No airplanes but great light

Landing jet

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?... ;-)

Iowa landscape

 

 

 

Lack of practice

Planes 1

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.

Planes 2

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.

Planes 3

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... ;-)  ).

Planes 4

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...

Stop at the local airport

Aircraft 1
Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500 mm f/4.0-6.3

On my way to some of the places I visit frequently for wildlife shooting I drive by at the Dubuque airport. It is a small local airport and unfortunately served only by one commercial airline with flights to Chicago. Most of the time there is not much going on.

Four
Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500 mm f/4.0-6.3

This weekend was different. Many small World War II aircrafts were there in preparation for the air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin next week. They were flying in formations of four and I had fun to watch the starts and landings for quite some time. Not that I want to switch my focus towards aviation photography but the aircrafts provided a great opportunity to practice shooting technique that is also essential for wildlife photography.

Aircraft 2
Nikon D200, Sigma 50-500 mm f/4.0-6.3

In order to get sharp images of a moving subject it is important to know how to pan with your camera, with or without tripod. It sounds easy but it isn't, and the number of blurred images this weekend showed me that I still have a long way to go....