October 17, 2000
Summer came and went without giving me an opportunity to complete any of the KAP projects I mentioned in my last letter. I did manage to work some on each project except for the Windless KAP techniques.
I was able to break new ground in the area of "Pictureless KAP". During a trip to New Mexico I was flying my rig over a bridge that crosses the Rio Grande gorge near Taos. I was using my LASS rig with a Olympus Stylus Epic. It had 3 pictures on the roll before I attached the rig to the line. When I brought the rig down I checked the counter on the camera (the camera hangs up-side-down on the LASS rig) and what was actually the same 3 count, I read as the "E" that appears when the roll is fully exposed.
Ignorant of my error I rewound the film, placed it in my bag, brought it back to Tennessee, took it to the photo lab, eagerly anticipating the results of my "exotic" KAP experience only to find that there were just three groundbased pictures on the roll. After looking at the rig I discovered that the servo horn, that I used to depress the shutter, was slightly too large for the servo output shaft and after several rolls was worn and slipping when under pressure.
All this was going on while FLiBB 2000 was taking place in Bad Bevensen, Germany. You can see two reports with pictures, one on Harold Prinzler's site and the other by Andrea Casalboni. It looked like a great time was had by all.
Video assisted KAP seems to have re-caught the imagination of many KAPers with the introduction of the inexpensive Xcam2 from X10.com (see Kevin Flynn's article). The increased intrest in digital cameras, which have video out jacks, have also fueled this revival.
There are also several KAPers who are begining to use medium and large format cameras. Look on the web pages of Doug Whitman, Henry Jebe, and Mungoczar. Rob van Gils also seems to be getting into large format KAP according to a post on the KAP Discussion page on Cris Benton's site ("Shutter speed" 10/5/00) and Kevin Flynn mentions building a 4X5 camera in his letter below.
(The previous letters "From The Editor" can be found by clicking on Past Articles in the main menu at the top and bottom of every page.)
