Tag Archives: photo

One of the Bigger Corporate Jets

There are plenty of types of corporate jets. However, some organizations (or individuals) decide that what they really need is something a little larger. How about a Boeing 767-200? This one was shooting an approach to SFO. The owner is listed as Blue Sky Holdings. Who are they you wonder? Who can say? They do fly in and out of Moffett Field though and that is owned by quite a large company. Maybe there is a connection? Maybe not?

Either way, it was a cool thing to see pop into the viewfinder one afternoon. Sometimes, you just get lucky. I also like the registration that they have for the jet. N2767 is not bad for a 767-200. Apart from that, the jet is pretty anonymous. You certainly can’t guess anything about it from the outside. I wonder what it looks like inside?

Oakland Has a Thin Building Too

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New York has many iconic buildings. One of the more famous buildings is the Flatiron Building. At the narrow intersection of two streets, it makes use of the space available. New York is not alone in having such intersections so it is not alone with buildings to fill the (limited) available space. Oakland has a similar spot where Telegraph splits off from Broadway. The building that sits there is so thin it is actually quite hard to show that it is a building rather than just a tower!

The city has just gone through a rebuild program to create a public space in front of the building and the area is now more accessible than it used to be. From the statue in front the sides of the building can disappear, so thin it is. At the moment the first floor of the building is vacant and available for lease. I did find myself wondering what I could do with such a space but it does look pretty impractical. I imagine that is why it is still empty.

After Dark! Testing the Low Light

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The real goal of my shoot after sunset was to see what is possible with the cameras. An awful lot is written these days about the incredible low light capabilities of the latest cameras. I am rather suspicious of some of the claims that are made so I was interested to see what could be done. I have seen reviews in which people describe shooting with ISO settings and claiming they are absolutely clean – no noise! I am imagining that there is a little bit of over enthusiasm in these claims. No one wants to write a review that says nothing much has changed for fear that they won’t get to review the next camera.

Consequently, while I do expect some improvement in capabilities – particularly given I skip generations of cameras when buying my own – I am skeptical that they will be quite so dramatic. Even so, I did anticipate some improvements from my previous bodies and I did get this. I am not talking about noiseless shooting at ridiculous ISO settings. I am able to work in a far higher range though. It is worth noting that a blog post involves relatively low image sizes so the worst of the noise becomes less apparent. Full size images are a lot more harsh. (For this post I won’t focus on a previous issue of mine which is how printing is far more forgiving of noise than a screen is.)

A tricky issue with shooting as the light disappears is the use of exposure compensation. From having some positive exposure comp during the day, as the night comes on, I go through normal exposure to having a bit of negative exposure compensation. It is dark so the shots should be dark. It shouldn’t look like daylight. I ended up playing around with the settings a bit to see whether -1 to -2 should be used. -2 ended up being a bit too much. However, it is a bit of a guessing game depending on what you are shooting and how much light there is in the background.

One good thing about these bodies is their ability to handle some post processing. If the shots were a bit dark, boosting the exposure did not bring as much noise into the shot as I would have expected with my previous bodies. I was able to mess around with them a lot more without things going horribly wrong. I am not getting amazing shots (unless you are comparing them to what you could do in film or early digital days in which case this really should be considered amazing – that’s how spoilt we have become). The contrast at night is harsh so things will always be a bit difficult. However, you can get shots in some very difficult conditions. You won’t get detail in the images like you expect in normal lighting but that really would be phenomenal!

Upstairs in the Rotunda

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I have been working in the Rotunda building for a couple of years near. Previously we were based in the bottom of the building and I posted some shots of the atrium taken with a fisheye. We recently moved offices to the upper floors and being up near the top of the space gave me the opportunity to explore the views from higher up. For some reason, I hadn’t previously been upstairs to look around.

The top levels are restricted to the tenants of the respective space. However, lower down you can access the space. I figured it was still a good place for the fisheye and it was quite interesting to see what effects you could create. The fun with the fish is choosing where to put the distortion. You can even turn curves into reflex lines by getting them aligned appropriately. It is amazing how much being out of center shows itself when you are using such a wide angle. Something that looks symmetric to the eye results in a clear asymmetry with a fisheye. At least with digital you see the result quickly if you chimp a little.

How Many Airliners in One Shot?

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Normally airliners stay quite a distance from each other. Getting more than one in a shot is the result of compression of the distance as they pass in different directions. What is more fun is to have each jet be replaced by two. SFO likes to have the parallel arrivals and similarly the departures are often involving two planes at a time. If you time it right and have the angles aligned properly, you can get four jets in one shot – two on approach and two taking off.

Old Style Hotel in Pueblo

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Before the days of the big hotel chains, towns and cities used to have local hotels. These were in the heart of the city and dealt with travelers passing through or staying for a while. The level of comfort was a function of what you were able to pay but the nicer ones were pretty grand looking structures. If a city has enough traffic, places like this can still survive. They often go way upmarket to justify choosing somewhere different. Otherwise, they have tended to wither away. The buildings can live on though. The Vail Hotel in Pueblo now appears to have been converted for other uses. Some things seem to suggest it is still a hotel but I wasn’t able to verify this. Whatever the use now, a cool looking place has survived. So many of its like have been demolished over the years so it is nice to see that it is still being taken care of.

Hello Surprise Hornets

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SFO might get the occasional military movement but it is primarily civil traffic you see there. Roger and I were chatting when we noticed something small on the approach. Initially I assumed a business jet but then the shape became clearer and it was a Super Hornet. In fact, there were two with the second close in trail. From our location they were a bit far out but still an interesting pair of visitors to photograph.

I Can Hear You Coming

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In the days before radar, there were other techniques that were used for trying to detect inbound enemy aircraft. One of them was the use of sound. Dotted along the southeast coast of the U.K. are a number of locations with devices for focusing sound. One of them is located in the hills above Hythe. This is one of the simpler forms that were used. Despite the age, the contract structure is still in good shape. With the introduction of radar, these sites were redundant but they do provide an insight into the trying of any idea to gain an advantage in another era.

A380 Gear Sequence

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The jets approaching SFO have their gear down long before they reach Coyote Point. However, if you look into the distance, you can see them lower the gear somewhere around the San Mateo Bridge. The A380 has a gear sequence that involves the outer gear coming down first followed by the body gear. I figured I would shoot at long range and then animate the sequence. Heat haze was not great but I think it shows the way things work. Maybe in the winter I will try this again and see if I can get a cleaner image.

Camera Profiling

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For all of my previous cameras I have created profiles. When I got the new cameras I decided not to bother and to go with the profiles that are built in to Camera Raw/Lightroom. This was working okay for a while but there were some shots where I felt like the adjustments were having slightly odd effects. It was almost like the files had less adjustability than my old Mark IV files. This didn’t seem likely. I figured I would have a go at creating profiles and see whether that made any difference.

The profiles are relatively easy to create. I have a color card that has twelve different color squares. You take a shot of it in RAW mode. Then comes the slightly annoying step. You have to cover it to a DNG file. Not sure why, since this is all Adobe software, they can’t combine the steps but never mind. Then you open the profiling software. Pull up the DNG file, align the four color dots with the corner color squares and let it do its thing. Choose a name and the profile is saved on your computer where the Adobe software can see it.

It does make a difference. The thing I found most interesting was that the profiles for the two cameras were quite different. It shows up most in the blues for my bodies which, given I shoot aircraft a lot, is no small deal. The shots here are versions of the same images with the default profiles and the new profiles for comparison. Everything else is the same so the difference is purely profile related.