Nov 19, 2010 | Aviation
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Say Hi to the Bamboo Bomber, also known as the Cessna T-50. This is an all wooden plane made in WWII for bomber flight training. It’s a great plane! And its color, wow! But as you can see, the light simply slipped away from us. The bottom image is the only one I’m really happy with, the rest the light just doesn’t work with the “cheery” nature of the Bamboo Bomber. I like the slight angle of the Bomber opposed to our direction of travel. But hey, I didn’t stop shooting just because the light wasn’t perfect, too much damn fun!
Photos by D3x, D3s, 24-120AFS / 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 19, 2010 | Aviation
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DPA2AA360575.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
Next up in the viewfinder was the PT-17 Stearman. A fighter trainer back in the day, these now fill the main roll of enticing folks to leave the safety of earth for a flight.
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You might not recognize it because typically they have a blue and yellow paint scheme. This one was dubbed “The Red Baron” and was a lot of fun to photograph.
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When you go up in the air, you have a little more time to shoot with good light because of the change of angles. But once the light goes hard, it goes hard! Just like shooting back on earth, when the light gets hard you have two options, stop shooting or experiment and see what you can make of the situation. So I played and while I like this photo, it’s the next one I really like.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/dpa2aa360685.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
Once we were shooting into the light, the contrast between the white wings and the earth made it a no win situation for exposure so I simple underexposed to create what you see here. It would seem the white of the Sky Van reflected just a tad of light into the front of the Strearman which is what saves the whole image. If it were black, it would have been deleted. I would love to tell you that I saw that in the air, but I would be lying.
Photos captured by D3x, 24-120AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 18, 2010 | Aviation
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DPA2AA360419.swf, 585, 473, [/swf]
And in a heartbeat the light went to me, yuckie right when this really cool RV-8 come up. Unlike sunset where you chase the light as it mellows, in the morning you run from the light as it gets hard.
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I don’t know if it was the light, the distance this smaller aircraft stayed from the photo platform or my back which by now was killing me (air-to-air photography is very hard on the body), I just couldn’t make a click I liked.
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This is such a great little plane, John such a nice guy, I wanta photograph this plane again in the future. I do like the top shot but all of them required a little post processing to being out a little drama in the light. I’ll have to think it through a little to make the right shot. I just know I don’t have it here.
Photos captured by D3x / D3s, 24-120AFS / 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 18, 2010 | Aviation
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DPA2AA360084.swf, 402, 600 [/swf]
Sticking with the “commercial” shoot idea, I shot a bunch of full page / cover layout format photos. I went with 1/90 the whole time because I liked the white tip props with the white paint making that full circle. If you’ve ever looked at what images are being used in this way, you often see planes like the A36 Bonanza with couples in the plane. They story line is they hopped into their plane and jet off for the weekend. So keeping with that theme, we had a gorgeous blond next to Casey during the shoot.
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Wait, I know that gorgeous blond, that’s my wife! Yeah, Sharon loves this aviation stuff as much as I and in fact, she had her camera in the Bonanza with her shooting away. She was shooting so much, we had to radio the Bonanza and tell her to stop for a while and just enjoy the ride so we could get what you’re seeing here. How cool is that?!
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DPA2AA360398.swf, 402, 600 [/swf]
Of course, I’m still wondering what story Kevin told his wife to explain why a gorgeous blond was in the second seat of their plane.
Photos captured by D3x, 24-120AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 18, 2010 | Aviation
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We really had a great crew for our 1st Air2Air Workshop. But as I’ve written many, many time, it’s about the folks more then the aircraft. One of our students, Kevin, flew down to Phoenix, not commercially but in the A36 Bonanza. He asked if we could use his plane as one of our subjects and with a snap of a finger, wallah!
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Now I’ll be completely honest with you, shooting GA (general aviation) had never been of interest to me. I’m a history buff and I want to photograph history. And while this is a 1982 plane, it doesn’t quite make the “history” books, yet.
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But once we got up in the air and started to photograph it, I got pretty excited about it. In fact, I hoot and hollered about photographing it more then Kevin. You’re in the air at sunrise photographing a plane, how bad can it be?
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I played a little with the A36 as well, shooting in less then perfect light and a little more “commercially” minded. I never thought about that realm of aviation photography as something I could get into but now……
Photos captured by D3x, 24-120AFS on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 17, 2010 | Aviation
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After the sun set, the Mustangs piled off and went back to the field and the Spitfire joined back up with us on our flight back to the field. Bob did a great job flying and offering us photo opp after photo opp. I’ve shooting at 1/30 going for broke to not blur the prop but the background. We’re coming it doing 130knots and low to the deck because of our last photo opp of the evening flight.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP4684.swf, 402, 600 [/swf]
We “dragged” the Spitfire down the runway to get the very cool shot. I decided to go vertical but after seeing some of the participants horizontals, I now wonder if that wasn’t the better option. Thankfully I will have the opportunity again when I can shoot it horizontal and then make the call looking at my own photos. It was an amazing hour flight with four great planes and five great pilots. Phew…I’m tired!
Photos captured by D3s, 70-200VR2 on Lexar UDMA digital film
