continued to use the vidicon cameras well into the 1990's because of their superior low light capability.
I like that one of the first space cameras is a homonym for Laika
Yes. So there's been more than one Laika in space.
During the Space Shuttle era, a Rolleiflex medium format SLR was also used.
I had a couple of Canonets which were very similar to the Ansco. I was a photo assistant at the time. My boss had the Nikon SLRs. Invariably I'd beat him to the shot using the cheaper 'tourist' camera. A rangefinder camera focuses much faster than an SLR because the image is brighter, and because you're just trying to line up two overlapping images. The exposure meter would always be more primitive than the professional Nikon, but you quickly learn to compensate. Know that you want it darker? point it at the sky and set your f-stop. lighter? (almost always needed for people with some sky in the background - point it at their feet to set it.) I used to routinely shoot Kodachrome which requires about a +/- .6 stop for an acceptable exposure.
The moon Hasselblads were used similarly. The astronauts took these cameras home and shot family photos with them just to get the feel and figure out the workarounds.
Flipping it upside down so the handle and trigger would work. I'm so jealous. In all my years of DIY that never once occurred to me. And of course focusing? Infinity. There's usually distance numbers on the lens barrel.
Probably the reason they used Hasselblads was because the lenses were so sharp. The Swedes developed these cameras during WWII for aerial mapping of their country as preparation for a possible invasion. In the 70s through at least the 90s every young fashion photographer wanted one because they were such good cameras, however they were too sharp in many situations for making attractive images of people. So the next thing a lot of these guys purchased were low con and soft filters. (Me? I used a Hassy my partner had, later I got a Kowa which was an unreliable Japanese Hassy knock. The lenses were a bit soft and perfect for portraiture. The real value of medium format is the size of the negative, not so much the lenses. I still occasionally check to see if there's a reasonably priced 65mm to 4x5 digital camera or back. I've got a Nikon D850 which captures more fine detail than any 8x10 camera, but it'll never match the quality of the larger formats.)
Unless I'm missing something, the marks on the glass for 'measurement' weren't needed. They didn't 'measure' anything in the image, they just delineated distances on the film, which could be done at anytime later. The glass plate? Seemed like a huge risk for Newton rings. Maybe they added it to keep the film from bulging due to pressure changes, and then added the little crosses because they were already adding the glass.
Film? There is nothing that any film can capture that digital can't easily cover and then some. I can shoot a 5 stop under or over exposed image with my Nikon D850 and later easily process back to a normal image. When I shot transparency film 5 stops +/- exposure was a guaranteed pure white or D-max black. Also digital captures 'all' possible colors, no film has ever been able to do that. College kids, "I want to do film 'cause it's better' should 'do film' but it's not better. There's no specific 'film quality' that can't be matched by post processing (tweaking). I don't know if any of this is useful. If your two camera guys read it and say, 'ah that guy's full of it,' they're probably correct. I'm just surprised how quickly so much of this photography stuff can be forgotten. In my darkroom in the 1990s I was doing things that later I found out guys in the 40s had done but which apparently had been completely forgotten for most of the time in between.
I still cant wait to see someone take an old 50s graflex into space and take the first large format photos of earth.
Good one! Very interesting.
The cosmosphere has so many of these cameras.
The promo video for Virgin Galactic a few months ago stated that "there is no need to bring a camera as the vehicle is equipped with cameras to record your flight into space for you". Excuse me? If I'm paying $200K to take a flight I'm gonna bring my camera.
They probably want as few things floating around as possible.
Another interesting story is why they went with Nikon, and not Canon. This has to do with the type of glass used in the objectives. Canon uses an exotic glass like material, called fluorite, it is a crystal, not a glass, but has special optical properties making it very desirable (high index of refraction, low dispersion and anomalous dispersion, important for correcting for chromatic aberration). Buy it has nasty habit of being toxic when in powder form. Or when subject to high heat, it releases toxic gas fumes. Also during the testing by NASA fluorite elements would crack during vibration simulations or during suddenly temperature changes. And that was primary reason why Canon was rejected. Now days most camera lenses don't contain fluorite, replaced with more complex engineered glasses with sometimes better performance or way lower cost. But fluorite is still used for UV microscopy, semiconductor photo lithography and amateur high end refractive telescopes. It still requires care, as these fluorite elements degrade with moisture in the air.
I don't have exact sources on this story, but I heard it few times with supposed backing from NASA employees.
I am myself a Canon guy, but most of my lenses are non Canon ones (Some Tokina, Tamron, and such), and I don't think any of them have fluorite crystal glass, but plenty of other fancy glass types.
movax20h wow that's so interesting thanks for sharing that tidbit
that was interesting sir!!!
Nikon developed ED glass which I believer uses fluorite crystals in the glass to give similar dispersion properties, but with better physical properties.
@@scottmanley AFAIK Nikon's ED and Super ED doesn't use fluorite crystals. They might have a small quantity of calcium fluorite in the past, but today even that is probably not the case. They mostly use some weird mixes of lanthanum, zirconium, fluorophospate, titanium, barium, and some other metal oxides. They indeed moved to own formulations, because fluorite crystals are either mined (which is rare to find in perfect shape), or lab grown, which is hard too (and there are maybe 3 companies in the world doing this now). Plus fluorite crystals are really tricky to shape and polish, and protect against moisture or scratches, and use with anti reflective coatings. So fluorite crystal lenses has a lot of technical and economical disadvantages. Today very few lenses are made with fluorite crystal glass. Some old Canons telephotos, and some high end telescopes (AFAIK only Takahashi, Vixen, TEC and Canon Optron via BORG telescope company) do so. In fact I believe Takahashi was the first company in the world to grow synthetic fluorite crystals, later probably sold this part to Canon, which is now only company essentially doing it, at very low volumes, the other being Ohara, Schott, and maybe there is some Russian company too, as I found some Russian patents related to this with now owned by Corning. Others use glasses like Ohara FPL-51 (ED) , FPL-53 (Super ED), Hoya FCD1, FCD1000, which do have similar optical properties to fluorite crystals, but often are completely different chemically. I am not sure if Nikon developed their glass on their own, or with other company (probably with Ohara), but some manufacturers say they are fluorite for some strange, reasons, but that is mostly marketing. Nothing wrong with one or another, all glass and lenses do have trade offs (technical and economical). Fluorite crystal are still one of the best options, if you don't care about cost, your focal length is pretty big and need superb apochromatic system in small number of lens elements, or good transmission in blue, violet or UV areas. For a lot of photography applications it doesn't matter, or can be compensated with just more glass, or now with software. There is a lot of smart people at Cloudy Nights forum, that probably know much more than me on this topic.
The FL designator of Nikon glass denotes use of synthetically grown fluorite crystal elements. Most N series lenses these days are FL.
Film was actually still used in the first few ISS missions, with a Nikon SLR
Very interesting video!
Thanks Scott