Out of the blue, its necked exploded forward and before I could react, the Least Bittern snatched a dragonfly in mid-flight! He’d been fishing and I was waiting for him to spear his next fish when we grabbed the dragonfly. Then I thought about it, if the fist-size bird is fast enough to snatch little fish out of the water, the dragonfly is way easy since it’s so much bigger. Darn cool moment that came and went as it went right back to fishing. Critters, they are so cool!

I love the Z 9, love it! But this old dog has got to learn some new tricks. One being, my old habit of shooting 3-5 in-camera dupes means just that and not 300-500 like I did yesterday. At 20fps and with the image all being in focus because of its amazing AF, the Z 9 makes it way too easy for me just to blast away. It’s so much fun until it’s midnight, Photo Mechanic is long done uploading the images and you’re going through all the images. Thankfully, there were all these great little gems from the morning shoot that keep appearing like this Least Bittern. A bird smaller than your fist is common but rarely seen. We had a great shoot with it producing some fun images. I knew it was there and I was so happy to find it buried in that 15k!

I wanted to play up the warmth, in the light and the friendship and it was made real easy shooting in a B-24 WWII hangar! The light you see is bouncing off the giant cement floor in every possible direction, light bouncing in from outside. I simply turn them a tad, put them in front of a cold blue background, and shot. That’s my kinda portraiture … simple. I can do simple1

I just LOVE this annual event with Precision Camera and want you to join us! It’s been running for many years now, always sells out, and always produces some great photographs! We start Friday night in the classroom covering techniques and the latest gear for aviation photography, statics, ground-to-air and air-to-air. Then Saturday we’re at the airport with warbirds putting into practice what we learned. We add to all of this models, period reenactors making it a killer morning of fun and shooting. Join us!

With reassurances from the family who were all in on the Go For It adventure, I took up the challenge. The challenge? The quest for the best calzone around! How did that push my photography forward? Well, there is the little fact we all had to load into the Cessna 185 and fly to St Maries, ID. The challenge there? Getting my knees to fold into the backseat. With Addison and Brent flying, there was zero challenge there. Next, there was the taste test and I have to say it was a delicious calzone, deeee licious!!! But the real challenge was getting the shot of the F100 buzzing us at the field. The Z 9 had no problem there. While the CG didn’t change on the flight back, despite the fuel burnt, I’m sure we used up more of the useful load. But darn, was it fun!!!