Monthly Archives: March 2014

Crummy Skies at SFO

wpid9103-AU0E5331.jpgSometimes you have an idea about something that will work out really well.  Unfortunately, you are not always right in that assumption.  I was up early one weekend morning and was over in San Francisco.  My reason for being there didn’t quite work out – this day is turning out to have a theme – so decided to go down to SFO.  The weather was not great with a lot of cloud about at low levels.  However, I had in mind that it might be cool to try and get shots of the jets coming in with lots of moisture around them in a moody form.

wpid9107-AU0E5495.jpgI got the shore and the planes were easy enough to see as they landed but it was just grey so nothing special or dramatic.  I decided to head a little further along the shore as I have previously seen the jets streaming vortices as they approached which then disappeared as they got closer to touchdown.  I figured that the moisture content of the air must change along the shoreline.  I was certainly right but not in a helpful way.  My next spot gave me a good location to be when the planes were finally about to get visual with the runway.  As they passed me they were still in the bottom of the clouds and only just breaking out.  Consequently, they were heavily obscured and not easy to see let alone photograph.

wpid9105-AU0E5398.jpgMy grand idea did not work out well at all.  As they got further away down the approach, they may have been showing some moisture but there was so much between us, it was hard to tell.  One United 747 did put on a good show with some serious cloud activity over the wings and flap system as it passed but that was as good as it gets.  After a little while, I accepted defeat and headed home.  It is true you won’t get something different if you don’t try something different but that doesn’t mean it will be worth it!

LRTimelapse

I have previously written about some time-lapse software that I use based on a recommendation from my friend Jo Hunter.  I used this software for a while before the creator, Gunther Wegner, updated it to a new version and deactivated the version I had.  I was a bit miffed by this but I was able to continue using the export settings from his application within Lightroom but with me having to manually manage the file cropping.  All transition and smoothing capability was lost but I could still make a basic time-lapse.

Sadly, the latest versions of Lightroom have done away with that as well and now I couldn’t even render the video.  Therefore, I decided to take a look at the latest version of his software.  It is now on version 3 so I have skipped a version en route to this place.  I had shot a few sequences recently and wanted to be able to manage them properly so decided to come back and have another go with his application.

There have been some improvements in tidying up the software so the workflow is a bit better.  There is still a certain amount of effort as you switch back and forth with Lightroom.  You have to put all of the images into a single folder while working on them.  This means a modification to my storage strategy but it isn’t difficult to manage in Lightroom and, when you are done, you can revert the images to their original locations and still render the video output.  It might be nicer if he gave you a more flexible approach to selecting files but this is not a hardship.

It has changed a little from what I am used to since now it starts out analyzing the files before you have created keyframes.  Once this is done, you save the xmp files out and reload them in Lightroom.  Define your keyframes and make any edits to them that you want and save xmp again.  Back to LRTimelpase to load the changes and now it does its smoothing very quickly.  Save xmp again and back to Lightroom and now there is an Export setting along with all of the other export options.  No going to the Slideshow module any more.

The results are pretty good.  The new export functionality actually generates a sequence of still images which it stores.  You then head back into LRTimelapse where you have a series of options for rendering a video sequence from those stills.  You can have it automatically delete the stills when it is done or keep them and render again using different output options.  This is pretty flexible although it means you have to pay attention to what you have used so you don’t end up with a ton of stored intermediate images.  The video output looks good.  I am not using the product commercially so do not have the full commercial license.  That will allow output in 4K formats.  I only wanted 1080p HD format for my purposes.  It is a little interesting that 4K is automatically assumed to be commercial use.  With people able to record 4K on GoPros these days and 4K TVs showing up, I suspect this is going to be a more mainstream format before too long.  Maybe it will be in the personal use license of future versions of LRTimelapse.  We shall see.

Was it worth the upgrade?  Yes.  Not least because I wanted to have the capability back that I had lost when Lightroom changed its output but, even so, I have found the new version to be quite a bit more friendly to work with.  I think it will encourage me to work on a few more projects.

Another JetStar! Hurrah!

wpid9052-AU0E5160.jpgIf you go back a long time in this blog, you will see my tales to chasing a classic business jet, the Lockheed JetStar.  Since leaving Chicago I have been frustrated to see a large number of movements of this fantastic looking machine showing up at Midway and Chicago Executive airports.  They must have known I was gone and come out of the woodwork.

wpid9050-C59F6664.jpgFortunately, there is a local example.  Hayward Executive is a short distance from me and I recently spotted that it was due to make an early departure for Mexico.  With nothing to conflict with this, I headed across.  Wanting a specific movement is often a frustrating thing since, while a flight plan will be filed for a given time, they often go at another time since it is all about when the person is ready to leave.  You don’t have to stick to a schedule when you have your own jet!

wpid9054-AU0E5172.jpgIn this case, I was lucky.  They filed for an 8:42 departure and actually got airborne at 8:49.  Not bad.  The weather was overcast and not the greatest but, with the angle of the departure, more sun much actually have been a problem at this time of year.  Anyway, I got a good view of the take off run and the turnout was towards me so a few quick shots to add to my JetStar collection and I was done.  Back home for breakfast!

wpid9056-AU0E5180.jpg

Too Much Good Stuff is Bad for You!

wpid9014-AU0E5056.jpgWhile all of the activity on the beach was going on with the males and females, there were also a ton of pups lying around.  Once the pups have suckled long enough, they are fat and happy and left to their own devices.  They don’t have enough strength so, for the next few weeks, they will move about the beach burning down the fat and strengthening themselves up before heading out to sea.

wpid9006-C59F6357.jpgMeanwhile, they look very cute.  They are called weaners when they are left to their own devices.  Every image you have of a baby seal is met by the weaners.  Small, plump with huge eyes.  Just what you imagine.  In amongst them were some so-called “super-weaners”.  These “little” fellas had got a double dose of mother’s milk and they were huge.  Normally in young creatures you imagine that getting extra is good for you.  For seals, this is not so much the case.  Having all of the extra fat means they are very buoyant.  When they head out to see, they tend to bob around on the surface and that makes them easy pickings for the sharks offshore.  I guess greed isn’t good for you!

wpid9008-C59F6399.jpg

Video of Reno

It has been a long time since the National Championship Air Races took place at Reno.  I wrote about them here and my feature for Global Aviation Resource ran a while back.  However, as with the previous year, I did shoot some video while I was there.  I actually edited it quite a while back but I had not got around to adding any music.  Various distractions meant it was a while before I did.  However, the music is now included so here is the video.

Point Bonita Lighthouse

wpid9044-AU0E4655.jpgGo out to the end of the Marin Headlands and you reach Point Bonita.  At the very end of the land is a lighthouse to protect the rocky entrance to the Golden Gate itself.  I didn’t know this existed until watching Sunday Night Football one night.  As is usual for the show, they had a series of fill in shots of local settings between the plays.  This lighthouse was one of the subjects so I did a bit of checking on Google Earth to find out where it is.  Then, Nancy and I headed out to visit it.  However, that trip was frustrated by some persistent fog so we never made it out to the light.

wpid9038-AU0E4641.jpgThis time we were there on a far nicer day.  It was towards the end of the afternoon and the light was becoming lovely.  The view back towards the city was getting very attractive as the light was dropping.  However, what I hadn’t counted on was that they close off the lighthouse quite early.  It sits out on a rocky outcrop with a suspension bridge to reach it.  However, this is not the problem.  The walk down involves a short tunnel and this is what gets closed off when they shut things up.  Fortunately, the rangers told us what time it was closing and how much time we had.  Therefore, we zipped straight down to the lighthouse and then worked our way back.  As long as we were passed the tunnel in time, we would be fine.  As it was, we did not end up feeling rushed.  We even saw people walking down as we left although I am not sure how far they ended up getting.

wpid9042-AU0E4651.jpgThe lighthouse itself is not terribly large.  Its location is what makes it so interesting.  Going at the time of day we did, it was the hardest bit to shoot since you were looking into the setting sun.  However, it did provide some good options.  The structure of the bridge is cool in itself and I spent a lot of time looking at it.  If you are a nervous person on structures that are flexible, this bridge might not be for you.  If you are the only one on it, you might be okay.  However, the chances of that are limited so, with others moving across, you will certainly feel it move!  You have been warned!

Sex and Violence

wpid8998-C59F6169.jpgElements of this post may come with an R Rating.  If you are a sensitive soul, look away now.  Courtesy of Nancy, I spent a morning in the midst of a crazy place.  Ano Nuevo State Refuge is on the Pacific coast about halfway between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz.  The beaches of the park are a popular location for breeding elephant seals.  The park protects the seals from the visitors while allowing people to get a good view of them.  However, they also run a series of sunrise photo tours.  In a small group, you are escorted by a ranger to various locations where you are close in to the action with the seals.  And there is some action!

wpid9004-C59F6333.jpgThis was something Nancy bought me as a birthday treat.  She didn’t come along.  Something about a 5am start on a rainy day didn’t appeal to her – not sure why.  Calling it a sunrise tour was a little optimistic.  The horizontal rain meant it was more a case of dark transitioning to quite dark.  However, that didn’t get in the way of experiencing some great stuff.

wpid9016-C59F6569.jpgI was a little unsure of what sort of equipment to take with me.  I knew some walking would be involved and ultimately elected to leave the 500mm behind and go with the 70-200 and the 100-400.  If I do this again (and there is a good chance I will), I would include the 500mm and a tripod.  The early start meant the lighting was pretty difficult.  We did walk but spent most of our time in a few locations and only walked when moving between them.  Carrying some extra gear would not have been too tricky.  Keeping it dry was more of an issue of course!

wpid9002-C59F6283.jpgAuto ISO was a friend in this situation.  I went to manual mode, set up the speed and aperture I wanted and let the camera deal with the ISO.  With conditions evolving, this made things a lot easier.  The newer version of my camera has a function that would have been welcome here and that is the ability to add exposure compensation to the mix.  Mine won’t do that sadly.  It would have been helpful in this situation.  As the light got better, it was possible to go back to a more normal aperture priority shooting approach fixing the ISO and using exposure comp as required.  The high ISO capabilities of modern DSLRs are so handy on a shoot like this.  The 70-200 is an f2.8 lens so it allowed relatively low ISOs from early on but the 100-400 is an f5.6 at length and so the ISO was really pushing up there.  However, while the noise is noticeable, the images really are very useable.

wpid9010-AU0E4918.jpgThe beach was covered in seals.  Various dominant males had their harems scattered around.  They were either mating with the females or fighting males that wanted to get in on the act.  Some of the males would come in either straight through the front door looking for a fight or sneaking around the side hoping not to be noticed.  The result was usually the same.  Some of the fights were pretty brief when the challenger realized that they were out of their class.  Occasionally they went on for a long time with the males taking chunks out of each other as they swiped their teeth into the neck of their opponent.  I have heard the bellow these seals make on video before but in person it really resonates through you.

wpid9012-AU0E4970.jpgMeanwhile, a second group of males were waiting down by the water.  The females had raised their pups and were now leaving them on the beach and heading back to see.  They were fertile again so many males were trying to intercept them as they came to the water out of range of the harem.  They had some success with this but were also fighting each other to be in the best spot.  Consequently, it was almost non-stop fighting and mating on the beach with the occasional birth taking place too!  Good luck to those females because, once they were off the beach, they had the great whites to look forward to a little further offshore.

wpid9000-C59F6202.jpg

Nike Missile Battery

wpid9032-AU0E4617.jpgAt the height of the cold war, the possibility of large waves of Soviet bombers attacking the United States was considered high.  Defending the major cities and defense installations was a high priority.  The result was one of (if not the) most expensive defense programs ever.  The Nike missile program was an air defense system developed by the US Army.  Intended to replace the anti-aircraft gun batteries that were considered incapable of defending against jet aircraft, the goal of Nike was to take out incoming aircraft before they were able to drop thermonuclear weapons on the US.  Since the range at which nuclear weapons could cause devastation was high, interception far away from the target was the goal.

wpid9028-AU0E4569.jpgSeveral different missiles were developed as part of the Nike system.  Two if these missiles were the Ajax and the Hercules.  Ajax was the first of these two to be developed.  It introduced analog computing and tracking of both the target and the missile with the aim of bringing the missile to a successful interception.  The range of Ajax was relatively limited and large number of batteries was deployed around the major cities and defense installations.

wpid9020-AU0E4521.jpgMeanwhile, the Hercules missile was undergoing development.  It introduced a far larger booster (actually four of the Ajax boosters strapped together), a larger sustainer motor and new warheads including conventional and nuclear options.  The longer range and greater intercept capability of the system meant that fewer batteries were required to achieve coverage and they could be slightly further out from the area being protected.  With a range of approximately 100 miles, the Hercules missile could reach its target in approximately 90 seconds.  The enormous booster gave it a phenomenal acceleration.  By the time the tail of the booster reached the point where the tip of the missile had been on the launcher, the missile was already supersonic.

wpid9024-AU0E4538.jpgWhile Hercules had a notional capability against ballistic missiles, the move away from bombers meant the system was more vulnerable a technology advanced.  Ultimately, as part of arms limitation treaties, it was decommissioned as part of the anti-ballistic missile systems.  While hundreds of installations had once been in service across the United States and other countries, virtually nothing of them now remains.

wpid9036-AU0E4634.jpgThe only relatively intact location is just outside San Francisco on the Marin Headlands.  Located in a National Park, SF-88 opens to the public most Saturdays.  The last of over a dozen installations in the San Francisco area, it has preserved the core infrastructure of the installation even if it is condensed into a smaller area that was the case when it was operational.  The facility has a search radar and a tracking radar on display.  The search radar was used to identify the targets initially.  Then two tracking radar were used to carry out the attack.

wpid9026-AU0E4543.jpgThe first tracking radar would lock on to the target.  The second would track the missile as it was outbound.  The missile did not guide itself.  It received command guidance from the ground.  The two tracking radar would feed data to the analog computers that controlled the system.  It would then determine the guidance parameters to be transmitted to the missile.  The missile had four antennae on board – two to receive and two to transmit.  It would then make course corrections based on the signals received.  It would initially boost to very high altitude before arcing over and homing in on the target.  The aim was to detonate just ahead of the target to either provide a cloud of fragments into which it would fly or, in the case of the nuclear warheads, to obliterate it.  Even if the nuclear warhead detonated too far away to disable the aircraft, the electromagnetic pulse was considered likely to render the weapons inoperative.

wpid9022-AU0E4530.jpgThe control systems are on display in metal cabins above ground.  These systems were considered mobile if required, hence them not being buried.  The same was not the case for the missile bunkers.  They are underground with hatches to the surface through which the missiles would be raised and lifted into the near vertical launch position.  These facilities are still in place and the tour includes the chance to go underground, see a selection of Hercules missiles on the launch racks including one that is ready to lift.  When the guide has finished providing an explanation of the missiles and their usage, a climb back up out of the bunker allows you to see the missile being raised up out of the ground and into its launch position.

Only one missile could be fired at a time since the control system could only manage the tracking of one missile.  However, four launchers were part of the battery so multiple engagements could take place and batteries elsewhere in the area could also engage.  Once the missile had finished its flight, another could be loaded to go.  However, the large booster did leave its mark.  While it was scheduled to be jettisoned shortly after launch and to fall out to see, the intense heat could set fire to surrounding debris and the guides also talk about some falling propellant still burning as it came down.  Not a good place to be.  The sound of launch was also intense, even when in protected environments.

wpid9030-AU0E4584.jpgNo launches ever took place within the United States of deployed missiles.  However, regular launches were undertaken by crews for training.  These were carried out at White Sands Missile Range with the crews deploying there periodically to practice actually firing the missile.  These missiles obviously did not have the nuclear warheads but were aimed at incoming target drones, some examples of which are also part of the installation.

The Marin Headlands are full of military installations long retired.  Gun batteries designed to protect the Bay Area from naval assault are common.  However, the Nike Installation SF-88 is a unique example of some more modern weaponry that was located all around San Francisco with most people being totally unaware it was there.  A visit to see this amazing place is well worthwhile if you are in the area.

Phantom Quadcopter

wpid8968-AU0E1563.jpgWhile watching the surfing at Santa Cruz, I wasn’t the only one with a camera.  There were quite a few of us shooting from the ground but one person was taking it up a notch – literally.  They were flying a Phantom Quadcopter with a GoPro mounted underneath.  Phantoms are a hot thing right now.  The view that you can get from an elevated position is excellent and the combination of the new quadcopter designs with the lightweight GoPro (and other brand) cameras makes for a very useful tool whether shooting stills or video.

wpid8970-AU0E1573.jpgThe control system is quite advanced.  The system keeps the machine were it is and you demand any change in location.  Rather than having to constantly control the machine to stay where you want, it takes the majority of the burden from you.  Very helpful if you want to concentrate on what you are filming.  I am quite tempted to rent one at some point to give it a try.  I have seen them in the wild a couple of times and find them rather impressive.  I think it is a little too limited in role for me to think about getting one (although when has that ever held me back?)  It would be good to try one first, though.

Sea Lion Pile Up

wpid8953-AU0E2552.jpgRelaxing with our lunch near the harbor entrance at Moss Landing, the noisiest thing we could hear (apart from the foghorn on the entrance markers) was the sound of sea lions.  There was a steady stream of their barking so we were looking around to see where they were.  There was a pontoon jetty near the highway that was the source of the noise with a lot of them lying on it and sunbathing.  We figured this had to be worth a visit before we left.

wpid8955-AU0E2570.jpgA while later we drove around to the location of the jetty and took a look at the gathering.  This was not just a few sea lions.  There were tons of them.  There was nowhere near enough space for them all so they were piled up on top of each other.  It was quite a sight.  Several deep they were stacked across the dock.  As new ones would leap out of the water, they would land on those already there and try to make their way to their preferred spot.  All of this would arouse the ire of whoever they were walking on so barks and bites would be thrown around with abandon.  It seemed quite a perilous voyage.  Getting out at all wasn’t easy since there was no space to gain any purchase initially so, if the first leap wasn’t good enough, the chances were you would be “helped” back into the water.

wpid8959-AU0E2602.jpgIt was hard to work out where the preferable location was.  It appeared that the water’s edge was better since the sea lions there would periodically drop their heads into the water to cool off and blow some bubbles.  We guessed that made this the best place to be but it was hard to tell.  Some of the others on the edge were almost totally buried by their neighbors and that didn’t look to appealing.  Whichever way it works, it was obviously the place to be if you were a local sea lion.

wpid8957-AU0E2573.jpg