Yeah, first posting, big time lurker. Forgive me my ignoring the current legal issues, for now at least, while I offer a couple of thoughts about the newly found photos. I may have my head up my youknowwhat but here goes.
My original schooling was in photography and for many years I shot large format (4x5) images. And I put in many years in the darkroom as well.
I am absolutely blown away by this find of not only prints but the negatives as well. I suspect theses negs will not be as sharp as one would hope, they were, afterall, shot from a ungainly airplane in the tropical mid day. Vibration of the engine, air turbulence, the moisture in the air, and most likely a shutter speed of less than 1/125th of a second -all take a terrible toll on resolution. But, they should make the Bevington photo look like a finger painting.
The image I have attached is from the 3rd photo Ric posted. It is blown up about 600%. In Photoshop, I have monkeyed with the contrast and brightness levels, as well as using a gaussian blur filter to soften the edges of the pixels somewhat. My intent was to maintain the number of gray zones and limit the distraction caused by the pixelation.
The lines I have drawn on the image run parallel to and slightly below what I believe to be scarring in the coral. (For anyone not familiar, the living corals are "rooted" to the calcium skeletons of their predecessors and form a comparatively thin layer of "skin" on the eons of calcium "bones".)
If the Electra had been pulled into the ocean it only makes sense that, even in normal tidal action, the plane would be broken part. Separated, the heavier motors would scrape, kill and remove the coral as they were inexorably pulled across the shallow corals toward deeper water. This scraping action would leave behind an area much lighter in tone than the surrounding, undamaged coral. And,because it was a scraping action as opposed to a gouging, there is no shadow to be seen The fuselage may well have done the same.
The arrow points to an area which I interpret as being fairly rocky, as indicated by the darkest pixels. Shadows. But the distribution of lighter pixels around them does not seem to jive with the surrounding area. Further, as you move in tandem with the "scars" towards open water, there is a smattering of more light pixel groups fanning out from this rocky area. (The larger white area just below the shaft of the arrow is almost certainly a dust speck, likely on the neg.)
There also seems to be a similar area of rock and possible debris about 200 feet away at a two o'clock position. I believe someone mentioned seeing this also in a another of the photos, and there might have been some speculation that it resembled the the rudder and fuselage. In that photo and the original of this one, the area in question looks to be one solid tone of gray until you blow it up and reduce the contrast, after which 15 or more tonalities are visible. I would also have to disagree with this just based on scale. The Norwich was nearly 400 feet long and had a 53 foot beam. Using the ship as a measure of scale, this area is easily two to three times the size of the Electra.
In closing, a couple of quick notes for Ric. You describe the method you will use to copy the negs but there are a couple of things that don't make sense to me. First, you intend to use a Besseler 4x5 Negaflat to hold the negs, but these are 5x5 negs. ? I still have my Negaflat carrier. There is no way you can secure anything larger than a standard 4x5 film in this holder. Also, if you haven't used one of these carriers before, you should know they will scrape the emulsion off along the two long edges where the frame grabs hold and makes the neg taut.
Also, I would agree with another poster in his suggestion that you use the RAW format to save the images. I believe the Nikon 800 records RAW in 14 bits per channel whereas Tiff records at 8 bits per channel. When it comes to processing the images from RAW you have all the information that was recorded by the camera. TIFF on the other hand decides what to keep and what to lose in the way it processes the data. No, it doesn't compress data (unless you use Jpeg compression to record the file) but it does discard it. If you have a slight exposure error in TIFF, it's gone you can't get it back. RAW allows you retain that information.
Oh, and Good On Ya Mr. Campbell!
cheers,
d
We has met the enemy, and he is us.
Pogo