3 replies to this topic

[ScottinPollock]

Sony A7S2 now taking video of Earth. Guessing they thought Nikon wasn't good enough in that regard.

[Ron]

They used to have a whole gaggle of Nikons and Nikkor lenses on the ISS, mostly for still photography tho. I don't know what they used to shoot video with prior to getting A7S2's.

 

--Ron

[Merco_61]

So, we are back to the beginning... The first camera in space in the western world was a Minolta. It might have been the first, but nobody can be quite sure about how the early cosmonauts were equipped.

[Ron]

Peter, you are correct, sir. From NASA...

 

 

When John Glenn became the first American in orbit, bringing a camera was an afterthought. An Ansco Autoset 35mm camera, manufactured by Minolta, was purchased in a local drug store and hastily modified so the astronaut could use it more easily while in his pressure suit. At the time, everything that John Glenn did was deemed an experiment. At the beginning of the program, no one knew for certain whether weightlessness would prevent a man from seeing, or from breathing, or from eating and swallowing. Photography was deemed nothing more than a recreational extra.

 

I love the part about it being purchased at a local drug store.

 

--Ron