Last fall was one heck of a ride, producing more images than I could physically finish in the time I had at hand. So with the start of the new year, I’ve have a small window of opportunity to go back and look, enjoy and get caught up on finishing some of the images on the network from last fall. I started with the oldest, those from the Reno Air Races of last Sept (I also needed to get some of these out to a client).
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DAPARRR15944.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]
One of the Blue Angles’ F/A-18 Hornets on the flight line is being warmed up by the ground crew at 05:15am. The sun has yet to come up but it is putting a glow in the sky which is the light source for the jet. To get the nav lights I had to hit the shutter release and let ‘er rip. I tried squeezing one off when I saw the blinking lights but after a couple of attempts I gave up and let the camera catch them. The only post work I had to do is clean up runway markers and “polish” the plane body. When you look up close, the paint isn’t perfect so I cleaned it up.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/DAPARRR19115.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]
During the races if you have a press pass, you can stand at the end of one hanger and catch the planes landing after their heat. This is a challenging place to shoot because of all the foreground and background obstacles. Getting that clean shot takes a bit of practices, long lens and really good timing. The last couple of days of the race I switched from the D3 and its 9fps, big buffer to the D3x and its 1.8FPS and smaller buffer. I went to the “one shot” philosophy and was incredibly happy with the results. I can’t get over the detail I can see in the P-40. Finishing was no more than removing some dust from the sky. I’m glad it’s only Saturday, more time to go through more images, there are 5113 in the folder from the races.
Photos captured by D3 / D3x, 200-400VR on Lexar UDMA digital film