Jan 19, 2012 | Aviation
It’s very exciting to have more and more folks contacting me with questions about aviation photography. There are a lot of you out there and that’s great. While it’s not as many questions as I get about wildlife, but plane sightings are a little more reliable then birds since birds tend to just keep on going. So the exchange of information is two way and enjoyable. With my air to air photography getting more and more attention, more are asking what equipment is required to successfully pull one off. Keep in mind I’m a newbie to this, my first air to air was just two years ago this month, a T6 shoot over the Sierra on the cover of the current issue of Trade-a-Plane. I’ve done 26 photo missions now and I still am learning but I want to answer this common question. What gear is needed? This is my basic shooting gear is D3x w/70-200VR2 and TC-17e and D3s w/24-70 both on Sun Sniper straps.
Here’s the reasons for my selection because it’s not what you have to use. The D3x with the 70-200VR2 & TC-17e are my primary shooting system. The reason is because of the amazing amount of detail the D3x captures. Seeing every rivet is important to me so if I make a sharp capture, then they are all there. A drawback to the D3x I truly appreciate and think of as an asset shooting air to air and that’s the slow FPS. That because it forces me to slow down and make the shot. I get way to excited and it’s real easy for me to just hit the hammer with the thrill of the whole adventure and fill the buffer. Even with my selective “sniper” shooting, I still fill the buffer. It’s at those times or, when doing a move that I know will go fast like dragging a plane down the runway like this F2G-2 Super Corsair, I pull out the D3s with it’s 9FPS. The lens choices are pretty simple. The 70-200 w/TC-17e permit me to have the subject aircraft a little further away from the photo platform. That extra space provides a little more safety and at the same time more flexibility in the subject aircraft to perform other maneuvers. The 24-70 is just a pretty standard air to air lens permitting you to photograph the whole aircraft. Both rigs are strapped which are strapped to me so nothing goes out the door. That includes me who has his ass safety harnessed to the floor.
There are many other options you can use with great success, you don’t have to use these bodies or lenses. That’s one of the cool things about aviation photography, camera gear wise you can have pretty minimal gear and still capture killer results. There is one other piece of gear that’s must and that’s where the budget takes a hit. That’s the shooting platform. The one I use the most is a A36 Bonanza owned and flown by my bud and PIC “Flydaddy.” One thing I do differently is I actually have two PICs in that the second seat is another great pilot Scottie (who just piloted the first test flight of the new Cessna Ten, congrats!) who’s job is to choreograph both aircraft to maneuver according to the shot list Scottie and I went over prior to the flight. The plane and pilots just isn’t something you can order from B&H and take with you in your carry on. I hope this answers your questions and gets you more excited about getting involved is this amazing photography. If you want an idea where to start, you might take a gander at the Kelby Training class is did on aviation photography. Hope to see you on the flight line!
Jan 17, 2012 | Aviation
We’ve posted all our dates for our 2012 Air2Air Workshop season. They are:
17-19 Feb, AZ – AZ CAF Wing – B-25, fighters and GA formations
16-18 Mar, FL – Stallion 51 – Fighters, Jets, GA formations
19-21 Oct, TX – Lone Star Flight Museum – B-17G, P-47, Corsair, Skyraider
09-11 Nov, AZ – AZ CAF Wing – B-17G/B-25 and lots of little buddies
What you see above are just a couple of samples I took from the back of the planes over the heads of the participants shooting in front of me fall 2011. It’s just hints of what this workshop has to offer you! We were able to lower the price of the workshops for 2012. So at the moment we only have a couple of openings for the year (lots of repeats because there is nothing on the planet like this). If you’re interested, sure hope you can join us. Call 760.924.8632 or 661.204.1506 and talk with Sharon.
In the Bag
D3x
70-200VR2
TC-17e
D3s
24-70AFS
Lexar 32GB UDMA (lots of them!)
Sun Sniper Straps
Jan 17, 2012 | Aviation
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For better or worse, my whole photographic career has been based on taking the viewer into a world I am so damn fortunate to explore with my camera. The last 6 months my son Brent & I took this quest to a whole new level. VR Panos are not new, I surely didn’t invent them but when I got this idea I sure did feel like I had. The goal was real simple, put YOU in the cockpit of an aircraft! You walk around an airshow, a museum and typically you’re staring up at the plane. Those that you get to walk through have huge lines and the vast majority of the time, it’s just to see the cockpit. So the question hit me, how can I as a photographer bring that cockpit experience to you? In the beginning, I wish I hadn’t asked that question of myself.
When it comes to wacky stuff, I’m very fortunate to have the perfect expert to ask, Russell Brown. He never fails to amaze me because while he had done one VR Pano, he said he was by no means an expert but he knew who is. He sent me to Scott Highton, a very smart and very generous photographer who literally wrote the book on the topic. Scott was incredibly kind and encouraged me to go for it and provided a couple of ideas so I went for it. His book really laid out the path, the challenge was to follow it. It started in a Cessna 172RG one weekend in Wichita with my shooting bud Kevin. It actually turned out which was encouraging enough to continue.
What you see above is a screen capture of a finished VR Pano of a T-50 Bamboo Bomber. I’ve now posted a number of our cockpit panos on my Warbirdimages.com site for your enjoyment. What you’re seeing on the site (requires Qtime 7.0 or higher) are the low res versions. What we deliver to clients is a 155MB .mov and what you’re seeing is about a 5MB version.
The creation of these panos the first time out seems worse then pulling teeth. The first one took hours to photograph and then over 26hrs to assemble (we’ve got both down to a little bit less time now). That’s because 136 images are required (they way we do it) to create the Pano. I shoot with a D3x so you can zoom in and read the smallest print in the High Res version. It’s all shot with a 16fish, yeap, this is a Fisheye photo and it’s assembled in a program called PTGui (not making that name up, really).
Here’s the one big issue with this process, I have not figured out a way to teach it. It’s just not cut and dry and every time I do one, I learn something new that makes it just a little bit easier. I can tell you that I use the D3x, 16Fish with The Box shooting 5 image HDR, flash fill and that Brent (not me) assembles the finished pano in PTGui. But after that….yikes! For example the T-50 pano above, the first thing I hope you notice is the lighting on the dash (not bad for a wildlife shooter). That took me about 45min to dial in because between lighting the panel, the seats, not seeing the flash in the windscreen and matching it up to the sunset I knew we’d be placing on the outside, it took some time. Oh yeah, none of the lighting gear doing all of this can be seen in the photograph. Doing that in the tight space of a cockpit (the plane was in its hangar) is just something I can’t provide a recipe for. But I sure can at the very least entertain you with the finished results and at most hopefully encourage you to push your photography a little further. Have fun playing with the panos!
In the Case
D3x
16Fish
SB-900
Lexar 32GB UDMA
PocketWizard MiniTT1 with AC3 and FlexTT5
The Box
Really Right Stuff Ground-Level Tripod
Jan 3, 2012 | Aviation
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.
01.01.2013 Pages are in the process of being updated. In the meantime you can watch our videos on our YouTube Channel as well as all Videos are available on iTunes as Podcasts!
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
Dec 28, 2011 | Aviation
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
Dec 27, 2011 | Aviation
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
