Hard to believe we could improve on yesterday’s sunrise at Shooting the West (what a great event!), but I think we did. We ventured out to the Winnemucca Airport to Chet’s hangar where we were treated like kings (killer pancakes, thanks!)! Chet pulled out his rare NA-64 Yale which was our subject as the sun appeared. The gorgeous snowcapped Blue Mountains in the background provided the best possible sweep for this great aircraft! The hospitality just made the morning soooooo perfect and the light, even better. All that was really required to make the photo was to set the WB in the D500 to Cloudy, rack the 24-70VR to 35mm and sit back and click. The flip out monitor on the D500 makes it so simple cause you don’t need to get down with a knee pad to frame and shoot. With Live View, you can move as quickly as the light and that’s important in changing light!
Then when you might have thought it couldn’t get any better, Randy came over to join the fun in his 1940 Waco UPF-7! With the puddles left over from the storm and seeing where he could park, I got over under the wing of the NA-64 not only for safety but to take advantage of the reflection. Shooting in Shutter Priority at 1/10, I could totally blow away the spinning prop so there is no question it was turned. The D500 / 24-70VR was on the Really Right Stuff Ground Pod still from the Yale statics so it was easy peasy! Thanks to Chet & Randy for an amazing morning!
One aspect of the this job called photography I love is the unknown. Going after a specific critter and in that pursuit, finding an even cooler one. An unknown reward. Heading out for this landscape shot and finding a better, unknown view. An unknown reward. One of the greatest mysteries of our pursuit we truly never have all sewn up is the light. Light makes its appearance at its leisure whether we’re present to witness and celebrate it or not. And it’s that unknown that, while can be frustrating, can be the greatest reward when it makes appearance when we’re ready to capture it.
I went after “The Beast” and I got it. Had been planning the shoot for some time, the idea was to take a winter moonlit night shot of it in the snow. But as it turned out having clear skies with a full moon at sunset isn’t a sure bet in the far north in winter (ya, I knew that). And while I didn’t get “that” shot I got plenty of others that I was perfectly thrilled about making the whole venture worth while. And while doing the on site scouting during this shoot, I got to poke my head into another hangar and low and behold, there’s one of those unknowns!
Sitting there in the hangar was this rare, airworthy 1928 Waco GXE also know as Waco 10 (GXE is a 10 with Curtiss OX-5 engine). There are only a handful around and even fewer flying. This one you won’t find on any registry and has an amazing history which includes being owned and flown by a AVG, Flying Tiger! Well when I saw that gorgeous thing in the hangar, I instantly asked if we could pull it out to photograph. Next thing it was on the grass. With all of that good karma going, I didn’t worry about the gray skies overhead cause the wind was blowing. With the D750 / 24-70VR set up on the RRS Ground-Level Tripod, I just waited for the sun to make its brief appearance. Now what you see here are the three light levels that I shot that I like. They are all different, they all tell a little different story and all three are the rewards the unknown. So at the end of the day and we look at our photographic adventure, we need to be able to see through it all to exploit the unknown.
I receive a number of emails asking where do you start in regards to an air to air? Folks see my images with rare and exciting aircraft and naturally think that’s what one starts with. Of course, it is possible but not likely. At the same time, starting with something “less” naturally seems like a let down. But that couldn’t be further from the truth! Photographing GA (general aviation) is a great place to start for every possible reason. Access, ease on the wallet and the best, leads to bigger and better. This is a prime example, a 1954 Beech V35 V tail shot over Kansas years back. This was actually a test shoot for the Epson Finish Strong campaign, shooting with the then new D810 and 70-200f4 AFS. It’s like many things in photography, you might not want to cut your teeth shooting for the top wrung but rather, start at the bottom and work your way up making mistakes and learning when the stakes are as high. But what’s most important for your photography is, start where it makes sense.
PT-17 Stearman & PT-22 Ryan capture by D5 / 200-400VR2
I knew there would be no statics, I knew there would be no air to air, we went to the marvelous Cable AirShow for one reason. Our measure of success was not a wall of amazing photos, rather, answers to questions we needed to solve with real world shooting. For example shooting video with three DSLR bodies, D500s and D750, all three with different lenses, 80-400VR3, 70-200f4 AFS & 24-120VR filming the same flying aircraft, how do they all meld together in the final movie? New microphones, new tripod fluid head, new monitor, shooting video while shooting stills, field testing new 70-200f2.8, answers with these were our measures of success for our shooting. We had one helluva good time cause we were with great friends and able to work out of their hangar. That made it possible to drag so much new gear to test and techniques to try all at one time. We learned alot, took tons of notes. Some things worked great like gimbal, monitor and 70-200f2.8. Other things like batteries blew junks and is an issue we must deal with before the “real” shooting rolls around. The way I work, I have to do this real world testing so when it’s a real shoot, as many squawks are solved as possible. This is all things you should do to test gear and techniques before the big shoot you’ve got coming up. It makes the big shoot so much more enjoyable and successful when you have the bugs are worked out. So while I made a couple of nice clicks this weekend, that wasn’t our true measure of success.
Friday was a special day, couldn’t have thought of a better way to end the year! Jake and I cruised over to the westside for an assignment I had with a really cool airplane. Actually a Schweizer 1-26 or as the boys called it, a “poor man’s U2” is a glider. This is a glider but as you might notice it has a little assistance, jet motors! After we did the air to air, it was time for a little fun. What you see here is the still and video from that fun. The stills were shot with the D5 / 200-400VR2 and the video was shot with the Keymission 360. In the still you can see where the Keymission 360 was mounted. And if you have fun with the 360 video, you can see in it where we were shooting the stills. It was so much fun, hope you enjoy!
And if you want to feel like YOU are in the Schweizer, watch the 360 video on your iPhone or iPad!
One aspect of photography that tends to confuse photographers are the exposure modes. There are four modes, A, S, P, M, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Program Mode and Manual. Personally, I use A Mode 90% of the time because you select the lens aperture you want for the depth of field you need to tell your story and the camera selects the correct shutter speed (and this is stepless). The other 10% of the time, I’m in S Mode because I need to control the shutter speed and the aperture doesn’t matter. The photo here of the SNJ is an example where I was in S Mode because I needed to shoot at a constant 1/40 to get the prop blurred. Does this confuse you? It’s OK if it does as most photographers get confused about these years after owning a camera. Well, I’ve got something for you and its FREE! Photography FUNdamentals is an iBook you can download for FREE courtesy of B&H Photo & Video that covers everything exposure modes to depth of field and so much more. It’s totally interactive through the power of the iPad permitting fun and fast learning. Go grab it, it will help your photography vastly improve!
