Star Trek: the original series 365- ABRAMS

[paulablock]

The model is what it is. It IS the original model used in the show. The Smithsonian DID shoot it. Perhaps, unlike Warped9's model, the original model is not perfectly aligned. Perhaps when it was repaired they didn't have a level around to judge it properly. Perhaps the photographer had a peg leg that was slightly shorter than the other leg. Perhaps the Smithsonian is sinking in a tar pit. In the end, it's still a brand new picture of the original model, never before seen. It matters not a bit. Let that be the end to the great droopy nacelle debate. Or, as Hamlet said, "The rest is silence."
Hope y'all like the rest of the book!

 

[A beaker full of death]

Crap. Now this is bugging me.
It's not the nacelle thing, so much as the whole ship just looks weird. I guess it's just the unusual angle - I've been used to seeing certain shots of that model for 40 years - but damned if it doesn't look just kinda squat. I tried stretching the pic, but it didn't help. Somehow, the neck looks too short, and the nacelles too wide. My guess is we never saw it from such a close position before.

 

[Warped9]

^^ I'm thinking the photographer used an odd lens that exaggerates forced perspective in a way I've never seen before.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Yeah, the focal length is the culprit here, plus the the size of the 11 footer? nevertheless, I like it, not technically perfect but very artsy!

 

[Capt.Mac]

Most likely shot with a wide angle lens and/or monorail camera, which would explain the additional distortion. The bottom image shows the ship with the wide angle effect removed.http://www.startrekhistory.com/EntCompare.jpg

 

[pronountrouble]

Just dug up an email from the SI photographer, as well as a low-res .jpg created from the raw digital-camera file (above). My involvement with the project aside, I still find the details of the shoot fascinating, and hopefully you all will, too!

The biggest challenge in shooting the model was the fact that it sits behind 3/8" glass, which made shooting without reflections challenging. An angle was chosen that allowed the photographer to shoot in between the panels of glass so that only one area had to be Photoshopped to remove the lines that separate the glass and cover the model (see above, left).

Strobes were used to light the model so that the light source would be adequate, but still dramatic. And yes, the camera used was a wide-angle (a CamboWide with a 24mm Schneider Apo Digitar lens - equivalent to a 35mm camera to a 17mm lens); a Phase One P45 back was also used, producing a 112mb file.

The front of the ship was very slightly rescaled to minimize distortion by the lens, a common practice when using extreme wide-angle lenses.

So yes, artful and dramatic, but not what we're used to seeing. And I'm ultimately fine with that.

 

[Teppo]

Just dug up an email from the SI photographer, as well as a low-res .jpg created from the raw digital-camera file (above). My involvement with the project aside, I still find the details of the shoot fascinating, and hopefully you all will, too!

The biggest challenge in shooting the model was the fact that it sits behind 3/8" glass, which made shooting without reflections challenging. An angle was chosen that allowed the photographer to shoot in between the panels of glass so that only one area had to be Photoshopped to remove the lines that separate the glass and cover the model (see above, left).

Strobes were used to light the model so that the light source would be adequate, but still dramatic. And yes, the camera used was a wide-angle (a CamboWide with a 24mm Schneider Apo Digitar lens - equivalent to a 35mm camera to a 17mm lens); a Phase One P45 back was also used, producing a 112mb file.

The front of the ship was very slightly rescaled to minimize distortion by the lens, a common practice when using extreme wide-angle lenses.

So yes, artful and dramatic, but not what we're used to seeing. And I'm ultimately fine with that.

Thanks for all the info, Pronountrouble. This is fascinating.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Interesting. The shot above does look much more "right", intuitively, speaking as someone who knows absolutely nothing about photography.

 

[Warped9]

The shot above does look more "right" and for myself preferable because it looks like what I'd actually see. The wide angle lens and the slight manipulation of the forward section explain the distortion and why I think the ship looks broken.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Pronoun, I'm amazed the Smithsonian wouldn't remove the glass for the shot.

 

[Warped9]

The above image is a gorgeous shot. I'm sure something a la TOS-R could have substituted and you wouldn't have to worry about glass reflections.

 

[pronountrouble]

The authors and I were more than thrilled with how accommodating and helpful we found the SI staff to be; suffice to say that the book's photography budget had nowhere near enough funds available to suggest that the SI disassemble and then re-assemble the display case! That would have been prohibitively expensive and time-consuming—a practical impossibility.

As to other options, our hands were a bit tied. None of the stills from the original 35mm film were of acceptable resolution/repro quality, nor were those from TOS-R (at least to our printing standards, especially for covers). Grain, motion blur, angles that just didn't work—several other options were explored but ultimately didn't work out. And since we did want to do something new and special, at least as new and special as you can do with a forty-year-old TV show, we went with the new SI photo. Unfortunately, you can't please everyone, but at least it all makes for some interesting backstory/reading, I hope!

Would love to field any questions about the book's production or content or what-have-you that *aren't* related to the cover, by the way.

 

[Sector 7]

^Maybe you could put a word in to reproduce the old TOS "photonovels" from my teenage years (circa 1970s). The photos were very blurry and what I now know is low-resolution, but I loved those photonovels.

 

[Warped9]

Hmm. I know it's a resource that wouldn't likely have been tapped, but there have been a few devoted fans around that have created stunning 3D models of the TOS E. Stills from anyone of them I'm sure likely could have been had for a reasonable fee.

Whatever. It is what it is. I'll look into the contents of the book further, particular the rare photos, to decide whether I'll pick it up.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I can't wait to get this book.

Great shot of the Enterprise model, BTW.

 

[Captain Robert April]

There's also the sad truth that the nacelles on the Gray Lady aren't perfectly parallel, and in fact aren't even the same length, and they've always been that way. If anything, time has only made things somewhat worse.

It's also possible that we're seeing just why that camera angle was never used during the show, because it makes the ship look kinda goofy, especially if we're talking a wide angle lens for a relatively small picture on the cover. Blown up to poster size, it probably looks pretty nice, but shrunk down on the cover, not so much.