Photographing rocket launches is a tricky business. You need to find the right placement. If you are too far away, then you will be missing out on some quality pictures and if you are too close, you risk injury to yourself and your equipment. Bill Ingalls, NASA photographer has experienced this firsthand as he lost his valuable camera kit during the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch.
Remote cameras are regularly placed at positions which are not safe for humans and capture some amazing pictures. This particular incident was strange in the respect that the melted camera was not the closest on to the pad and Ingall had other cameras situated much closer than this one.
“I had many other cameras much closer to the pad than this and all are safe,” he wrote on Facebook. “This was result of a small brush fire, which is not unheard of from launches, and was extinguished by fireman, albeit, after my cam was baked.”
However, the NASA photographer managed to retrieve the memory card from the destroyed Canon 5D, which costs a staggering $3,500. The camera continued to snap pictures until it was completely melted and unable to snap any more.
This resulted in some beautiful photographs. You can check them out below:
