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… ;-)