Dino Saga 060806___50s Pictures

Dino Saga 060806___50s Pictures

Found a sleeve of black and white negatives from the 50s. Santa Barbara Road Races. Had to share them and show you how to copy B&W negatives and color slides. Turns out there is an easy way!

Had a big family get together. Dug out all the old pictures. Found B&W negs but no prints. Saw cars and recognized the SB tower. Then saw a military plane low and dead stick. I remembered that day. How to get prints? Have an Epson scanner that does film. Tried and was underwhelmed. Lousy resolution and slow. My camera has far better resolution but how to copy and edit. Tried close up lenses. Distortion and color fringes. Went back to basics. Fuji S5000 has 10x zoom that works best at infinity. All I needed was a color corrected, infinity corrected lens, larger in diameter than the camera lens. I could then zoom to the size I wanted. 7 x 50 binocular objectives are 2” dia achromats with a focal length of about 7”. You can buy a plastic body binocular for $20. $20 later I had my close-up lens. Two layers of electrical tape made the OD just perfect to go into the 55 mm threads of my lens hood. Flat side goes to film, curved side to camera. Film sits 7” away. Auto focus and zoom work fine. Depth of field is about ¼”. B/W negs, color slides are fine. Color negs need lots of work because of the amber mask.

Made a film holder out of scrap styrene plastic. White styrene reflector couple of inches behind film is lit with a 22 watt compact fluorescent bulb 2 feet away. Color slides want either fluorescent or halogen bulbs. 2000 pixels wide is plenty good. You can see the film grain so any more is a waste of time. Took pics in color, converted to 8 bit grey in editor, made negative of negative, boosted contrast and brightness, cropped, reduced to 800 x 600, sharpened and there you are. Grainy film, cloudy day, English, German, American and Italian sports cars doing their thing. Too bad it is all I have of those years. Maybe someone can identify the cars. The Washburn Chevrolet 614 Corvette is still in town and runs in every parade. Was unbeatable in its class in its day.

My intro into sports cars started in the late 40s. We lived in Smithtown, Long Island, NY. On the Jericho Turnpike. Sundays brought sports car races way out in the Hamptons. I would see MG Cs, TDs, TFs, Jags (once a C type), Austin Healeys, Triumphs, Morgans parade home on Sunday evenings. Never watched them race but wished. And read the magazines. Moved to Santa Barbara in ’54 and reveled in the Southern California sports car circuit. Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, Torrey Pines, etc. Heard and saw my first Ferrari at Torrey Pines and dreamed. Shot lots of 16 mm color movie film, all lost. Started shooting some 35 mm B&W. Bought my first MG TD, learned to drive a sports car. You knew you were going fast in a TD when you hit 70 Mph. Drafted into US Army. Then electronic tech, another TD, junior engineer, Alfa 1200 Spyder, started a company, new Alfa 1600 Spyder, went public, Alfa Giulia Sprint Specialle, retired, traded Alfa for the Dino. Looked, ran and sounded just right. Remembered Torrey Pines.

Still do.

John
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