Friday night "conclusions" ;-)

 

What do have these two photos in common? Not much, they weren’t even made the same day, except they were taken from the same vantage point. But, let me explain…

The first photo was made right before take off at the Chicago O’Hare Airport last Tuesday. The sky was gray, except for a few small blue slivers. While looking out the window I could see this composition coming just a second before. I made the click and I like it. All the lines lead the eye to the airplane. The clouds, the terminal building in the background, and of course the painted lines on the concrete. However, the overcast made the image look “blaahhh”. Some local saturation and overall contrast improvements in Adobe Lightroom and NIK Color Efex Pro 4, plus adding a “glamour glow” effect, and a slight vignette spawned the final result.

The second photo was made Thursday on my way back from Los Angeles to Chicago. It doesn’t happen very often but I had exactly the same seat in a Boeing 737-800 as two days before. It wasn’t exact the same airplane but the window was as dirty as on the way to LA. As I said, same vantage point… ;-)

But what a difference, the light was great and coming from behind the plane as we flew east. There were some beautiful storm clouds to the south. This is nothing extraordinarily but the key for this shot was again composition. The eye may wander between the puffy clouds in the foreground and the AA-logo with the reflection on the wing but it will always return to the interesting cloud formation that was illuminated by the setting sun.

No, it doesn’t need a big camera and lens. You can make a similar image with the camera you probably have always with you, your phone. You can’t change your position much, the pilot takes care for that, but watching the scene, the light, and the lines that unfold in front of your eye will lead you to the photo you may have always envisioned…

Wide angle practice

 

Today’s photos leave no doubt about that I’m on the road, means on a business trip. On the flight from Chicago to Los Angeles yesterday I saw some nice cloud formations, had a glimpse into the Grand Canyon, and finally an unobstructed view over the skyline of Los Angeles. I really like to use these travel opportunities to improve my skills and to experiment with the lenses that are in my bag. This time the wide angle SIGMA 10-20, f/4-5.6 DC HSM was on the camera most of the time. I have this DX lens since quite a long time but still have the feeling that I don’t ”own” this lens because I haven’t dug deep enough to know all it’s capabilities. This year’s vacation trip is coming up soon and I plan to make the 10-20 an essential piece in my landscape photography tool box this time…

Weekend at the airport

 

Not really happy with the outcome last Friday I had to go back to the airport yesterday and give it another try. The warbirds were still in town and continued their practice for the air show in Oshkosh next week. It was another typical Iowa mid-summer day, hot, muggy, and with a lot of haze in the air, however, I don’t want to blame the weather conditions for my low keeper rate yesterday. It is simple just the lack of practice with my panning technique.

I went home after three hours and after the sky became gray again and analyzed the pictures that I made so far. The sun came out again in the late afternoon and I went back to the airport a second time.

I started shooting with a slightly faster shutter speed since I obviously wasn’t able to handle 1/60s or 1/90s that day. It doesn’t give me a full turn of the props but still blurs their rotation and leaves no doubt about that these airplanes flew with high speed and were not just “parked on a stick” that was later removed in Photoshop… ;-)

Not quite ready but still made the click

 

A blog post of my friend Dave Updegraff this morning reminded me that some of the airplanes that participate in the Airventure Oshkosh in Wisconsin next week are currently at the Dubuque airport and practice for some of the air shows in this big annual event. While working in my office I heard them flying by several times this afternoon and this was another reminder for me. After work I gave it a try and went to the airport, despite a uniform gray overcast in the sky. I wasn’t even really ready to shoot some pictures when three of the planes flew close by and landed shortly after. I ripped through a series of shots and that was it! Nothing happened after that. :-(

This is “The Rebel”, Capt. Joe Joiner, a restored airplane and a replica of a P-51D flown by WWII 4th Fighter Group veteran Captain Joseph H. Joiner. Not very flattering light but at least I got one thing right. Its prop is blurred, which gives us a sense of motion, and I can see the pilot’s face and microphone in the larger original of this photo. I made the image with 1/90s and was a little surprised that I got the shot, because I have not practiced my panning technique lately. Well, there is an old German saying, even a blind hen finds a corn from time to time… ;-)

Love them clouds...

 

The avid reader of my blog already knows, if a photo from high in the sky shows up after a quiet week that I was on a business trip with very few opportunities for using the camera. I came back from a conference in Dallas, Texas last night. These two photos were made shortly after take-off in DFW and the shape of the clouds indicate we were flying around some heavy weather. What I didn’t knew at this time was that the weather created many flight delays and cancellations. Needless to say that I, of course, was effected and instead of having a two hour stop I spent ten hours in Chicago O’Hare. At least I got home around midnight, other people were not so lucky…

Shooting through the window of an airplane can be challenging. Little space, reflections, vibrations, or dirt and moisture on the glass are some of the difficulties you may have to deal with. My window was relatively clean and had only minor scratches this time but dealing with the tint of the glass or plastic isn’t my favorite task in the post process. I still kept it simple and just finished the RAW file in Adobe Lightroom, except for the downsizing and export as a jpeg, which I always do in Photoshop by using pre-recorded actions.

I used the Zeiss 35mm f/2 lens, which can only be focussed manually, but even with any of my AF lenses I would revert to manual focus mode for shooting through two layers of tinted glass. I love shooting clouds and making them the subject of my image. It doesn’t always turn out but it is always worth to try, and hey, there is a delete key on the computer… ;-)

No airplanes but great light

A couple more shots from yesterday's visit at the Dubuque Airport. While waiting for the return of the "war birds" not much happened, except for the landing of a small jet. And then the light changed and it became really golden and warm . Still no airplanes in sight and the best I could do was to snap a few "Iowa landscape pictures". All what it needs is a farm and some dark clouds in the background, a corn field in the foreground, some lines that keep things together, and did I mention great light?... ;-)

Lack of practice

Today's blog post of my photographer friend Dave Updegraff reminded me that the air show in Oshkosh next week is just right around the corner. That means for us here in the area around Dubuque we may have a chance to watch some of the airplanes at the Dubuque, Iowa airport. They use this airport as a base for their practice before the big event.

Murphy's law was applied again this afternoon. During my first hour in the late afternoon it was very busy, with lots of take offs and landings, but the light was very dull. Later the clouds thinned out and we got some great light but there wasn't as much action anymore.

I can tell my panning skills need some refinement because I didn't have much practice recently. I trashed much more images than usual because they were out of focus (It would be great if the air show would be right after the Bald Eagle season in the winter..., just kidding... ;-)  ).

All of my pictures from today have a big flaw. The props look like they would stand still. This is due to the fact that I was simply not able to handhold the camera at 1/60s while panning, which is necessary to show the motion of the prop. I tried hard but lack of practice can't be made up within two hours. The good thing is that today's practice may help my wildlife photography in the near future. That's one of the reasons I gave it a try today...

Approach with dramatic light

My flight from Houston, TX to Chicago, IL today was not very exciting until we approached the O'Hare airport. I had the new Nikon D300s with me and worked my way through the manual in order to learn more about some of the features that I hadn't really used yet. The sky was bald blue and boring during the whole flight and except for some test shots over the wing of the airplane I didn't make any interesting clicks. When we reached Chicago I saw huge clouds moving in from the west. It looked like we would fly over a mountain ridge. As always, the window was not clean and it wasn't easy to find a shooting angle without reflections from the dirt on the glass.

We couldn't approach the airport directly and had to fly a few circles over Lake Michigan. Clouds were everywhere and the views were very dramatic. This is my favorite shot, with the sunlight reflecting on the wing and the little sun spot on the water of the lake. During touchdown on the runway it was heavily snowing. It seems winter has finally arrived in the Midwest...