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The biggest reason was that the Apollo program was able to return film from the surface of the Moon to Earth. Many of these photos weren't returned to Earth in
by jiberius 5y ago
The biggest reason was that the Apollo program was able to return film from the surface of the Moon to Earth. Many of these photos weren't returned to Earth in film form. Instead they were developed onboard the spacecraft, scanned, transmitted via radio, and then recorded onto tape on the ground. Every step of that process incurs a decent bit of quality loss.
You can actually tell which probes had a reentry module because the photo quality is pretty stunning compared to the photos transmitted over radio, look at Zond 8 which returned film negatives to Earth.
- baybal2 5y agoAmerican videocameras were way superior as well. Tube cameras Russia used up into 200x were inferior than RCA ones from sixties. Consumer technology, and monetary incentives make mirracles. Hard to fathom that today's "supercomputer in the pocket" came out of efforts to build superior gaming PCs, and frag more people in Q3.
- dylan604 5y agoExcept those american videocameras were probably made in Japan. Sony, Nikon, Ikegami, JVC, ...
- baybal2 5y agoThere were no Japanese videocameras in sixties
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoA quick google says you're wrong: https://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/cine253.html https://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/cine253.html What is it with Internet commenters who are cocksure despite not knowing what they're talking about?
- baybal2 5y agoThis is not a videocamera
- bellyfullofbac 5y agoWell, color me embarassed. But why the pivot of the discussion to the video cameras? Maybe to emphasize "America superior"?
- herendin2 5y agoWhat is it with Internet commenters who are cocksure despite not knowing what they're talking about?
- scoopertrooper 5y agoI completely agree, I'm sick of people being cocksure about something despite not knowing what they're talking about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikegami_Tsushinki#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikegami_Tsushinki#History
- skhr0680 5y agoThe Russians got the Zeiss factory as spoils of WWII so they made at least some decent optics.
- fifilura 5y ago> American videocameras were way superior as well. I know you didn't phrase it exactly that way. But we in Sweden are somewhat proud of supplying the Hasselblad cameras to the Apollo missions.
- ninjin 5y agoWhile I greatly dislike the nationalistic undertones in your comment, you are – unlike what some responses claim – not wrong in that the video cameras for the Apollo 11 mission [1] were indeed American and made by Westinghouse [2] and lenses by Fairchild [3]. Not sure how much I would argue that it was “consumer technology” though, at least not at the time. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_TV_camera#Westinghouse_Apollo_lunar_television_camera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_TV_camera#Westinghouse_... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Electric_Corporat... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Camera_and_Instrument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Camera_and_Instrumen... As for the more famous non-video cameras, they were indeed made by Hasselblad [4] (Sweden) and the lenses by Zeiss [5] (West German). I am of course acutely aware of the latter as I shoot Zeiss lenses and prefer their aesthetics to pretty much anything else I have tried, although these days a chunk of them are made by Cosina [6] (Japan). If you want to dig deeper, I liked Hasselblad’s official homepage on the matter [7]. [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_AG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_AG [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosina [7]: https://www.hasselblad.com/inspiration/history/hasselblad-in-space https://www.hasselblad.com/inspiration/history/hasselblad-in...
- hellbannedguy 5y agoI've never heard this. I'm not saying it's wrong. I was told the all the Astronauts were trained on the Hasselblads, and Hasselblads are great cameras--even today. The great high def pictures were developed on earth, but I'm not sure now. I remember hearing they came home with hundreds if rolls of film. The film footage was sent to earth via radio waves, but was grainy.