Hours and hours of guncam footage (Imperial War Museum online film collection)

[Freycinet]

Ok, I hope I am not listing the completely obvious here, but if any of you want to see what this air combat stuff really looked like, head over and check out the guncam footage of the Imperial War Museum collections:

https://film.iwmcollections.org.uk/search/results#/?query=gun footage&page=14&type=list&sort=Relevance&filterBy=&spellCheck=true

- Enjoy!

[Rjel]

Cool find. I haven't watched all that is available on that site but what was with the poor visual quality RAF gun cam? Even a lot of the late war stuff here was so bad an analyst couldn't have guessed what he was seeing let alone give a pilot credit for a damage or kill claim.

[AndyJWest]

1 hour ago, Rjel said:

Cool find. I haven't watched all that is available on that site but what was with the poor visual quality RAF gun cam? Even a lot of the late war stuff here was so bad an analyst couldn't have guessed what he was seeing let alone give a pilot credit for a damage or kill claim.

 

Film stock can deteriorate badly over time, particularly if not stored in the best conditions.

[Avimimus]

It would be interesting to see what could be discerned with some editing and slow motion viewing. I bet there is some useful data hidden in the noise!

[Freycinet]

I did a frame by frame analysis of a particular clip for a book that is soon coming out, and it was actually surprising how much you could get out of a clip that passed in the blink of an eye. The movies are 24 frames per second and often impact flashes last for just a single frame.

 

I believe the gun cam captures were also supposed to be analysed back at the base frame by frame, pulling the film manually through the projector at "exciting moments" in the clip. Think more of these clips as high-speed photography than "movies".

 

I am pretty sure that the low quality of many of these clips is mostly due to difficult lighting conditions at the time of capture, rather than storage issues later on. The gun cam optics were rather "zoomed in", the film probably wasn't particularly sensitive, and many clips were also exposed at dawn or dusk or in winter, so with very little light.

[JG7_X-Man]

LOL I like how this was called a 109!

 

 

Goes to show during intense stress our eyes lie to us. Also - like @Freycinet pointed out, you have a split second to make a decision.

So many misidentification! This is very eye opening! 

Edited March 3, 2023 by JG7_X-Man

[Freycinet]

What is it?

[=LD=Bulldog*]

P-51 perhaps?

[JG7_X-Man]

P-51B

[=LD=Bulldog*]

Thought so!