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Re: mgb sighting-More on Polaroid-really non-LBC

To: mgs@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: mgb sighting-More on Polaroid-really non-LBC
From: Bill Saidel <saidel@crab.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 11:15:01 -0500
Years ago after graduating MIT,  I didn't know what to do with myself so of
course, I worked as a freelance photographer in the Boston area. 

I picked up a part time job with Life photographer Fritz Goro (well, I
carried his $20K worth of equipment). Fritz was a great science
illustrator...he was the 1st to photograph a laser beam-his insight:
cigarette smoke. When I worked with him, he was trying to illustrate the
work of 2 people at Harvard Med School who 4-5 years later won the Nobel
prize for their studies on brain visual mechanisms. 

Anyway, for 3 days, he set up a monkey head with an electrode penetrating
its brain. On the 3rd day, he had it just the way he wanted and with his
4x5 camera and a Polaroid back (P/N film), he started to take pictures when
I jostled the table knocking everything on it to the floor (including the
monkey head). After yelling at me for my clumsiness (which is still evident
in how I deal with by 'B'), he reset it up and yelled "Wonderful"... a
slight modification made the presumptive image even better. 

He took about 3 Polaroid images as tests and then proceeded to take about
20 4x5 Kodak negatives. 

About a year later, I saw the picture in Life magazine (which has been
reprinted at least 4 times in various Scientific American publications)
when I realized...he had chosen as the best negative, one of the Polaroid
trial images and its negative. I later saw him and he confirmed my
suspicion that it was the Polaroid that was used.

Enough knocking of Polaroid. Its grain is non-existant and can be enlarged
much more than nearly all Kodak films (except maybe Technical Pan in low
contrast mode). 

But it is expensive and that I would hold against it.

FYI, this experience is what sent me back to doing science as a career.

Bill


At 10:21 AM 02/09/2000 EST, you wrote:
>In all fairness to Polaroid it isn't a camera at all, it's a chemistry set 
>and not bad at that for what it does.  When you put a Polaroid back on a 
>"real camera" you can take pix like those in their ads.
>Now let's hear about LBCs.
>
>George
>
**********************************************************************
Dr. Bill Saidel 
Assoc. Prof.                      Vocal phone   (609) 225-6336
Department of Biology             FAX  (609) 225-6312
Science Building                  email:  saidel@crab.rutgers.edu
315 Penn St.
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Camden, NJ 08102 -1411
http://crab.rutgers.edu/~saidel/saidel.html


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