Those who know me know I’m real annal about taking care of my camera gear. It’s real simple business, camera work, I work. Camera no workie and I no eatie (and I like to eatie!)! This is one reason why I go through my images every night if I shot that day. I have a Statistics feature in our DigitalPro that informs me of my keeper rate. When it drops below 90%, I go looking for reasons for the drop. At PRS the first day my keeper rate dropped to 76%, I was deleting a whole lot of images because they were soft. I simply assumed it was me, my panning was simply off (not normal but it happens) Because I’ve learned in my 30yrs the problem is rarely equipment, it’s what we affectionately call pilot error. The next day I really concentrated on my panning feeling really good until I say my keeper rate drop to 72%. To say I was not a happy camper is an understatement (you don’t wanna be around me when I screw up photos, I get ugly!)!
That evening we did an air to air with this gorgeous F4U Corsair you see above. With Fly Daddy & Scottie at the stick and my bud Scott Diussa who I invited to join us, we had a marvelous flight. I had scripted the flight to place the Corsair in what would feel like the Pacific Islands during WWII setting (you can see the whole shoot in the Air to Air gallery on our warbirdimages site). The flight went off without a hitch until I looked at my results. I had a lot of images that were soft. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. I was even seriously thinking of buying a KenLab because I was loosing my touch. I hate doubting my skills! The next day, I was at Home Pylon shooting, the first time I’d ever gotten to shoot from there. Every time I went clicked, I wondered if I was getting a sharp image. About 40min into shooting the AF stopped working. The camera locked up. I couldn’t get the camera to focus no matter what I tried (and I know a whole bunch of tricks). So there I stood, rather ticked at myself! It was my fault and I knew it!
Ever had a problem with your car, take it in to the mechanic and the car is now working fine? Luckily for me (and everyone else at PRS) NPS has their best repair tech Mike at PRS. Now, if only the camera would not work so he can see it not working is all I thought as we drove in. Sure enough, I got back and the camera is working again. I mess with it and finally I’m able to get it locked up once more. I walk it in very carefully into the room, tell Mike the problem and have him look at it. It’s not working and he can’t get it to work. Then he tells me he’s never seen that before, that’s not good. Says it needs to go back to Nikon, he can’t fix it there. That’s freakin horrible! I get home and he has it the next day. The problem? Red dust, red dust from Monument Valley shot 18months ago. If you watch my Romancing the Landscape class, you’ll see it out in that dust storm. And even though I thoroughly cleaned everything every night, that dust is so fine that it got in the lens & camera and after 18months, finally wiggled into a place causing a short. My own procrastination caused me to miss some great images. Damn!
You see, my gear goes into Nikon every year for its annual. I send it in for a CLA (Clean, Lube and Adjust) because it gets a lot of use. And if it don’t workie, I no eatie! It had just gone in for its annual just prior to the filming of Romancing the Landscape and I’d been meaning to get it in this spring but kept putting it off because I simply didn’t have a window when I wasn’t using it (plus I has a severe separation disorder when my gear is gone). Well, my putting it off cost me. I broke my own rules again and I paid the price. The moral is real simple, one should listen to oneself!
After my post over on warbirdimages in regards to being present for the crank over of #74, a number of emails came in asking how I did that. The how questions ranged from how I got there to how I shot it, so I wanted to answer all those how questions at once. I met Bob and his son Casey at our Air2Air workshops, owning and flying a number of the subject aircraft we photograph. Bob in my mind is a aviation legend in what he has accomplished and restored already in his lifetime. I interviewed him for an article I wrote on him as well and that’s when we got to know each other better. Well upon learning they were bringing #74 Super Corsair back online, I said I would love to be there for that. Last Wed Casey called me it was roaring back to life on Friday, so Thursday I was on a plane to ND.
This photo still makes me laugh, even the lawn mower knew to stop and watch, it was something special rolling by! I would be going on the trip by myself and the timing of the phone call was such that there was no time to FedEx gear to ND so I have to carry with me all I would need. All my years working with wildlife and biologists has totally prepared me for these new challenges with aviation for which I’m so thankful. Darn those biologists, they save the day again! You see, to prepare myself and pack the right gear I just think through the problems that might exist and go from there. Like biologists working with an endangered critter, the Odegaard family would be working on a Super Corsair. My job is to document this and stay out of the way, get intimate photos without getting in their face. The first and major concern was light. I had no clue if the hangar door would be open or closed. Closed and the lighting would be on me so I packed 5 SB-900s, SD-9s, Justin Clamps and a ton of eneloop batteries (which I love, recycled all others) along with a couple LumiQuest Softbox LTp, snoots and gaffer tape. If the hangar door was open, then life would be easy! All of this went into my two carry-ons which with my 100k status works out perfectly.
Once at the hangar, I was relieved to see the hangar door open. Light flooding in from the hangar door is the softest, big light source you can ever want. All I had to do was have one SB-900 on a SC-27 always with me for like the photo above when I was shooting the shadow side. There were putting on that massive, gorgeous prop and I wanted that action. The shutter speed was 1/15, f9 and the flash was set to underexpose by -2/3 shooting with the D3x with the 24-120VR. The flash was held in my left hand with my arm held up and out to fill in the shadows on the left. Easy click! The brake test lap I had the D3s on the 200-400VR2 and shot from 1/25 to 1/80 to get a prop blur. That big ol prop turns real slow especially when first cranking over and it needed to be blurred to show it was turning. That’s when I was at 1/25. When Bob took #74 around to test the brakes, he had the RPMs up so I went to 1/80 and panned.
It really is easy stuff when you think it through. First question is what’s the subject? It’s bringing to life #74 which is a combo of people and plane. Next question is how do you bring the subject to the attention of the viewers of the photograph? The first answer to that question is light so you plan on that. Next answer is focal length. I had my normal ThinkTank Airport packed with the usual so that was covered. Lastly there is simply making the images and that’s like falling off a log for me at this point, working with biologists for 30yrs prepared me for that. The only difference is with aviation when you get your hands dirty getting involved, you really get dirty. There’s a lot of oil and grease! And just like biologists at the end of the day when you count your blessings and reflect on the good work done, the beer comes out. And that was the best part you can never be prepared for, the sitting around afterwards and the telling of stories and celebrating. We celebrated until well after midnight. And that my friends was how it was done.
Oh yeah, I forgot to answer one question (thanks for the reminder Mike). I also shot video during the run up, 14GB worth. I was on the ramp with the 24-120 on the D3x, 200-400VR2 on the D3s and D7000 with 14-24AFS on a tripod during the trials. I was running three cameras at once. And at one point, I took some iPhone video and sent that home and to a couple of friends. It is history brought to life so wanted it covered and shared. And yes, files, prints and video go to Odegaard Aviation for their archives and PR needs. No charge, just as a simple thank you.
I LOVE shooting on the ridge! Long before you see them, you here the Unlimiteds racing up behind them. Then they burst over and just 100 feet above your head go screaming by. It’s when you experience this that this large plane seems like grace in the clouds. Can you say…PAN! You surely get your workout keeping up with them but oh man, what fun! Notice how with clouds, the plane seems to moving faster then the image without clouds. Tuck that one in the back of your head, it’s important.
Photos captured by D3x, 200-400VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital fiml
The Tigercat was designed to be carrier based but size and other issues kept it from seeing that duty. But the folding wings is still present which you can see opening up here on the way to take off taxi. This is one big ass plane and it’s always hard for me to imagine that it is not only a fighter but was purposed to be on a carrier. A piece of trivia, it was originally called Tomcat but that was change because it was felt to be too racey. I just think it’s cool to watch the wings and wanted to share that with you.
Photos captured by D3x, 200-400VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital fiml
