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About 20 years ago, I saw a Polaroid print in a museum of (I think) a famous painting titled The Assertion. The Polaroid print was about 4’X6’ and was not seamed together. They had the camera that had taken it on display. It was essentially a aluminum frame about4’X4’X6’ with dark cloth draped over it. At the time it didn’t occur to me to ask where they got a lens with a 4’ focal length and an 8’ field of coverage. Does anybody else remember this picture and camera? I think that I saw it at the museum at Berkeley.

-- Neal Shields (shields@ftw.com), December 05, 2001

Answers

Neil it was probably a pinhole camera, I saw an article about a guy here in Mexico who made a paper negative 7'x4' with a pinhole camera....or camera obscura as they call them here.

-- Jorge Gasteazoro (jorgegm58@prodigy.net.mx), December 05, 2001.

Tracy Storer of Calumet/polaroid 20x24 fame has experience with the big polaroid camera. It takes 40-44 inch by 7 feet images. It had a place inside where two assistants could sit. They were needed to manipulate the very large sheet of Polaroid film for processing.

According to him the size was limited only by the width of the film the factory made, it came in big rolls of that width. Edwin Land had them make it so he could show the big prints at stockholders meetings and use them for PR purposes.

He would have info on it. Tracy runs the Calumet/Polaroid 20x24 studio in the Bay area. Get ahold of him & you can talk while shooting the 20x24 for a day.

-- Dan Smith (shooter@brigham.net), December 05, 2001.


Aren't we talking about the same thing Joe McNally just used to take pix of workers at Ground Zero in NY for Life? around about 8'x4' film and lens from a U2 spy plane? Wasn't this thread just on here?

There was an article on the NYTimes site, but now you might have to pay for it... below had a link

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=006sgr

-- Tim Atherton (tim@kairosphoto.com), December 05, 2001.


Actually here's the link - all you ahve to do is register at the NY Times (free) if you aren't already

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/01/arts/design/01POLA.html

And Joes pix were in the Life special thats out

-- Tim Atherton (tim@kairosphoto.com), December 05, 2001.


That is it, thanks.

-- Neal Shields (shields@ftw.com), December 07, 2001.


The camera used recently by Joe Mcnally IS the same camera, from the original question. Back in the day, Polaroid used scaffolding and opaque black plastic to make a location camera in the Vatican to shoot the frescoes. The 40x80 camera is now in a private studio in NYC, but can be rented. Feel free to e-mail me with questions about the big (20x24 +40x80) cameras. Eventually I will get some more info up on my website www.mammothcamera.com Tracy ps,

-- Tracy Storer (tstorer480@earthlink.net), January 10, 2002.

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