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#1
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What film was used for Apollo missions?
Hi all,
I was puzzled by some comments in these articles about the Apollo mission regarding the resolution of color film being scanned. Anyone here know what was being used, and why a 2800 ppi scan would be "well past the grain" of a 6x6 frame, as is claimed in these articles? http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/ABOUT_SCANS/index.html http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/METRIC_PREVIEW/index.html http://asunews.asu.edu/20070803_apollo Thanks! Neil |
#2
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What film was used for Apollo missions?
On Aug 28, 4:56 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Hi all, I was puzzled by some comments in these articles about the Apollo mission regarding the resolution of color film being scanned. Anyone here know what was being used, and why a 2800 ppi scan would be "well past the grain" of a 6x6 frame, as is claimed in these articles? http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/ABOUT_SCANS/index.html http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/METRIC_PREVIEW/index.html http://asunews.asu.edu/20070803_apollo Thanks! Neil 70mm process E-3 Ektachrome, I believe. |
#3
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What film was used for Apollo missions?
On Aug 28, 4:56 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote:
Hi all, I was puzzled by some comments in these articles about the Apollo mission regarding the resolution of color film being scanned. Anyone here know what was being used, and why a 2800 ppi scan would be "well past the grain" of a 6x6 frame, as is claimed in these articles? The site you referenced lists the colour slide films as Kodak SO-121 Ektachrome MS and Kodak SO-368 Ektachrome MS. see: http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/RESOURCES/apollo_films.txt These appear to be special versions of the Ektachrome films of the time. I would guess that the big differences between SO-368 and the Ektachrome-X that people used on earth at the time are that it was on a polyester Estar base instead of acetate and had a really aggressive UV filter layer . http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/ABOUT_SCANS/index.html Indicates a scan resolution of 100 pixels/mm for the Ektachrome. I would guess that they tried higher resolutions and didn't get any meaningful extra information. This doesn't surprise me given what I know of the Ektachrome films of the time. The B&W films were mostly Aero Panatomic-X which they are scanning at 200 pixels/mm. At http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/METRIC_PREVIEW/index.html They estimate that the actual resultion on the films is about 1/(2^.5) of the scan resolution. This would equate to 71 lp/mm of useful resolution on the Pan-X - this is very good for real-world performance on medium format black and white film. It doesn't surprise me in the least that the Ektachrome images are only half that good in practice. As for "well past the grain" - it can't be true in a literal sense - the largest grains are quite a bit smaller than a scanned pixel. But it might be beyond the point where the graininess of the film becomes intrusive. Peter. -- |
#4
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What film was used for Apollo missions?
Neil Gould wrote:
Hi all, I was puzzled by some comments in these articles about the Apollo mission regarding the resolution of color film being scanned. Anyone here know what was being used, and why a 2800 ppi scan would be "well past the grain" of a 6x6 frame, as is claimed in these articles? http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/ABOUT_SCANS/index.html http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/METRIC_PREVIEW/index.html http://asunews.asu.edu/20070803_apollo Thanks! Neil I think some of the pre-Apollo NASA flights used Anscochrome! Ansco eventually became GAF and made a complete exit from the photographic world (as did Dupont, makers of the best variable contrast black and white papers back in the day). Those last Ansco products were process E-3. |
#5
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What film was used for Apollo missions?
Peter,
Thanks for reviewing the site and the detailed information regarding these films. I was thrown by the comments about film "grain", and yet it is easy to understand that there many be little benefit to using a higher scan rate for the Ektachrome. Regards, Neil Recently, Peter posted: On Aug 28, 4:56 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote: Hi all, I was puzzled by some comments in these articles about the Apollo mission regarding the resolution of color film being scanned. Anyone here know what was being used, and why a 2800 ppi scan would be "well past the grain" of a 6x6 frame, as is claimed in these articles? The site you referenced lists the colour slide films as Kodak SO-121 Ektachrome MS and Kodak SO-368 Ektachrome MS. see: http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/RESOURCES/apollo_films.txt These appear to be special versions of the Ektachrome films of the time. I would guess that the big differences between SO-368 and the Ektachrome-X that people used on earth at the time are that it was on a polyester Estar base instead of acetate and had a really aggressive UV filter layer . http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/ABOUT_SCANS/index.html Indicates a scan resolution of 100 pixels/mm for the Ektachrome. I would guess that they tried higher resolutions and didn't get any meaningful extra information. This doesn't surprise me given what I know of the Ektachrome films of the time. The B&W films were mostly Aero Panatomic-X which they are scanning at 200 pixels/mm. At http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/METRIC_PREVIEW/index.html They estimate that the actual resultion on the films is about 1/(2^.5) of the scan resolution. This would equate to 71 lp/mm of useful resolution on the Pan-X - this is very good for real-world performance on medium format black and white film. It doesn't surprise me in the least that the Ektachrome images are only half that good in practice. As for "well past the grain" - it can't be true in a literal sense - the largest grains are quite a bit smaller than a scanned pixel. But it might be beyond the point where the graininess of the film becomes intrusive. Peter. |
#6
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What film was used for Apollo missions?
YUP as I recall ESTAR was the choice for several reasons.
Thinner base so the could stuff more frames into each back. Dimensionally stable so that they could use photo interpretive metrics to scale objects in photos. And ESTAR is much tougher so less chance of a roll of film breaking in camera. And the stuff would be more like Aero-ektachrome than the stuff we could buy. darkroommike Peter wrote: On Aug 28, 4:56 pm, "Neil Gould" wrote: Hi all, I was puzzled by some comments in these articles about the Apollo mission regarding the resolution of color film being scanned. Anyone here know what was being used, and why a 2800 ppi scan would be "well past the grain" of a 6x6 frame, as is claimed in these articles? The site you referenced lists the colour slide films as Kodak SO-121 Ektachrome MS and Kodak SO-368 Ektachrome MS. see: http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/RESOURCES/apollo_films.txt These appear to be special versions of the Ektachrome films of the time. I would guess that the big differences between SO-368 and the Ektachrome-X that people used on earth at the time are that it was on a polyester Estar base instead of acetate and had a really aggressive UV filter layer . http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/ABOUT_SCANS/index.html Indicates a scan resolution of 100 pixels/mm for the Ektachrome. I would guess that they tried higher resolutions and didn't get any meaningful extra information. This doesn't surprise me given what I know of the Ektachrome films of the time. The B&W films were mostly Aero Panatomic-X which they are scanning at 200 pixels/mm. At http://apollo.sese.asu.edu/METRIC_PREVIEW/index.html They estimate that the actual resultion on the films is about 1/(2^.5) of the scan resolution. This would equate to 71 lp/mm of useful resolution on the Pan-X - this is very good for real-world performance on medium format black and white film. It doesn't surprise me in the least that the Ektachrome images are only half that good in practice. As for "well past the grain" - it can't be true in a literal sense - the largest grains are quite a bit smaller than a scanned pixel. But it might be beyond the point where the graininess of the film becomes intrusive. Peter. -- |
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