I last visited the National Museum of the United States Air Force earlier this year in May for the Memphis Belle event. I mostly only shot outside that day, as the inside of the museum was PACKED and getting near the Belle was difficult. I have been wanting to come back now that things have somewhat calmed down to get some shots of it and some other planes in the museum, and given the heat and humidity of this past weekend I thought Saturday would make for a good day to do so.

Being as hot as it was outside, it seems that everyone else in the Tri-State area also decided to visit the museum that day – it was fairly busy. No worries – I brought my RB67 ProS film camera, a tripod, and some film with me to shoot some long exposures. Most exposures were around 4 minutes thanks to the low light in the museum and Ektar’s reciprocity failure rate – this meant that most of the people disappeared from the frame unless they stood still for a while.

I shot three rolls of film: 2 rolls of Kodak Ektar 100 – 1 roll in 120 format and 1 roll of 35mm format in a modified 220 back to give super 70mm wide images. The third roll I shot was a roll of 120 Cinestill 800. All 3 rolls were developed in UniColor C41 chems and scanned on an Epson V600 scanner.

The museum is open daily 9am to 5pm. It’s amazing having something like this near me that is free to visit. To really see everything it would take days, so plan your visit accordingly. 

I really appreciate that the museum allows for tripod use. Many such places have rules against tripods, so it was refreshing not being harassed about having a big camera on a tripod. Using such a big, older film camera did attract a lot of attention from both visitors and museum employees alike. It was nice chatting with so many people who were interested in what I was doing.

For more information on the museum and its exhibits, visit: http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/

Thanks!

Here’s a few images, enjoy!