Finally finished some post processing on the C-47 that I shot a little while ago. I’ve been practicing quite a bit with Lightroom and I am pretty happy with how this shot has finished off.
warbirds
P51 Flyover
P-51 Warbirds flying over the Planes of Fame air museum. Out on a Saturday morning watching the plane fly over. Show with the A9II and the 100-400 with a 1.4 teleconverter.
75th Anniversary VJ Day Flyover
On 9/2/20 was the 75th Anniversary of the VJ Day Flyover. They flew the WW2 planes over Souther California. Since I was working from home and was able to take calls from my car I went to the Chino Airport to stake out a spot to catch the planes as they flew over. It took a while, but I was able to get a couple of shots, I really hoped they were going to land, but they just flew over on their way back home. I shot the planes with my Sony A9II and the 100-400 lens. F16 at 1/320 ISO 100
Planes of Fame Vultee BT-13 Flight
Planes of Fame flew their BT-13 on 7/4 and 7/5. I went out both days to practice and grab some shots of it. Since it was so hot I just hid in my car and waited for the plane to take off so that I could get shots of it from the parking lot. I should have used my teleconverter to get a little closer on some of the shots or not used my 3 stop ND filter.
Planes of Fame PT-17 Stearman
Planes of Fame flew their Stearman on Saturday 6/21 and Sunday 6/22, they did a brief presentation on it talking about it and then took it up in the air. However the day was really overcast and the shots weren’t very good that came out of it. They decided to take the plane up again on Sunday so I went over and luckily there was sun out so I was able to get some much better shots of the plane as it flew around. I worked on testing out the wide focus tracking to keep the plane in focus and work on my panning skills. Pretty happy with how these shots came out and the level detail in them.
Memorial Day WW2 Aircraft Flyover
So the local airplane museums and aircraft historical societies setup a flyover of WW2 aircraft for Memorial Day to honor the veterans and front line works. The path was laid out in advance and started in Riverside and then ended in Chino. The flight consisted of DC-3s, C-47s, P51, and Douglas SBDs. I drove over to Loma Linda University Hospital to try and catch the planes as they flew over at the beginning. I then hightailed it over to the Chino Airport to catch the planes as they landed for the end of the flight. I was mostly happy with how the shots came out of the big planes, I wasn’t so happy with the smaller planes. I just didn’t get the close up shots I was looking for and wasn’t happy with the crop that I ended up doing. I think I just need some more practice with hand holding and doing the panning. I don’t think the problem is with the gear and the problem is more with the shooter. When shooting with the 100-400 on the smaller sensor it’s roughly a 150-600mm camera so I think I’ve got the reach. Just need to work on the hand holding to get the steadiness.
Shooting the Thunderbirds flyover Los Angeles
During the Thunderbird flyover of LA I went to my local hospital that looked like it was going to be in the flight path of the F16s. Unfortunately they didn’t exactly fly over the hospital they were a little far out and flying right at the tree line in the distance. So by the time my camera was able to track them these were the best I could get.
Camera Settings:
ISO 400
100-400mm on an A6500 so the lens was 600mm
1/4000
f6.3
I kept the aperture wide and raised the ISO from 100 to 400 to make sure the camera was shooting as fast as possible to give me the best chance as possible to catch some images. Luckily I had setup for this ahead of time as I wouldn’t have had any time to make changes once I saw the planes flying.
P-38 Living History Day at the Planes of Fame
This month was showcasing the P-38 Lightning at the Living History Day. This plane is unique in that was a dual prop plane that was extremely quiet due to the fact that it’s turbo super-chargers were muffled. It was those same turbos though that allowed it to climb and allowed it be a successful plane in the pacific theater during WWII.
Airbrakes on the SBD Dauntless
Normally I am shooting the planes from the front or while they are in the air. This was the first time I had seen the back of the SBD Dauntless and could get a picture of the airbrakes partially deployed. These would be deployed when the pilot was dive bombing to keep them from reaching a terminal velocity and still be able to control their plane while diving on a target.
Living History Day Vought F4U-1A Corsair
This month’s Living History Day was the Vought F4U-1A Corsair at the Planes of Fame Air Museum. All shots taken with the 100-400 Sony lens on my A6500 Camera. 1/160th in Shutter Priority mode. I used a polarizing lens to try and keep the Aperture down so that the camera would continue to autofocus since I was in continuous focus mode.
