Gliders Photos

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This morning I came across the most stunning original church that I have seen for some time.
The Church, apart from the bench and wreath of poppies hasn't changed for hundreds of years. Its worth noting that even this small village lost six of its sons in WW!

The View

The Setting
 
I have just worked out how to use my new scanner so older photo's can now be loaded.
First a Seahawk. I have a special relationship to this aircraft as back in the day when being trained as an artificer, I sometimes worked on this aircraft.

Next an unusual combination

Finally an Italian F104S
 
I am finding that some slides have stood the test of time, others haven't. If only I knew then what I know now.
This was taken I think in the mid 1990's when it was very unusual to see Mig 29's and F16's together

Mirage IIIe

The B52 taken in 1976 (I am afraid I don't know which version)
 
Good stuff, and the scans have turned out well.
I found that there was a marked difference in overall quality, between Ektachrome and Kodachrome scans, when using my inexpensive slide/neg scanner.
However, by adjusting the film holder (in the scanner) to suit the mount, or lack of, and adjusting the exposure, better results were obtained, which could then be 'enhanced' in a photo-editing programme, such as 'Irfanview'.
 
Its early days and I am still playing with it. I will certainly try your suggestions but its the actual transparency that has degraded which is something you cannot change. The Mirage IIIE and the F104S were taken only a couple of months apart and stored in the same conditions, but there is no doubt that the 104 transparency is in much better shape.
 
I understand.
Shots taken on Ekatachrome have more chance of degrading with time, especially if not in glass mounts, as the processing could be done at labs anywhere in the country, which could lead to variations in the processing conditions, more so if strict process monitoring was not adhered to.
With Kodachrome however, this was only processed by Kodak Ltd in the UK (in the later days, moved to Kodak Pathe in France), due to the 'complexities' of the process system. In most cases, if stored in cool, dry, dark conditions, Kodachrome transparencies will retain their colour quality for much longer than those made on Ekatachrome film stock.
I have some 36 year old Ekatachrome shots, taken at the same location, on the same day, on two or three different rolls. Those processed by a local professional lab are much better quality than the one roll processed by a 'high street' photo processing shop, the latter now exhibiting distinct loss of saturation and colour tones.
 
The VC10 unquestionably the most elegant air tanker ever built

The Red Arrows avoiding trouble.
I wish I could take credit for planning this shot, but I cannot. I was tracking the Red Arrows when they unexpectedly pulled up, as they pulled up the sun reflected on the wings and I took the photo. It was only when I received the transparencies did I see why they pulled up, on the left of the shot is a light aircraft of some type, its blurred but clearly can be seen.

F117 plus Red Arrows
I think this was the first time the F117 was shown in the UK. Security was unusually tight
 
Glider, what camera equipment do you use and were you using? Your work is excellent, especially the flying shots. I do know on rare occasions Kodak had processing errors. I once sent in Kodachrome to Rochester,NY after an air show and two rolls exhibited a streak ending in a circle involving three to four frames which indicated a bubble in the surface of the chemical in the processing tanks. They tried to tell me the problem was in my camera. When I told them I was a Kodak employee and serviced processing equipment for our customers, they sent me two rolls of Kodachrome and said "case closed" .
 
The photographs are over a period of 40 years so as you would expect they involve a variety of cameras. The oldest from 1976 such as the B52 and the Red Arrows in Gnats would be a Zenith E. I then moved to Minolta cameras starting with a Minolta 2xi (most of the rest) and the last film camera was a Minolta 500si Super. I now use an Olympus OMD ev1 digital camera and really like it. Its a lot smaller and lighter than a traditional Digital SLR, I used it for the Church photos and inside the Nimrod.
As for film I liked Agfachrome and Fujichrome coming unstuck when I used other often own name brands, they were fine at the time but now is a different story. My absolute favourite slide film was Agfascala which was a black and white slide film and the detail you could capture was very impressive.

The only funny story I have re processing was when I was sent the wrong film. I took it back and they tried to persuade me that I was mistaken and it really was mine. I showed a couple of shots of a very attractive women, taken in a bedroom, wearing not a lot of clothes and pointed out I would probably remember taking these photographs. Game over and I was given some film with free processing. I often wonder what the other guy thought of my landscapes, probably not very much
 
I have been taking aircraft photos since 1955 but being young with lack of funds, it was a cheap camera and B/W film. After Air Force and back, I went to work for Kodak. I realized it was foolish not having photography as a hobby also, so began studying and got better equipment. Used almost exclusively Kodachrome 25 and 64. I used Canon A-1 and AE-1. My long time friend, whom I've outlived, bought A Nikon F while in Japan with the Air Force in the 60s so we always debated which was better. Sometime before he passed away, he gave me most of his slides (keeping the best) and later as he downsized, gave me his old albums with prints from the 60s and 70s. It is ironic that the past two days I have had the urge and have been removing the prints and catalog them and cross reference with mine. We went to airshows together and museums to shoot pictures. Because he made more money he went to the British, French, Italian air museums as well as Monino. I think much of his European museum shots as well as his best air to air went to his son. I hope to share some of his work with the forum.
 
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