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Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

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Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#71

Post by sokoloff »

larrys wrote: post #68
sokoloff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corey Lidle did it in Manhattan (accidentally), and someone did it intentionally in Austin a few years' back: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack It's just not that effective a means, even of terror, IMO. A rented truck, or a stolen delivery truck, would be wildly more effective.

In aviation is there an implied "see something say something"? By that I mean if you thought a pilot was acting strangely when you were in and around the airport how would you or other pilot's handle the situation? (I know it's a total "it depends" obviously.)

Yes, that's the catch phrase of AOPA's Airport Watch campaign, in concert with TSA and DHS: http://capnhq.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/888/~/aop...

Honestly, that program is more likely to turn up drug running or theft from airports/aircraft than terrorism.

In terms of seeing odd or unsafe behavior, I feel a moral obligation to talk to a pilot I see doing something unsafe. Talk to him/her, not call the Feds. There's a pretty lively debate about talk face-to-face vs call the Feds. While I've had excellent interactions with the FAA at every turn, I've also read absolute horror stories of other interactions, so I'm still inclined to offer a "word to the wise" type conversation rather than dropping a dime on someone. If I feared for my safety or the safety of others, and didn't want to talk directly to the person, there's ready and ample means to get such an inquiry started.

And of course, there are codes (that are basically an open secret) for hijack situations and it would not be hard to encode a message to ATC without using the most well-known code. I don't want to link them directly, but google "squawk codes" and it'll come right up.

Edit: here's a fascinating account that I have no reason to think is other than truthful: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.aviation.piloting/...

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#72

Post by gdubs »

HCIdivision17 wrote: post #22

The images truly are breathtaking. His note about the streets seeming like neurons is interesting, but I hope I'm not the only person who immediately thought the shots resembled an exaggerated extruded version of a chip's layered layout. (Here's sort of a small version: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Cell-Proc... ) It's a bit odd: the scale of the city is not quite large enough to look like a mode…

The original Cosmos by Carl Sagan [1] has a fantastic episode called "The Persistence of Memory" in which he compares the collective intelligence and pathways of cities to the brain, DNA, etc. if you've never seen it, I highly recommend it.

1: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:_A_Personal_Voyage

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#73

Post by cjbprime »

cookiesboxcar wrote: post #53

can anyone speak to the non-obvious (like more megapixel) advantages of shooting this on the medium format Mamiya that he mentions? I've always been intrigued by MF cameras, but they cost so much more causing them to be inaccessible (to me anyway).

My understanding is: 1) More megapixels, 2) a larger sensor (more than twice as large) means more signal-to-noise at each pixel site which means less noise in low light, 3) the Mamiya has far greater dynamic range (around one stop greater, double the amount of light).

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#74

Post by Brian-Puccio »

msandford wrote: post #18
nathancahill wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "like toys" effect is from the tilt-shift lens he used for some of the shots. Not sure about the colors though.

Ahhh, thanks so much for that. I KNEW it looked like pictures from a diorama or a model train or something but I couldn't put my finger on WHY. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniature_faking

That's faking the effect of a tilt-shift lens [0] -- which gives you the same effect, but there are often details that are wrong because most people apply it in seconds in PS without thinking how far each thing should be, they just do a gradient.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt–shift_photography

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#75

Post by SocksCanClose »

gdubs wrote: post #72
HCIdivision17 wrote: post #22

The images truly are breathtaking. His note about the streets seeming like neurons is interesting, but I hope I'm not the only person who immediately thought the shots resembled an exaggerated extruded version of a chip's layered layout. (Here's sort of a small version: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Cell-Proc... ) It's a bit odd: the scale of the city is not quite large enough to look like a mode…

The original Cosmos by Carl Sagan [1] has a fantastic episode called "The Persistence of Memory" in which he compares the collective intelligence and pathways of cities to the brain, DNA, etc. if you've never seen it, I highly recommend it. 1: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:_A_Personal_Voyage

Lately I have been wondering if macro-behaviors themselves aren't something like streets in an old world city -- laid out thousands of years ago for long-forgotten purposes. I was in a meeting with a senior (in both age and position) technical advisor, asking about an HR issues in our organization. "Why haven't we tried [optimizing]?" I asked. Sparing HN the details, my organization conducts HR to minimize risks, not to maximize gains. "We tried once, but failed. The system now works. There's no need to change it." This system, originally programmed in DOS (yes, that DOS), was ported years ago over into an emulator that runs atop HTML (that's right -- to use this system our operators boot up an old version of IE that pretends it's DOS). And nobody has ever thought that perhaps there's a better way to do business. Solidified pathways. Cognitive arteries caked over in plaque over years of use. Like paved-over cobblestone.

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#76

Post by fennecfoxen »

cookiesboxcar wrote: post #53

can anyone speak to the non-obvious (like more megapixel) advantages of shooting this on the medium format Mamiya that he mentions? I've always been intrigued by MF cameras, but they cost so much more causing them to be inaccessible (to me anyway).

Old-school medium-format film cameras are reasonably accessible -- you can get a Mayima 6x7 and a meh-okay lens for around $400, and even with a damned good lens can find lots of stuff in the sub-$2000 range. It's the digital medium-format rigs that break into five-figure territory -- and it takes a good little amount of film / processing costs to make up for that expense for the hobbyist.

Myself, I'm using my grandfather's old Canon 50mm/f1.4 on a Canon Model 7 rangefinder (essentially the last battery-free Canon) for film and the same lens on a (used) Leica M8 for digital. Nice fast lens, but still in 35mm-land.

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#77

Post by Matsta »

cjbprime wrote: post #73
cookiesboxcar wrote: post #53

can anyone speak to the non-obvious (like more megapixel) advantages of shooting this on the medium format Mamiya that he mentions? I've always been intrigued by MF cameras, but they cost so much more causing them to be inaccessible (to me anyway).

My understanding is: 1) More megapixels, 2) a larger sensor (more than twice as large) means more signal-to-noise at each pixel site which means less noise in low light, 3) the Mamiya has far greater dynamic range (around one stop greater, double the amount of light).

You're correct. What I'm wondering is why they used a 1DX instead of a Sony A7S? The ISO range on the Sony would of probably outdone both Canon and the Mamiya.

Taking photos at ISO 409,600 would be pretty awesome IMO.

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#78

Post by bane »

silvio wrote: post #35
HCIdivision17 wrote: post #22

The images truly are breathtaking. His note about the streets seeming like neurons is interesting, but I hope I'm not the only person who immediately thought the shots resembled an exaggerated extruded version of a chip's layered layout. (Here's sort of a small version: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Cell-Proc... ) It's a bit odd: the scale of the city is not quite large enough to look like a mode…

New York as a Microchip layout was the main theme of the intro of 'Hackers'. Check out around 0:40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c4KG_8iTZM

Yeah, it's a metaphor that gets explored a bit from time to time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJuy7LTBJk0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDB9g7l5srA

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#79

Post by fennecfoxen »

Matsta wrote: post #77
cjbprime wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is: 1) More megapixels, 2) a larger sensor (more than twice as large) means more signal-to-noise at each pixel site which means less noise in low light, 3) the Mamiya has far greater dynamic range (around one stop greater, double the amount of light).

You're correct. What I'm wondering is why they used a 1DX instead of a Sony A7S? The ISO range on the Sony would of probably outdone both Canon and the Mamiya. Taking photos at ISO 409,600 would be pretty awesome IMO.

You don't really want photos at ISO 409600 per se, though, you just want photos at the lowest ISO that can get you the necessary depth-of-field for your shot (here extended with tilt-shift lens) at whatever shutter speed avoids being too shaky. And then you want as high of a dynamic range of possible, so you can distinguish the brightest brights from the darkest darks in a single shot.

If you can do that already with the sensitivity you've brought, higher ISO doesn't buy you anything...

Re: Gotham 7.5K: A Rare High Altitude Night Flight Above NYC

#80

Post by morcheeba »

gandalfu wrote: post #54

For comparison, here is the view from the Empire State at night with 30s exposures. Not only his pictures are visually stunning, but also incredibly difficult to capture. https://www.flickr.com/photos/63499655@N02/sets/721576298051...

That's 30 seconds at f9 at ISO 100. They were shooting at 3200-6400, at f1.4-2.8

Counting down, that's 30/100, 15/200, 8/400, 4/800, 2/1600, 1/3200 ... so same aperture cuts it down to 1 second.

Then increasing the aperture 1/f8, 0.5/f5.6 0.25/f4 (1/8second)/f2.8 (1/15second)/f2 (1/30second/f1.4).

That's still difficult to capture, but a wide lens and/or image stabilization will help. Getting all 50 megapixels sharp would be hard to do.

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