cavalcade of planes

I've had quite a weekend. I'm a big aviation enthusiast, I'm not a pilot but I've put in enough simulator time on my computer, plus I've read enough aviation related material, to know quite a bit about the subject.
And last weekend was my local airport's "cavalcade of planes". It's not an airshow, it's more of an exhibition and fly-in. Dealers show up to show off their latest wares, be they avionics (full glass panel cockpits of a type not even possessed by many airliners are the latest rage) or entire aircraft, including models that qualify under a new "sport pilot" classification which makes the required license easier to acquire.
Plus pilots from the area show up with their own aircraft. This year we had an especially rich assortment of aircraft show up, I'm still almost ecstatic about all the amazing stuff I got to see.
Part of the reason I was so enthusiastic about photographing the event was that the airport is the site of a new air museum start-up. Currently they're operating out of a donated hanger but they have big plans that I'm quite excited about. And I'm trying to get associated with them as a volunteer photographer. I've already been told that they'd welcome my assistance, but.. I've had difficulty getting the sort of inside contacts and access that I crave to do what I want to do. It's probably as much a matter of my less than outgoing nature and difficulty working social situations as anything, but.. I'm still working on it. I'm hoping to give them some good images from this weekend, although I've realized that I didn't focus on the museum's operations as much as I should have. It's just that there was always a big crowd around the museum hanger and I couldn't figure out how to make it work, photographically. I was looking for specific THINGS, not just a big bunch of people mobbing some displays. Which was an oversight on my part I now realize, the fact that they had a crowd of people looking at the displays was significant enough to warrant at least a few shots.

I'm still working through the shots, I haven't really figured out what the best ones are yet. I'm starting to feel limited in the sorts of pictures I can take at these events, but.. maybe there really isn't that much variation on what I can do as a person stuck to the ground taking pictures of things that fly. I suspect that I'd need to start using some sort of elevated platform or shoot from a flying airplane to get more variety.
But anyway, here are the shots:

The first is an HDR attempt of my biggest surprise of the event, the TBM that showed up without any warning (to me anyway) and made a few low altitude passes, than landed. The pilot let people get into the lower gunner position.
This was a crude HDR attempt, hand held using the camera's auto bracketing feature. The shots weren't perfectly aligned, even when taken at 5fps the three shots still were slightly off. But when reduced to this resolution you can't really tell. What do you think about the color, is it too saturated? I was hoping to get a slightly menacing effect, the day was turning dark and cloudy and I wanted the clouds to add a feeling of tension to the image. But I don't think it worked out looking that way.
#2 is one of the ejection seats of the museum's T-33, a military jet trainer derived from the P-80 shooting star. I should specify that the T-33 is described as being on loan from another museum, I don't think they have the funds to be acquiring antique aircraft at this stage. They're still working on restoring it, a process I'm hoping to document.
#3 is a Dassault Falcon 50, a French business jet from a model line that I'm quite fond of, I've logged a few flight simulator hours in a few of the Falcon models. For random trivia the F-16's name of "Fighting Falcon" (when it was announced that we'd have a Falcon flying overhead I heard other people assume that it would be an F-16) was opposed by the French because of the Dassault Falcon line, and the potential for name confusion. The F-16s unofficial nickname appeared to become Viper, but I've always preferred Falcon.
The Falcon was another big surprise, we've never had anything like that in the past. But on Saturday we got two of them (two different models, the other had two engines). They didn't land, they just made several flybys each. It was exciting, I love the sound of turbine engines and the sound of those things zooming past was really something. I think they intentionally rocked the wings as they passed too. Okay, so it's not much compared to a proper airshow, but they were putting on a show for us in their own way.
It's hard to see in the reduced size version, but the Falcon has leading edge slats (or flaps, there's a subtle distinction there and I'm not sure which the Falcon has) across the entire leading edge of the wing that droop down when taking off or landing along with the trailing edge flaps, together they effectively change the shape of the wing and generate more lift so a wing that's efficient at high speeds can still generate enough lift at slower landing and takeoff speeds.
I just love complexity like that, wings can be such beautiful works of engineering.
#4 is perhaps the aircraft that I was most excited about seeing. It's a Dornier 27, a classic German utility aircraft that entered production just after WWII. From the first moment that I saw it, I wanted it.. which isn't saying much for me, but.. it had an air about it, a feeling of seriousness, just looking at it I got a feeling that I was in the presence of a plane that was designed to WORK. It had a high lift wing that I could tell was designed for short take off and landing operation, with wide track main landing gear with beefy suspension to handle rough ground. I wanted to hop in and fly it to Canada and start up a bush pilot business.
It was even piloted by a German. He was joking with someone about selling it, asking how much he was willing to pay. I would have pulled out my wallet and offered him all the cash I had on hand.. but that would have been an absurd joke, like offering a $20 to someone for a classic Corvette. I decided to settle for quietly lusting after it as I photographed it.
I just wish I could have found a tail number.. kind of the equivalent of a license plate number. There's a web site I can use to track down the registration information for most planes. I want to know where this guy is from. But the only number I can find is 048, I don't know what that is but I can't use it.

I'll post more later, but that's it for now.

 

One thing I attempted to work on during the weekend was my tracking skills. A great deal of my shooting was following planes in flight when they did low passes over the runway. Unfortunately I wasn't too quick to learn.. I realized that I should have switched to Tv mode, shutter priority, so that I could figure out what speed I wanted to try to blur the prop disc while still getting a sharp, hand holdable picture. Instead I spent the whole weekend on Av, and my tracking shots frequently dropped to speeds too slow for me to hand hold or sped up and froze the prop.
I still got plenty decent shots, as this biplane takeoff shows. However I think I've realized that I should do these on the other side of the runway.
The thing is, the airport has houses along one side of the runway. The side opposite from all the airport buildings. So I was on the airport side, shooting across the runway, and most of my tracking shots show blurred houses. To me blurred houses just don't look right behind a passing plane. I think a blurred airport scene (as I'd capture from the housing side of the runway) would look a bit more natural.
I've given up trying to blur the blades of the Robinson helicopters. Their rotor speed is just too slow. Although in the picture of the blue one the blades aren't even moving yet.

Despite my admitted mistakes and failures from the weekend, I'm overall proud of what I accomplished. It's because of my approach. In a way this should go in the "what is the definition of a photographer" thread. I once read a column that suggested that the key to photographic success, basically, was enduring hardship. Going out when it's too cold, or too hot, or too early, or whatever. I've modified that and think of it as being more about persistence.

I started out Friday night by cleaning my sensor. I knew that I'd be shooting at narrow apertures to try to lower my shutter speeds for prop disc blurring, and from one of my first 30D tests shooting passing planes I knew that that was among the worst situations for clearly showing sensor dust (clear blue sky at narrow apertures, not good, in fact that's the classic way to detect sensor dust).
Then I put in an exhausting day Saturday at the airport. It's not that it was physically strenuous, but I had to get up at a time that, for me, was quite early, I was dead tired by the time I came home. I wanted nothing less than to give up and not go for the second day. I was actually hoping to find that there'd be a big thunderstorm on Sunday morning that would close down the whole thing and save me from needing to go.
But since I was a big believer in the policy of persistence I finally forced myself to get up and check out the results I'd gotten so I could see what I needed to do differently on Sunday.
The first thing I noticed were big noticeable dust splotches. After I'd JUST cleaned the sensor. Cripes. It must have happened when I changed lenses outdoors, the planes were kicking up a lot of dust and while of course I never changed lenses while in the prop wash, I must have let some raised dust in at some point.
So there I am, dead tired, staring at my screen, counting down the time I have left until I have to get up again, and I've realized that I have to put in another cleaning session. Of course you could say that it was my fault since I only checked my results later that night, I spent the whole day resting and kept putting off checking out my pictures.

I did it. It was not my best session, the tiredness was working against me. Once I managed to flick droplets of methanol (the cleaning fluid I use) all over the sensor that showed up on my test shot and nearly gave me a heart attack.. I wasted two pec pads when I accidentally pulled out two pads at once twice in a row, once they're out I consider them contaminated if I don't use them immediately because I'd have to set them down on an unclean surface.
But I got a quite clean result eventually (except for this one tiny black spot that I'm concerned about, I'm going to do a test to see if it's a single pixel or really a dust spot), packed away my cleaning supplies, and hurriedly went to bed where I found I still couldn't sleep because I was too keyed up about the next day.. I'm too highly strung, it works against me in so many ways..

Anyway, I'm glad I did the second day. If I hadn't gone I wouldn't have seen the TBM and had the chance to do that great, moody HDR cloud shot that I'm still working on making look like I want.

I had been feeling the need to go out and do some serious photography. Well, now I have.. and I feel I've confirmed my status as a photographer.
In truth I think I came across a few people more serious about it than me. There was one guy who had two camera bodies with different lenses mounted on them, I was wondering if he might have been a journalist or something. Or there were two people I named the "Canon Couple" because they appeared to be together, and each had a Canon camera with a good (but different) Canon lens mounted to it.

 

I actually managed to do something I've been wanting to do for a while.. not that I directly instigated it. I've been wanting to take a shot that someone else would want a copy of, so I could exchange email addresses and send it later.
Well it happened! I'm strangely thrilled by that. It turned out that I took a picture of a plane that was starting up that contained the son of the guy who asked me for the picture. His son was taking his first training flight (during a big show day, that's got to be a bit nerve wracking). It wasn't a great picture, but I did what I could. I'm hoping the son's face will be visible in the plane as it pulls out of the parking space.

My plan is to try to be prepared for this sort of occasion for my next Disney trip (Mousefest this year, including the cruise portion). I've got business card sheets I can use in my printer, I just need to work out a design that looks good but not pretentious, for a self promoting amateur photographer who's actually NOT trying to get money from people, just a little ego support and the feeling of being useful.

Plus.. I just love the idea that after a Disney trip there'd be someone in some random location in the US or indeed the entire world getting and using my pictures. Perhaps one of my pictures might end up in some modern version of a slide show that some family is using to torture their family members!
As a side note, I wish LCD projectors were cheaper.. they'd make a great modern analog to the now somewhat outdated slide show. I'd totally put on a show using a projector for friends and family.

 

Yeah.. unfortunately I've already posted practically the same picture. Taken at a totally different time, but.. I keep producing that image.

I need to check out the work of more experienced airshow photographers to figure out what else I need to be doing.

But thank you. I was practicing the panning, and I made fairly heavy use of the LCD screen ever in simply checking up on the prop blur I was producing. To tell the truth that biplane is always the easiest, I suspect it runs a very high prop speed so I can afford to use a higher shutter speed.