Yahoo Groups archive

Digital BW, The Print

Index last updated: 2026-04-28 22:56 UTC

Message

Re: [Digital BW] OT: Big Polaroid (was digital sharpness...)

2002-09-08 by Moreno Polloni

> This talk of 3ft x 6ft Polaroid has me intrigued.
>
> I knew about the little 20in x 24in one, as used by Elsa Dorfman
> [ http://elsa.photo.net/index.html ]
> and field cameras made by Wisner
> [ http://www.wisner.com/Page13.html ]
> but 3ft x 6ft -- I'd like to see that!
>
> Anyone know a URL?

I dug up the magazine article - American Photo, Jan/Feb 2002 isssue. There's
a blurb on page 90 about photographer Joe McNally's Sept 11 survivors
project.

Some interesting facts about the camera and the project:

- 272 people were photographed over a 3 week period
- the film costs $340 per exposure
- the image area is 40" x 90"
- the camera uses a 12 foot focal length lens (3600mm) from a retired U2 spy
plane
- the depth of field is about a 1/4 inch
- each exposure required the use of a dozen 2400 ws strobes (28,800 ws)
- the photographer and assistant are actually inside the camera during the
exposure
- the images were shot against a white background, as a result, no
out-of-focus detail available, bokeh characteristics remain a mystery

Attachments

Move to quarantaine

This moves the raw source file on disk only. The archive index is not changed automatically, so you still need to run a manual refresh afterward.