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A NASA opinion of Canon vs Nikon 


FROM: aalto@u.washington.edu (Rolf Aalto)
SUBJECT: Re: Canon vs Nikon
DATE: 26 Feb 1997 22:09:11 GMT
ORGANIZATION: University of Washington, Seattle

In article ,
Helmut Faugel TE   wrote:
>On Tue, 25 Feb 1997, Thomas Edward Witte wrote:
>> [..] 
>> I rolled ontop of the F5 for about 30yards. 
>
>I joined a simular situation with my Minolta X-700. I think rolling
>ontop of camera is not the same stress as if the are going into the air.
Well I happen to work for NASA. The other day I was outside updating optics/electronics on the Hubble Space Telescope and, since the view was great, brought along both my Nikon F5 and EOS 1n (the latter, of course, provided by NASA's Earth Observing System program). After taking a few shots, I clipped them onto the end of the control arm, and completed my work.

Unfortunately, when returning to the shuttle cabin, I forgot to retreive my cameras, and they ended up dangling outside the cargo bay on their long teather. Since we had to begin our descent immediately to follow the proper flight path, we closed the doors and fired up the main engines for descent. Looking at the external video monitor, I saw they had slid aft, and were both roasting in the engine exhaust. The straps promply vaporized, and both cameras entered the atmosphere on trajectories similar to ours.

NASA flight control tracking systems show that the heaver F5 bored through the atmosphere at a much higher velocity than the lighter EOS 1n. The F5 eventually impacted a private residence outside of Las Vegas at approximately 350mph, killing two residence and maiming a third. I had left the set-focus distance auto trigger on in the F5, and it snapped a shot of the victims a mere fraction of a second before the tragic accident. The 3-D color matrix evaluative exposure choose exactly the right shutter speed and aperture -- details are tack-sharp, exposure is perfect, and the attached SB-26 flash provided balanced fill flash for shadow detail. Unfortunately, the victim's lawyer has obtained these pictures, and NASA stands to loose the case as a result. Besides that, the F5's internal shutter diagnostics show that the shutter speed is no longer properly calibrated.

On the other hand, the lighter EOS 1n deployed it`s built-in, auto-pop-up flash umbrella (special NASA modification), and drifted gently down to earth in downtown Las Vegas, where it bounced gently off the pavement into the suprised hands of none other than Siegfried, of Siegfried and Roy. Siegfried inadvertently snapped a few shots of Roy's performance, catching, by the dint of the 1n's rapid autofocus and fast f1.0 lens, Roy performing a trickly sleight-of-hand manuever. Siegfried has agreed to pay NASA an undisclosed sum to keep these photos out of general circulation, thus partially compensating the cost of the F5 lawsuit.

As you might expect, NASA now has a policy of only allowing polycarbonate cameras on future shuttle missions.

:-)



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