FOIAWEAR — DYNAZOOM / Stereo Film Viewer Tee

FOIAWEAR / ARCHIVE SERIES 053 — DYNAZOOM

The Dynazoom was a state-of-the-art device for stereo viewing of satellite and aircraft film in the 1960s and 1970s. It optically couples two commercial microscopes capable of magnifications up to 300x.

With it, analysts could extract maximum intelligence from stereo image pairs — depth read directly off the film, the ground standing up out of a flat transparency. But setup was not easy. Unlike today's highly automated stereo viewing of digital imagery, an analyst had to manually and painstakingly align the film and adjust the microscopes to bring two images into stereo.

So the intelligence came off the machine one operator at a time, by hand, at whatever rate a person can hold two images in register. The instrument is the story: two microscopes bolted into one view.

The artwork is drawn as a mid-century technical plate of the instrument — the two coupled microscope barrels over a lit stage, film spanning between reels at either end of its transport, the viewing lamps on their adjustable arms, and an inset of the stereo pair the whole machine existed to resolve.

Offered in twelve garment colours, printed as two different plates rather than one image re-toned. On the dark garments (Black, Graphite, Espresso, Navy, Pepper) the plate prints with a lit cream and tan instrument and amber film, so the machine reads against dark cloth. On the light garments (White, Ivory, Butter, Chalky Mint, Light Green, Blossom, Chambray) it is drawn again as a dark-ink plate for pale cloth — heavy charcoal line work, the cast bodies in deep grey, and the film in bronze and amber.

The QR code on the front opens the museum artifact page for the instrument — https://www.cia.gov/legacy/museum/artifact/dynazoom/

Note: the description above is as published with the artifact. No photograph of the instrument is reproduced in the artwork. This is not an official publication and is not affiliated with any government or agency.

Garment: Comfort Colors 1717 garment-dyed t-shirt. Heavyweight 6.1 oz/yd² (206.8 g/m²), 100% ring-spun US cotton, pre-shrunk, relaxed fit, double-needle stitched with no side seams and a sewn-in label. Sizes S–4XL. Printed on the front at 300 DPI; plain back. The main artwork prints at 10 × 10 in and the QR at 1.8 × 1.8 in.

Care: machine wash cold, inside out, with like colours. Tumble dry low. Do not iron directly on the printed area.

FOIAWEAR is an independent brand and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States government, or any other government or agency.