Sep 14, 2011 | Aviation
One aspect of shooting with the big glass that I really enjoyed which I’ve not been able to do in the past is follow aircraft more closely. This gorgeous F8F Bearcat is seen here landing and then later, much further down the ramp pulling into the pits. Neither shot is possible with 400mm, the image size is simply too small. Changing up glass, smart thing to do at times. I hit 35k images for Reno today and this is the first time to use the 600mm. Sometimes it takes a 2×4!
Photos captured by D3x, 600VR w/TC-17e on Lexar UDMA digital film
Sep 14, 2011 | Aviation
T-6 Texan
T-6 Texan
T-6 Texan
T-6 Texan
T-6 Texan
Yeah, it’s that time of year again for the Reno Air Races and man, is it going to be great this year! There is an amazing group of aircraft here racing and my favorite, the “warbirds” are thick with some gorgeous aircraft. We’re here for the week with today being a “saying hello and working out the bugs” kind of day. With the change of the end of the hangar shooting location, I decided to change things up and try something I never have in the past. I brought out the big gun, converter and tripod to work the planes coming around Pylon 8. The goal, use long glass to communicate more speed. Now swinging the big glass is slower then shooting the 200-400VR2 handheld and once I got the flight path into mussel memory, I just shot. Now my overall shooting percentage went down but I figured it would because I was seeing a whole lot more heat shimmer with the bigger glass which is normal. I like the results but they aren’t perfect. I think the main problem is I didn’t move enough as in, pick up the tripod and move to get more in sync with the line pilots were flying. I’ll be spending some time tonight looking at the 1800 images from today looking for patterns. I know there is more here.
Photos captured by D3x, 600VR w/TC-17e on Lexar UDMA digital film
Sep 13, 2011 | Aviation
June 2009 was an exciting month for me. I was at my first Pylon Race Seminar shooting one of the most exciting subjects to rip through my viewfinder. The D3 was pretty new then, I was the only one shooting with it at the time. Panning is something that I’ve been doing for a long time. All of this in combination with the 200-400VR made it possible to take instruction from my good friend Richard and make some solid clicks. In fact it went so well that from my very first time out I submitted this image to the Reno Air Race Assoc. and got the image on the Sept official Race Poster!
And that’s why I pursued aviation photography. It was this success that made Sharon & I actually look at aviation photography as a viable addition to our photographic business. The entire process was all based on basics, from click to business. Solid handholding and panning along with great instruction made the click. Quick follow up and the clean printing made the sale. And lastly and a point you can never overlook is the subject. Having a clean, sharp image of Strega being the plane to beat didn’t hurt one bit!
Photo captured by D3, 200-400VR on Lexar digital film
Sep 6, 2011 | Aviation
I love to tell stories because life is so good to us! Experiences seem to find us and we love to follow them. I’m here at PSW and telling stories goes with the week. I was mentioning this tonight and the person I was talking to said, “I didn’t know you had that!” It then dawned on me that I really didn’t put this out to the masses. The story behind this photo and the entire flight I finally wrote up and posted. But you won’t find it here, it’s over on my WarbirdImages site. So wanna know about this SNJ, Wheeler Field from Pearl Harbor fame, Click Here and give it a read! I think you might like the story.
Aug 30, 2011 | Aviation
While I’ve only been shooting planes a short time, I have put in my time behind a camera. That time behind the camera counts for each and everyone of us. The trick is, to reflect on that time and apply those lessons we’ve learned to our current journey. That’s where so many fall down because they think wildlife or landscape or portraiture or sports or horse photography aren’t related. But they most certainly are related and by the one thing that haunts most photographers, light! So while I might be new to aviation, I’m certainly not new to light or how to use it to manipulate the viewer of my photographs. Here’s a classic example of what I’m talking about.
Here’s a little Bellanca 8KCAB putting on a great show at the Minden Aviation Roundup. The sun had darted behind the clouds (which were great) giving the total scene a “cool” cast. A color cast is a bluish cast which we mentally perceive as being cool (don’t understand this, read The Psychology of Color). Well, when you have that overall color cast, anything yellow the eye zeros right in on so no matter the subject size in the image, you can’t help but see it. I talked about that the other day. So with those basics in place, we build upon them.
I’m a huge Jay Maisel fan, he is all about color and uses it to communicate like few others. And the top three images start to get to where his famous mantra says so rightly where our photography should be. But they are missing what I think is Jay’s main manta thrust, the key ingredient in all great photographs, one that I strive to have especially in my aviation images. The one thing all these images have in common is, you don’t see the pilot. We know intuitively that there is one flying the plane, but we don’t see them. More importantly the top three photos don’t express what it must be like to be flying that plane in those gorgeous skies for all those spectators. That’s what I want to capture in my aviation images……
Gesture! Light, Color, Gesture…Jay’s mantra and it’s those ingredients that make the bottom image stand out from the rest. You can just feel the fun of this little aircraft easing over and enjoying the freedom of no gravity. It takes no words to express (photographs shouldn’t need a caption to tell the story), it just says free! No matter your subject, these basics apply and will, when incorporated make your photograph tells its story!
Aug 29, 2011 | Aviation, B&W Photography
Well, after the Liberty landed, I went looking for other subjects to put with the clouds. That’s actually a pretty common tactic of mine, I find a background I really love and then look for something to put in front of it. And when it comes to our fabulous summer thunderheads, the chase is on. So at the Minden Aviation Roundup there was a small static display they called a Zoo (planes with animal names) for the kids. I wondered over there since the light on the aircraft look good.First aircraft I came to is an old favorite, the Grumman G-73 “Mallard.”
The first thing I did was do a quick looksie through the lens to see if I liked the clouds in the background. Then, I moved backwards until I got the cropping I wanted of the Goose. Then I slid sidewise real slow until the center frame of the glass lined up with the tail. I then, using the grid in the E Scrn, but that line in the center of the line on the center line of the E Scrn. Click! While I really like the paint job on the Goose, I like it better in shades of gray with that sky. Finishing was a snap, Silver Efex Pro, a lot easier then waiting for the folks to move from the front of the Goose. That’s one thing you have to have when shooting is understanding. Shooting with the 200-400, not a soul knew what I was pointing at way back where I was standing let alone realize they were in my photo. But to compact the scene and get the cropping I wanted, the long lens was the only option.
Why the long lens? Most aircraft are taller then we are so the physically closer you are, the less your see in the cockpit and of the tail. The tail is everything I think so in order to lessen the angle, moving back and shooting with a longer lens permits you to see in the cockpit and the tail. So this Do-28 Dornier with the clouds reflecting off its nose instantly grabbed my attention and just like the Goose, I moved, slid and lined up the lines to make the shot. Finishing was just as simple.
Then I saw the thunderheads start to rise and wanted to find something to put with them. When I took this shot, I knew I wouldn’t like the resulting image but wanted to blog it. What do I think is wrong with it? The clouds look like they were put in using Photoshop. While that’s not the case, because of the perspective and depth of focus, they simply look phoney. It was a great start to what turned out being a great day!
Photos captured by D3x, 200-400VR2 (handheld) on Lexar UDMA digital film
