Author Archives: Rob

Cultural Center Part 2

After the visit of Bonnie, Gary and Julie the other week, I was determined to head back to the Cultural Center and have a bit more of a plan this time. Following on from my wanderings along the river to watch the bridges opening, I headed across to the Cultural Center to take another look at what I could get.

This time I had two advantages. First, having been there before, I had a better idea what I was looking at. Second, during our previous visit, a private event had been taking place in one of the halls under the glass domes so we could only see it obliquely. This time, no events were taking place and I had freedom to wander where I wanted. This proved even better because I hadn’t realized that there was another room further on that also was fascinating to see.

What I hadn’t brought with me was a proper tripod. I had a couple of supports that I had brought (including a Gorillapod) but they were only useful in certain situations. Therefore, I had to practice my best hand holding at low shutter speeds for some of the shots. All good practice! For a lot of the locations, this wasn’t a problem. However, in the open rooms, ramping up the ISO was necessary although balancing the shutter speed against the noise levels was a trade off that had to be made.

The interior has a lot of interesting places to shoot. Some of them offer clear opportunities and this time I came equipped with a wider lens to accommodate the width of shot available. Some of the other areas have great detail and interesting features but I have yet to find a good way to represent that in the shots. At least that leaves me with more reasons to go back for another try.

There is a wide range of light within some of the rooms and trying to represent that tends to lead me to some HDR work. I tried out a bunch of shots with HDR and when I got home, experimented with different ways of processing the HDR. Some of these are aimed at a realistic interpretation and some are more dramatic. The patterns and colors can make the dramatic finishes look very interesting but too much of the same thing gets boring fast so I am still playing with other finishes. For those HDR experts out there, let me know if you have some good ideas.

Signs of Spring?

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One of the things that is a sign of spring arriving in Chicago is the movement of boats back out into the lake. Given how cold it gets here in the winter, the boats that fill the marinas along the lake during the summer months all head inland to storage once the temperature starts to drop. Having your boat frozen into the ice that covers the water during the winter is probably not good for it.

Chicago, being built along a river, has a ton of bridge. These are mostly “bascule” bridges – cantilevered bridges that are balanced with weights in such a way that very little effort is needed to lift them. In days gone by, the bridges would open frequently for the regular river traffic of the commercial vessels. These days, the boat trade on the river is focused on the tourist boats and they can clear the bridges when they are lowered. Also, road traffic is heavy now so opening the bridges can be quite disruptive.

Therefore, there is a limited opening schedule for the boats to get out to the lake in the spring and a return schedule in the fall to get everyone back in. The first opening of the season occurred the other day and I decided to wander out and see how it was going. I have photographed the bridges near me many times, often in lovely weather. This time I decided to go to some other bridges (and do it on a grotty day)! I can’t plan the weather so maybe a chance to try some other ideas.

I didn’t realize that the first opening might also be an opportunity for the city staff to work out any kinks in the bridge openings that have arisen over the winter. Let’s just say it wasn’t speedy! However, once you have committed to the task, you have to see it through.

I guess the boat owners know about the problems with the first opening of the season. Not too many boats were coming through. Maybe I will learn the lesson too! However, the process, while drawn out, did go ahead and the bridges opened in sequence along the river. I decided to hang out near the join in the two branches of the river. Here there are a couple of bridges that also have “L” tracks above them so make for a more complex bridge. They also look a little interesting when opened up. The light was a bit tricky but it was a fun way to start the day anyway. Now to continue on to see what else is going on in the city…

Out of Practice

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A weekend day crops up with some good light, a relatively clear schedule and a feeling that it has been a while since I was shooting some aircraft. If it flies, I am interesting in taking its picture. If pressed, military and rotary are the favorites for me but I am not a snob and I am more than happy to take pictures of airliners if the opportunity presents itself.

O’Hare is not far away and Midway is even closer. Both are busy fields but they are not a source of much diversity when it comes to traffic. Midway is Southwest heaven but not a lot else (although there are a fair few business jets every once in a while). O’Hare is fine if you want a lot of United Express and American Eagle regional jets. However, there is a period in the middle of the afternoon when a lot of the European traffic comes in and that is what tempted me to venture up that way.

It was also an opportunity to make use of some technology. I have had times in the past when I finally gave up after a steady stream on the same old stuff, only to head down the road as something very interesting shows up. Now, with Flightaware on my phone and LiveATC’s app streaming, it is a lot easier to be aware of what is due in and when. Makes for a more relaxing time!

The afternoon arrivals also coincide with the sun coming round to the right location so all looked good, as long as the weather was prepared to hold. No tension being built here – the weather stayed great!

I showed up ahead of the main arrival times although I was just a little too late to catch and AeroUnion A300. It left while I was there but the perimeter fence means nothing useful to show of that. However, we did have a great selection of stuff to get my first big afternoon of shooting in. There is also the normal stream of the local stuff and I didn’t ignore that completely but usually only to try something I wouldn’t go for on a one off arrival.

We had KLM, British Airways, Aer Lingus, Turkish Airlines and Royal Jordanian amongst others. The Turkish jet had a large Manchester United logo on the side but I didn’t hold that against them. Royal Jordanian really do have a very attractive livery. Only Iberia let us down by arriving on the center runway rather than the southern where we were. Ho hum!

All in all a great day out and a nice way to spend some time in the sun – outdoors after the generally dull winter we have had so far. As if to round that point out, that evening it snowed a bit again! What is going on?

What a drip!

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A couple of years ago I had a go at shooting water droplets splashing around. It was something I had been meaning to do for a long time so I tried setting up an arrangement to make it work. It was a bit of an effort but I got some results with it although, I have to admit I was probably a little disappointed with the outcome. Given how much of a pain it had been to set up, I was not hurrying to have another go.

Time ticks by and recently I was looking at the Facebook page of Gerry Holtz, a friend in LA, and he had been doing the whole water droplet thing as well. Needless to say, he had done a far better job of it than I had. The images were very cool and he had made some good use of color as well as alternative arrangements into which the water was dropping. Very impressive stuff.

Seeing this made me want to have another go and I was mulling doing just that when I saw a link to a video online with a guy called Gavin Hoey in the UK demonstrating his setup for shooting water droplets. Uncanny coincidence, don’t you think. I watched his video which can be seen here and realized I had been making it all far more complicated than absolutely necessary. So, I have inspiration by seeing someone do a good job and method from someone who knew how to make it a lot easier so what is stopping me from having another go? Nothing!

So, this time I am feeling a little better about the results. Some focus issues still to be resolved on some of them (and water doesn’t always splash in exactly the same place each time so guess what the focus will be on the most interesting shots!) but still, not too bad. Certainly enough to encourage me to think about doing it again soon.

Here is a gallery to show you the results.

Spring Shows Up!

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The Chicago weather has been pretty cool and damp so far and spring was not showing much sign of appearing. I often forget that we are quite far north here and the spring does not become apparent until a little later than I was used to. However, we had a day the other day that broke the mold. After lots of dull days, it was sunny and in the high 80s. What the hell is that all about?

A nice day and lots of light – time to go wandering in the park. Lincoln Park is always worth a visit on a nice day – and I was obviously not alone in this conclusion! There is the zoo but the ponds in the park also have a fair amount of wildlife so there is always something to take a look at.

The bird life is always active so I got a lot of shots of ducks and geese. At this time of year, romance is in the air so the birds seem to spend half the time fighting with each other! There were also a few turtles basking in the sun so they were fun to take a look at. I did walk through the zoo and got a few shots there but mainly it was stuff in the rest of the park. Here are a few samples. Need to get some more practice in given how many shots were not as intended but that is the point I guess…

Midwest in the mist

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Got a call from the guys at Midwest about some upcoming work recently. Asked if I wanted to come out and ride along for the jobs, one of which was in the Chicagoland area and the other was over in Indiana. Let me think about that for, oh, I don’t know, a microsecond. Sure, I will be there.

There is one downside to these jobs and that is that they mean an early start. The night before Jim texts me to say the weather is looking pretty dodgy and do I still want to come along? Predicting weather is not something that I can rely on so I was still in and if the weather screwed things up, then we scrub it and have another go some other time.

I made the early trek down to their base but before I left I checked the weather radar on the computer. There was an evil looking line of storms marching up across the state. Looking out of the window, the tops of the surrounding buildings were shrouded in mist. This wasn’t looking promising. We would see…

When I walked in, Jim had already been talking to the O’Hare controllers since one of the lifts was under their approaches. With the storms coming, it was already clear that we would postpone the first lift until the storms had gone through. As for Indiana, that was looking unrealistic since the south end of the lake is the most unpredictable for weather and it was a long run across even to get to the job. We hung out and waited.

The storms never appeared! They stalled a way off and the mist lifted a bit. In the end, it was good enough to go so Jim, Phil and I loaded up and headed out. Joe was on the site so he had to sit there and wait it out. I suspect he was glad we finally showed up! We ferried out to the site and set down. I hopped out while the long line was attached and Jim make quick work of the two picks.

For the journey back, I climbed up to the second seat. The cockpit in the S-58T is right on top of the airframe so you have a great view of things. Shame the weather meant it was not a great day for sightseeing! The transit back to base was a fun run and then we all headed off for breakfast. Not a bad way to start a day!

When Does Noise Matter?

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I will freely admit I am as much of a gearhead as the next photographer. New toys always catch my attention and then it is a matter of time before the battle is won between my sensible side or my not very sensible side as to whether I am going to get something. The price of said item may well have an influence on which side wins that battle.

One thing that is a popular discussion for the pixel peepers is noise. Having started off with a Canon EOS10D when I first went digital and worked through a number of bodies since – none of which have left my ownership I must confess – I have seen some steady improvement in noise reduction capabilities although not always with as much benefit to the final image as I might have liked but I digress.

A while back I was shooting at the Oceana air show with two of my buddies, Ben and Simon. We had trekked down from DC for the show and were greeted by less than ideal weather. The cloud base was solid and low and a bunch of displays didn’t take place. Some did though and we still had a good day. Given the heavy cloud, though, we were struggling for light. I was shooting mainly with the MkIIN and was up at ISO 800 for a lot of the time.

The MkIIN is well into the noisy range at 800 and I knew that was the case but there was little option. A while after this show, Lightroom 3 came out and it had a lot of noise reduction built in that wasn’t in the previous version. I took a look at some of the Oceana shots to see how much better they might look. There was a noticeable improvement and I was happy.

Why am I discussing this now, over a year later? I was mulling over this topic for some reason, probably related to another acquisition decision, and I wondered how the printed version was affected by this noise. There are plenty of things that I fret over in an image when looking at it on screen, usually zoomed in far too close, that really don’t become apparent at all when printing. Is noise one of those things that looks better on paper?

I picked one of the shots from that day to experiment with. The shot in question is this one of one of the Blue Angels taking off. Since there was the treeline behind, the gray sky was not an issue and the burner plumes show up nicely given how dark it is so I like the shot. Now to check it out on a print.

One of the nice features of Lightroom is the ability to mess with the print layouts. I made a couple of virtual copies of the image and one one of them did my best to optimize the noise reduction and on the other switched it off for the most part. On screen, it did not look great. I then set up a page in the print module with two cells right next to each other and put the left side of one image in the left cell and the right side of the other in the right cell. It looks like a full aircraft if I get the positioning just right.

First I printed it on an 8.5×11 sheet. If I look closely, I can see the divide. It actually shows more in the background than on the aircraft. It is visible but it isn’t as noticeable as you might expect. This had got my interest! What about the size of the print. I repeated the layout on some Super B (13×19) paper of the same type and printed it again.

As you might expect, this time is is a little more noticeable – hey, it’s twice the size! However, even now, while it isn’t great, it really isn’t that bad. We are talking about turning the NR almost off.

So, what do I conclude from this? Well, technology is going to always get better, both in camera and on the computer processing it and I am still going to be a sucker for a new piece of kit. However, while there is a noticeable noise difference on screen, the print is really a lot more forgiving. Maybe I should relax about it a lot more and just enjoy the shooting, even when the light is limited.

Zoo Time

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Brookfield Zoo is a regular haunt for us. It is a great zoo, constantly being improved and an obvious source of photo opportunities. Recently, they sent out an email telling us that the African Wild Dogs had a load of puppies that were now old enough to be on public show. (I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t just their age but also that is was now warm enough for them to handle Chicago!)

We took a ride down to the zoo to see how the pups were looking. As with all animals at the zoo, when we got there to see them, they had decided that taking a nap was more important. I always find that a zoo trip requires a fair bit of patience (which is why I am mystified that so many parents take tiny kids – they always seem to be bored while the parents look like they are obligated to take children to see the animals.)

We wandered around to see some of the other wildlife before heading back. The new bear exhibit at Brookfield is nicely done and well worth the visit so we spent some time watching the bears before heading back. A peacock wandered by in the meantime and suddenly decided to do his display. It was very dramatic, particularly if you are a peahen apparently, as a bunch of them came running over. Certainly and unexpected surprise and a very welcome one.

Back to the African Wild Dogs and a few of them were up and about. They were no longer a huge pile of sleeping pups. They weren’t bounding all over the place but they were a lot more active. It was certainly fun to see them and good to see them before they get too big. They are already half their full size so it won’t be long before you can’t tell them from their parents.

On the way out, it was impossible to avoid taking a peak at the lions. The lion was roaring loudly as we approached and was giving the lioness a fair amount of attention. I wondered whether lots of children were about to have their eyes covered but the lioness obviously had other plans and moved off. I guess spring really is in the air. First the peacock and then the lion!

Wrigleyville Lift

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Got a message earlier in the week from my buddy Jim at Midwest Helicopters. Another job was coming up, this time up in Wrigleyville, and would I like to tag along? Of course I would. How likely is it that I would turn down an opportunity to shoot an aviation job, particularly one with the Midwest guys that are always so good to me?

After a week with some variable weather, Saturday morning turned out to be pretty good. It doesn’t seem very long ago that we were gathering for these lifts before the sun was up and when the mercury was certainly very low on the scale. To be out when the temperature was above 40F was a great change.

I hopped up on the the roof where the equipment was to go and set myself up. I had a great view of the pick location down on the street and could easily move to see where the cell phone transmission equipment was going. Only problem was that the sun was directly on front of me that way.

Since I have shot these operations a few times before, I decided to try a couple of tighter shots as well as the more regular stuff, hopefully including a few with Wrigley Field in the background. The lift went well and I got some good shots. You can see more of them here if you want.

Thanks again to the team at Midwest. Always appreciate you letting me join the jobs and the team are always good for a laugh early in the morning.

If you want to see more shots of the lift, click here to see more of the lift.

Chicago Sightseeing

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An ISAP friend of mine, Bonnie, was visiting Chicago with her husband Gary and her friend Julie to see a photography exhibit and asked if I wanted to tag along. Absolutely! Sometimes it is a little annoying to find out what is going on in your neighborhood from people out of town but always good to find stuff out.

The exhibit was at the Chicago Cultural Center. It is the old library and is a really cool building. I am going to have to go back there and spend a bit more time – plus take equipment based on a plan rather than whatever I had with me. The colors and patterns are really vibrant but lighting is uneven so I decided to play with HDR for the day.

Once we had finished, we hopped across the road to Millennium Park. I know the Bean is a tourist trap but it is still really cool. I have no idea how many pictures I have taken of it, of the people around it or of the reflections of the city in it but I still come back for more. The view on the underside is particularly cool in my opinion!

Everyone gets a kick out of their reflection in the Bean. It can be great fun to spend some time watching people spotting themselves and trying to do something a little different. Julie had a great idea to walk on the Bean and dropped to the ground to try it out. I think it worked rather well. I wonder how many other people tried it after we wandered off.

It wasn’t long before I needed to head back home and leave them to the rest of their day out (and the long drive back up to Wisconsin!). One of the things I had been discussing with Julie was my desire to get a good shot of the many fire escapes on the older buildings. As I headed back home, I passed a few more and had another go.

I still haven’t quite got what I want so I guess I will just have to keep trying. Whatever is in my head is not transferring itself to what I am shooting. Always another photo challenge I guess!