Namdaemun Market - used photo equipment

Namdaemun Market - wide choice in used photo equipment and plenty of motives to test it on the spot. Forgive me - this is a quite Canon oriented sight. 

Human powered flight photos

New photos found for my very small collection on man-powered flight. About the first I did not think too much, but after some research I am sure, it is a quite importent shot.

It turned out to be the Shafter Version of the Gossamer Condor. The Photo is most probably from the first Kremer price flight on 23rd of August 1977, the rider/pilot is Bryan Allen.

The Kremer price was established by the British industrialist Henry Kremer in 1959, but for more than 17 years nobody even came near to win it. Dr. Paul MacCready from California startet in 1976 a family and friends team to start a completely new approach to man-powered flight. He took his experience from hang gliders and built a very light design of lightweight plastics and aluminum spars with 29 meters wingspan, more than a DC9, but much much lighter and intended to fly at a very low speed. 

After a quick start with promising success, than a long serie of failures, a simple try and error - crash and repair - methode improved the design slowly. In March 1977 the team moved to Minter Field at Shafter Airport in California, where the wind conditions were expected superior. The same time Bryan Allen joined the team and brought professional bicycle racer power into the project. In the meantime a Japanese team had the same approach and their successful flight times were alarming for the Condor team. The design was improved with higher effort and on 23rd of August 1977, Bryan Allen succeeded in completing the Kremer eight-figure course. The Gossamer Condor is now preserved in the collections of the Smithsonian National Space and Air Museum.

Shafter Version of the Gossamer Condor at the Kremer Price flight on 23rd of August 1977. This photo was published by the Sun Magazine in Baltimore in March 1979 and was some time in possession of the Du Pont Archive.

A later Version of the Gossamer Condor, photo is dated March 1979.

This photo is dated June 1979.

Further readings and sources:

http://www.pbs.org/saf/1109/hotline/hmaccready.htm

http://www.wired.com/2010/08/0823gossamer-condor-human-powered-flight/

http://donaldmonroe.com/gallery/gossamer-condor/page/2/

http://www.humanpoweredflying.propdesigner.co.uk/html/the_gossamers.html

http://hackaday.com/2015/01/27/retrotechtacular-the-gossamer-condor/

With my SWC round the Petronas Towers

For my recent Kuala Lumpur trip I took with me my Hasselblad SWC from 1978 additional to the Canon DSLR. I brought a tripod (Gitzo Traveler) too and only one film back for the SWC with an Ilford HP5+ already loaded with some shots already done long time ago and two new Ilford FP4+ films.

I used the SWC on two days around the Petronas Towers, which are clearly a hot spot for extreme wide angle lenses. On the first day I shot the remaining frames of the HP5+, which is a 400 ASA film and in the bright KL sun this resulted in high apertures even hand held. Two of the results you will find here, not as grainy as I thought, but still.

 

 

Second day with the much slower (125 ASA) Iford FP4+, this time I used the tripod, therefore high apertures too and longer shutter speeds were possible.

All negatives are scanned here in Jungmuro professional, I get files with 8700 x 8700 pixels and about 200 MB. I edit them in Photoshop Elements and for internet use I compress to 3600 x 3600 pixels. Sharpness is still amazing IMHO.

 

Since some time I like to play with digital Sepia toning, herewith a few results. 

Petronas Twin Towers

One of the most significant skyscrapers in the world, currently position is No. 9 in the list of the tallest buildings worldwide. When I saw it first in 2001, it was No. 1 and kept this position till the Taipei 101 in 2004.

Of course one of the most photographed buildings in the world too.

as seen from my hotel room

as seen by smartphone

as seen by 15mm fisheye lens

backside of Suria KLCC, the shopping mall

Further readings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronas_Towers

http://pcparch.com/project/petronas-towers/detail

http://www.emporis.com/statistics/worlds-tallest-buildings

Tropical beauty

Kuala Lumpur is a colourful blend of old British colonial influences, multi-Asian traditions, Malay Islamic and natural religion inspirations, modern and postmodern lifestyle mix. A busy town with trendy high-level architecture and outmoded two-storeyed residential areas. Countless elegant skyscrapers where ever you look. Architects from the entire world worked there and created buildings with impressing glass and steel shells, the most prominent example being the outstanding Petronas Towers. Life is busy floating through, business rolls on and times are changing fast.

But still it is a purely tropical town. Moving around a corner even in the very middle of the city centre, you unforeseen can find a vivid and wild variety of growing trees and bushes. An old wall can transmute into an own opulent world of wonderful vivid structures of unknown meaning for a western eye. Plenty of little creatures as ragtag birds and candy-striped squirrels live there and unknown kinds of insects and spiders. They know much better the hidden denotations of all these arms and branches, these mixtures and amalgamations of boughs, roots and creeping plants. They know all the exact routs between them and up and down to go. All I am reverential able is to be astonished and impressed about this utterly treasure of tropical beauty.

you have to look a little bit closer ...

and a little bit more closer ...