His note about the streets seeming like neurons is interesting, but I hope I'm not the only person who immediately thought the shots resembled an exaggerated extruded version of a chip's layered layout.
It's a bit odd: the scale of the city is not quite large enough to look like a modern processor's layout, yet is tens/hundreds of thousands of times larger. The scale of complexity is boggling.
Another breathtaking "circuit board" is Los Angeles -- at night. I immediately likened what I saw to a glowing circuit board without thinking twice. What a resemblance! Very computational.
Flying in from the east, descending over Riverside and heading towards LAX, presents an absolutely astonishing view below. Lit up in orderly sequence are a vast range of square blocks, freeway arteries, commercial corridors, and industrial complexes housing warehouse "chips" that are eerily reminiscent of a giant, organically-built, human-habitable computer. Tron-style. Hardly an end in sight if the weather works it out.
All breathtakingly illuminated in varying, relative intensity and motion (streetlamps, autos, traffic signals, spotlights, etc.), "powering" the whole damn machine of a human ant colony with electric life.
Please excuse my poor attempt at a poetic description, I have not been able to find a proper photo to share here, yet.
I used to do a lot of aerial photography over Los Angeles, typically in a Cessna with my head out of the window (very scary when you have glasses...). rashiedamini.daportfolio.com
Never was able to take photos of LA at night.
I love seeing what other people can do, though. Taking night photos while flying is a really daunting task! These really are great photos.
Cool photos! Yeah, after flying over NYC, Chicago, San Fran, Detroit, etc. at night, NOTHING has come close to LA circuitry. Perhaps Las Vegas and Phoenix, on a smaller scale, but I haven't had a chance to view those cities personally. Southwest suburbs are much denser than elsewhere (which I assume is due to water, among other constraints).
I've done the same w/ my head outside of a Cessna. Nothing like knowing exactly how the atmosphere really "feels" to the wings (in other words, the feel of the pressure of air required to lift the Cessna!)
> I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways?
These shots definitely capture the city-to-circuit transitions from the films.
The original Cosmos by Carl Sagan [1] has a fantastic episode called "The Persistence of Memory" in which he compares the collective intelligence and pathways of cities to the brain, DNA, etc. if you've never seen it, I highly recommend it.
Lately I have been wondering if macro-behaviors themselves aren't something like streets in an old world city -- laid out thousands of years ago for long-forgotten purposes.
I was in a meeting with a senior (in both age and position) technical advisor, asking about an HR issues in our organization.
"Why haven't we tried [optimizing]?" I asked. Sparing HN the details, my organization conducts HR to minimize risks, not to maximize gains.
"We tried once, but failed. The system now works. There's no need to change it." This system, originally programmed in DOS (yes, that DOS), was ported years ago over into an emulator that runs atop HTML (that's right -- to use this system our operators boot up an old version of IE that pretends it's DOS). And nobody has ever thought that perhaps there's a better way to do business.
Solidified pathways. Cognitive arteries caked over in plaque over years of use. Like paved-over cobblestone.
Chicagoan here. Everytime I fly into O'Hare at night, its light being on the set of Tron; not that Tron actually had lit up sets of course. The city becomes a huge lit up grid. Unlike NYC, Chicago is fairly contiguous with no bodies of water breaking up the metro area. So you get views like these for as far as you can see:
very much so.. no doubt how the "Grid" in Tron was conceived..
in fact, these photos have a "tron" kind of feel to them (the saturation of some of those neon colors looks very EL)
Definitely reminiscent, though it's even more interesting when you compare different cities, especially those outside of America... here in Europe the layouts look very different, you don't have the same "grid". For example, London:
One of my favorite things to do with new passengers is take them up and down the Hudson River corridor, an airspace that "tunnels through" the more tightly controlled airspaces of Newark and Laguardia. From the Verrazanno Bridge up the Manhattan side of the river at 1000 feet and exiting over the Tappan Zee (or vice versa, southbound on the Jersey side, or a round trip) is unforgettable for passengers.
These images are breathtaking, but the nofilter, in-real-life version are even moreso, IMO.
How difficult is it to get clearance to fly a helicopter or airplane over Manhattan as they did? It seems like an unnecessary risk given the population density. For that matter wouldn't it be possible for a terrorist to get approval by creating a ruse of a legitimate (but non essential) reason?
NY ATC hates giving VFR clearance in the area. Too much jet traffic to deal with. If you can get a word in edgewise, they'll often let you out over NJ (watch out for the Teterboro jets!) but I never see anyone heading out over Manhattan. You need to be above 2000' to be legal because of the height of the buildings and then you're starting to get into the altitudes the jets are using on approach to JFK or LGA.
Over the Hudson River (East River too) is VFR (uncontrolled) airspace up to 1500 feet [edit: this was changed to 1300 feet in 2009, after the accident referenced below] bank to bank up to the George Washington Bridge. My flight instructor told me that the radar shadow of the buildings makes it difficult to control, but I don't really know if that's the reason. You don't need ATC permission to fly there.
It's a zoo, though, pretty dense helicopter and small plane traffic, and everybody's looking at the big buildings, not the other planes. In 2009 a small plane and helicopter collided, killing 9 people. I've flown up there once, and it was totally worth it, but I probably wouldn't do it again.
That's not been my experience. I can regularly get my choice of the Hudson at 2000 or lower with a clearance (1100-2000 requires a clearance in most places). At night, I prefer lower as the buildings are more impressive when you're below the top of them. On a nice summer day, the VFR corridor can be a zoo, so I'll sometimes take the clearance at 1500 just to stay in less congested airspace.
If LGA is landing 13 or Newark is using 11/29, then you have a conflict with the airspace over the river, but it's very rare for Newark to use 11/29, and LGA traffic counts aren't all that high to present a conflict. Plus, if you're on a clearance and being controlled by LGA tower, they'll turn you if they need to to accommodate a departure or an arrival.
I often hear pilots complain they can't get a clearance through NYC Bravo airspace, but I've only once been turned down in probably 50 attempts. That was a Thanksgiving Wednesday when they had a radar outage and they were turning everyone away who wasn't landing inside the Bravo. I've found NYC tri-Bravo controllers some of the easiest and most accommodating approach controllers to work with.
Most people can learn to fly. It's a bit pricy but maybe not as bad as you think. Easier to do than drive a car, except for when you make a mistake. Look for a flight school nearby. The intro flight is usually at a steep discount.
There is absolutely nothing like flying a small plane. My first night solo (flew down the shore, over Atlantic City) is one of my best memories.
A couple HN posters contacted me by email, and here's some additional info I sent them in response to their questions specific to the Hudson River VFR corridor.
An acquaintance of mine manufactures a reasonably-priced gyro mount for in-flight photography and videography and is based out of NY. He has some excellent sample videos on his site as well: http://www.aerialexposures.com/video3.htm
It isn't particularly difficult for a small aircraft, provided airline traffic isn't too busy. NYC ATC is usually pretty accommodating. There are helicopters constantly buzzing the city. Note that the terror threat is very small since the payload of these light aircraft is significantly less than driving a truck full of explosives at street level. Think typically less than 1,000 lbs vs 20,000 lbs.
They actually use something like this to hoist HVAC units on roofs (so it's not a total stretch).
I was thinking also more in terms of the "terrorism" value of crashing anything of any size into a building in Manhattan vs. the raw damage. Of course airplanes of all sizes are also possible obviously.
In aviation is there an implied "see something say something"? By that I mean if you thought a pilot was acting strangely when you were in and around the airport how would you or other pilot's handle the situation? (I know it's a total "it depends" obviously.)
Honestly, that program is more likely to turn up drug running or theft from airports/aircraft than terrorism.
In terms of seeing odd or unsafe behavior, I feel a moral obligation to talk to a pilot I see doing something unsafe. Talk to him/her, not call the Feds. There's a pretty lively debate about talk face-to-face vs call the Feds. While I've had excellent interactions with the FAA at every turn, I've also read absolute horror stories of other interactions, so I'm still inclined to offer a "word to the wise" type conversation rather than dropping a dime on someone. If I feared for my safety or the safety of others, and didn't want to talk directly to the person, there's ready and ample means to get such an inquiry started.
And of course, there are codes (that are basically an open secret) for hijack situations and it would not be hard to encode a message to ATC without using the most well-known code. I don't want to link them directly, but google "squawk codes" and it'll come right up.
This was shot on assignment for a magazine and Vincent Laforet is a professional photographer. Asking for high-res images shot on assignment is akin to asking a software developer to open-source the code they wrote under contract for an employer.
He or his customer might in theory sell them in some form (art prints?) or someone waving a number with enough zeros around might be able to license them, but results from pro shoots like that generally aren't just "made available", as cool as that might be.
You can get them if you look through the network request the browser makes. Largest I saw was 4096x3096, which is just perfect for desktop backgrounds!
I've worked on some web things for Vincent in my days in the photo industry. He's always been a favorite photographer of mine. His technical ability and attention to detail in photography is mind-blowing.
What's even more impressive is he took to cinematography a few years back and seems to be just as skilled.
FTA:
> Had we gone just a few thousand more feet up (around 11,000-12,000 feet) we would have needed oxygen masks!
Really? I was roaming around at the top of Mauna Kea last summer (14K'), and hiked to the top of Mt Lassen too (10.5K'), but never felt the need for ozygen masks.
The regulations actually don't require it. Under FAA rules for general aviation ("Part 91"), you need oxygen between 12,500 and 14,000 feet if you remain there for more than 30 minutes, and it's only once you climb above 14,000 feet that the pilot unequivocally has to have it. You need to get to 15,000 feet before the passengers have to have oxygen provided.
Additionally, a cold winter night means dense air which means more oxygen. As far as his lungs/brain are concerned, it's not 7,500 feet, it's more like 6,000 feet.
"With an imaging unit that totals 1.8 billion pixels, ARGUS captures video (12 fps) that is detailed enough to pick out birds flying through the sky, or a lost toddler wandering around. "
That's faking the effect of a tilt-shift lens [0] -- which gives you the same effect, but there are often details that are wrong because most people apply it in seconds in PS without thinking how far each thing should be, they just do a gradient.
"White" light sources are generally not really white. For example compared to sunlight ordinary light bulbs are a bit orange and fluorescent tubes have a green hue. Our brain mostly ignores these differences, but a camera sensor does not. The author might have turned up the saturation on these images though, I don't know how strong the difference is supposed to look.
Street lamps in NYC are mostly the old-school sodium lights still, which give the eerie yellow hue to the smaller side streets. I with that when they switch to LEDs that they keep that would keep that color (but they wont).
Big advertisements probably have a lot more color than the normal red-yellow-white you see from traffic. Chances are it's not quite so vivid to the naked eye, but a camera sensor with nice flat full-spectrum sensitivity can reveal all the color. You see this a lot with telescope photos; in low light our eyes mostly just pick everything in the sky as white dots, but a photograph can capture a lot more.
can anyone speak to the non-obvious (like more megapixel) advantages of shooting this on the medium format Mamiya that he mentions? I've always been intrigued by MF cameras, but they cost so much more causing them to be inaccessible (to me anyway).
My understanding is: 1) More megapixels, 2) a larger sensor (more than twice as large) means more signal-to-noise at each pixel site which means less noise in low light, 3) the Mamiya has far greater dynamic range (around one stop greater, double the amount of light).
You're correct. What I'm wondering is why they used a 1DX instead of a Sony A7S? The ISO range on the Sony would of probably outdone both Canon and the Mamiya.
Taking photos at ISO 409,600 would be pretty awesome IMO.
You don't really want photos at ISO 409600 per se, though, you just want photos at the lowest ISO that can get you the necessary depth-of-field for your shot (here extended with tilt-shift lens) at whatever shutter speed avoids being too shaky. And then you want as high of a dynamic range of possible, so you can distinguish the brightest brights from the darkest darks in a single shot.
If you can do that already with the sensitivity you've brought, higher ISO doesn't buy you anything...
Why use the Canon 1DX? The photographer has a long-standing and public relationship with Canon.
Why not use the Sony A7S? The photographer uses a Canon 200-400mm f/4 lens, and the nearest Sony equivalent is 70-400mm f/4-5.6, which means at the long end it captures only half as much light, instantly negating any possible ISO range advantage offered by the A7S.
Old-school medium-format film cameras are reasonably accessible -- you can get a Mayima 6x7 and a meh-okay lens for around $400, and even with a damned good lens can find lots of stuff in the sub-$2000 range. It's the digital medium-format rigs that break into five-figure territory -- and it takes a good little amount of film / processing costs to make up for that expense for the hobbyist.
Myself, I'm using my grandfather's old Canon 50mm/f1.4 on a Canon Model 7 rangefinder (essentially the last battery-free Canon) for film and the same lens on a (used) Leica M8 for digital. Nice fast lens, but still in 35mm-land.
It's an overall larger system. A larger sensor means less noise (assuming fewer pixels per inch, which is true in this case). A larger lens means less distortion (because any imperfections are smaller relative to the entire glass).
And it's very expensive, which means even a relatively small advantage in image quality will make the resulting pictures more valuable, at least for a few years until someone else does this again with newer technology. DSLR photographs are truly commoditized now, but medium format are not, never have been, and probably never will be.
The photographer mentioned in the comments that they are working on it now. They should be up at the site below, or if you are impatient you can use the contact form to ask.
Those images are amazing. Great photographer, and great idea at this unique perspective. Although I think the height above the city drama was a bit overplayed.
There is no general altitude limit in the U.S., but you must not present a risk of collision with manned aircraft. Certain areas have additional restrictions (e.g. near airports, large sporting events or in the vicinity of Washington, DC).
The "400 ft" limit for model aircraft is purely advisory and is not part of any binding FAA rule.
Balloons can actually go much higher (not sure on the rules with balloons) but UAV's are limited to 400ft AGL and not within 5miles of an airport by the FAA.
I was wondering about that as well. According to the manufacturer, the DJI Phantom[1] (a common consumer drone) has a max vertical speed of 6 m/s. So in 10 minutes (battery lasts about 20, 10 up, 10 down), you could reach 3600m. Higher than these pics were taken!
(you remote probably won't reach that...)
About the thinner air... I regularly fly a hexacopter at 7500' (MSL here in the mountains).
With all other things being equal, the thinner air means you have to run the motors at much higher speeds to appreciate the same lift, and the resulting loss in battery life is pretty significant. The same configuration that gets a 30 minute flight a 1000' MSL will only do about 12 minutes at 7500'.
Model gliders soaring in thermals can exceed 2,000 ft. Since the energy is supplied by the rising air, altitude is limited only by the pilot's ability to perceive the aircraft's orientation at that distance!
His note about the streets seeming like neurons is interesting, but I hope I'm not the only person who immediately thought the shots resembled an exaggerated extruded version of a chip's layered layout.
(Here's sort of a small version: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Cell-Proc... )
It's a bit odd: the scale of the city is not quite large enough to look like a modern processor's layout, yet is tens/hundreds of thousands of times larger. The scale of complexity is boggling.