Limit-Telephotography | Hacker News Reader

Limit-Telephotography

paglen.com

26 pointsTriinT13 comments

For anyone who's wondering and not inclined to follow the link to find out: that's "telephotography at distances near the limit of what's feasible", not "please put restrictions on telephotography". Engineering rather than politics.

Unfortunately there's very little actual information on the site. A few pictures, with brief notes of what they're of and how far away the camera was, but no details of the "unorthodox viewing and imaging techniques" used. Or did I just fail to find them?

Agreed!

I clicked around the site, and I experienced vast content-frustration. I noticed that many of his projects appear to be "exhibits" -- they have physical frames and are or were (apparently) displayed somewhere for the public.

Which is pointless. :P I mean, effectively pointless. I'm never going to see his exhibit, and neither is any significant percentage of the population of interested people, so why not put it all online?

Taking pictures of the unmarked CIA 737's operating from deep in the off-limits desert ... that's cool stuff. Why must there be so little info?

I expected one of the links to lead to a how-to. :P

I conjecture that a detailed How-To would upset the Department of Defense quite a bit. After all, these remote USAF airbases in the deserts of the Southwest are remote for a reason...

Doesn't seem like anything the Russians or Chinese wouldn't see in great detail using satellites, or with their extensive spy networks.

Suppose the U.S. is testing a new secret fighter jet. If you don't know when the new jet will leave the hangar for a test flight, your satellites will be useless. Long-distance photography would perhaps provide some intel. Of course, if the test flights were carried out at night, as it happened while the F-117 was being tested, then photography would not help much,

Do note that when most USAF bases in the Southwest were built, there were no satellites at all, and hence, no spy satellites.

Do you care? If so, why?

These days you can be arrested if you have a home chemistry lab. Imagine what the government would do to you if you started teaching people how to peek on supposedly secretive military bases.

In other articles it is mentioned he adapted a telescope to fit his stock digital SLR. Something like this: http://www.nikonweb.com/svp127/

It's the name of a technique, not an imperative! At first I thought this was going to be a demand for laws limiting the taking of telephoto pictures in public.

Would you be happy if I changed the post's title to Limit-Telephotography?

(Not stcredzero but someone else who said much the same as him/her at about the same time:) That might be an improvement, but if you're going to change the title at all perhaps something like "Very long distance telephotography" might be better.

I would change it. A better title could be good for its own sake, instead of just being provocative.

I'm generally happy nowadays. It was a factual statement about my initial misconception, not a complaint.

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