A Historic Flight

Video is a part of most of my shooting the past couple of years. Usually I mumble at it because I find it a pain in the arse when it comes to editing. But there are times when I am so glad I’ve taken the time to become somewhat familiar with it. This is just one such occasion. The Moose Cam was running as we experienced this piece of aviation history. The video tells just part of the story. The rest will appear in three articles I have coming out. There is that much when it comes to the people and the aircraft making this day happen. The only piece of trivia is the little white plane on the left you see as the Super Corsair taxis out is the A36 Bonanza where we sitting, waiting our turn to taxi out to run up area.

When it comes to creation of the video, I’m using now the Coolpix S9100 because it shoots 1080p but has no way of connecting a mic. It rides in the hotshoe of the D3x via a miniball head. I hope you enjoy!

In the Bag
D3x with
70-200VR2 and
TC-17e II
D3s with
24-70AFS all loaded with
Lexar 32GB 600x cards
Coolpix S9100 Moose Cam attached to
Manfrotto 494 Mini Ball

Ghost of Cleland & Becker

These to amazing aircraft, Race #57 (F2G-1D Super Corsair) and Race #74 (F2G-2 Super Corsair) haven’t flown together since the Thompson since 1949! For a very special moment in time, yesterday, they flew together again over the desert of AZ. I was incredibly fortunate to be asked to come down and be part of this aviation history. The day start long before the sun rose and finished long after it set. I spent the whole day with my good friends the Odegaards, Robert & Casey, never stopping for lunch, just doing planes and photography basically 16hrs. The story of the day will appear in Flight Journal in the near future. It’s a helluva story and I very incredibly honored to be asked by Robert to be a very small part of it!

In the Bag
D3s
70-200VR2
A36 Bonanza – Doesn’t quite fit in the bag

What an End to my Corsair Year

It would seem 2011 was my year to become immersed in corsairs. This is the famous F2G-1D Super Corsair #57 which first appeared as a raced back in 1948. It was last seen in public in 2008 at Reno Air Races and right now for the first time since 1949, it has been reunited with fellow racer #74 F2F-2 Super Corsair. I was invited to come down and photograph the reunion so Jake and I are here for three days of bigtime fun. We started off with a sunset shoot in the desert twilight and continue with a sunrise shoot and then some cockpit time and finish off tomorrow with a bunch of air time. Couldn’t think of a better way to finish off my year of working with corsairs!

Photographically, this is a pretty simple click. Dialed in -1.7 to squeeze some color out of the dusk while trying to not have the candle apple red of #57 burn a hole in the sensor. Finishing is no more then a little slider action in ACR. I like simple, I can do simple.

In the Bag
D3x
70-200VR2
Gitzo 3540XLS
Knee Pads on the bod