Author Archives: Rob

Global 7500 Sketchy Takeoff

For the longest time, I struggled to photograph a Bombardier Global 7500. Over time I have seen a few of them but that initial drought makes me still feel as if it is something special when I catch one. They have sold really well and there are loads in service so they really aren’t something I should be so excited about but apparently my brain hasn’t worked that out yet. I was happy to get one at Boeing Field when it was taking off.

It taxied out and headed to the north end of the field for departure. I was not expecting a lot because they have good field performance and are likely to be well airborne before they get near where I was going to be standing. Sure enough, they did get off the ground quite quickly but, as they rotated, there was quite a roll that developed. Not sure whether it was a big gust or that they weren’t anticipating the crosswind, but I imagine it must have spilt a gin and tonic or two. They quickly recovered the situation and climbed out without any further problems, but I hope there wasn’t much clean up required onboard.

Lynnwood Link Opening Day

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Sound Transit has a series of extensions to the Link light rail system coming online at the moment. In September 2024, it was the turn of the Lynnwood Link Extension to open. This was not one we were involved with, but I was keen to see the new extension come online and also to catch up with some colleagues that would be there.

The sun was shining so it was a great day for an event. There were plenty of dignitaries there for the opening and a lot of speeches. Each station was going to be holding celebrations throughout the day, but I decided against taking a ride on the first day. There were so many people there to see it open and the line to board the trains was lengthy. Let everyone have fun and I can check it out another time. (As a side note, I still haven’t ridden the line. I kept meaning to do it and now the chances that I will are diminished.)

I did watch the first few services come and go and the teams all boarded along with media before the rest of the riders could then have their go. I understand the extension has been very popular both for commuters and those heading downtown for events like games and shows. The parking garage can get quite full from what I am told. Great to see this new extension getting well utilized and, when the Eastlink connection opens and additional vehicles can access this section of the system, the frequencies should improve too.

A Little Time with Some LAX Arrivals

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A while back I posted some shots from a hotel at LAX that I took at night. The next day, I was also able to work from the rooftop terrace at the hotel which allowed the occasional arrival to make their way into my viewfinder. LAX is a great airport to see some different airlines and types but, like a lot of major airports, it does get a ton of movements that are the same airlines and types. Consequently, you can afford to be picky about what you shoot.

This also means you can get other stuff done most of the time and just keep an eye out for something more interesting when the opportunity presents itself. Even so, I didn’t have a lot of time there with the various other things I had going on so it was not the full selection of interesting arrivals and departures that LAX can offer. Despite that, I was happy to get a few shots of things that interested me at least.

Something Large to Bypass the Pleasure Craft

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When it isn’t peak boating season, the smaller lock at Ballard is the main one to get used. It can accommodate much of the traffic and there isn’t too much demand to require the big lock to be utilized. There are priorities about what traffic goes through the lock and commercial traffic will always get precedence over the leisure craft. There were a few boats lined up to come in when a tug and some barges came in from Puget Sound. It got priority and, since it was far larger than the small lock could deal with, the big lock needed to be used.

At Last, This Otter Is Nicely Lit

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There is a privately owned DHC-3T Otter that lives in the Puget Sound area, and it comes in and out of BFI on a regular basis. I have seen it plenty of times but have always struggled to get either a nice angle on it or favorable light. I won’t claim it is my white whale, but it has begun to frustrate me somewhat. Therefore, I was delighted when I heard it call up on approach one evening when the sun had popped out from behind the clouds and the warmth of the light was nice.

I saw it far out on approach as it angled in towards the longer of BFI’s two runways – occasionally disappearing behind the trees as it maneuvered in. I was using a lot of lens to see it and even then, it was a bit distant but, since the conditions were favorable, I wasn’t struggling with haze issues. Soon enough it was on short final, and I finally was able to get the types of shots I have been hoping to achieve for a long time. Now I can move on in peace!

Bow Falls

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A short trip from the heart of Banff takes you to Bow Falls. The Bow River runs through the town, but it makes quite a drop shortly afterwards before continuing on its way towards Canmore. The falls are a short distance from the Chateau although you can barely see it from the river.

There is a trail that runs up the side of the falls with a long set of steps to get you up to the higher levels. It is not a tough climb, but it does get the heart rate up. That doesn’t stop plenty of people checking it out. From the bottom, the view up the falls is very nice whereas, on the climb, the views of the river can be a bit restricted in places. The noise of the water is most impressive and, as soon as you go behind an outcrop of rock, the quiet can catch you by surprise. While I took a bunch of photos, it felt like the noise and the motion of the water meant video was a better option so here is an edit I pulled together of what I saw.

Stored Airtankers Awaiting Their Turn

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Quite a while back, I made a trip to Abbotsford. In more recent visits I have created posts of their Q400 based airtankers out on some test flights. However, before they became tankers, these were all airliners that had been retired from passenger service. Conair buys up these older airframes when the price is right, and they come to Abbotsford to await their time in the conversion program.

A few of them were sitting on the ramp when I made my visit. Some were being worked on while others were just waiting for some attention. Various bits were missing – often the expensive bits like engines. It is possible that some of the airframes might only be acquired to provide a source of spare parts and they will never fly again. I have no idea whether that is the case for any of these. Hopefully they will have since made it back into the air and are now being used to fight wildfires somewhere.

Pano Experiment with a Fisheye

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I will freely admit this is not my idea. It is something that I read about recently on an astrophotography post that caught my attention. I was about to make a visit to a museum where I thought I might end up taking some interior images in confined space. My 16-35mm lens was probably going to do the trick but I wondered whether the fisheye might be a better bet if things were really tight. My only concern with that is the distortion is such a feature of that lens that it might not be worthwhile.

Then I came across the aforementioned article and it talked about shooting panos with a fisheye. The article was concerned with wide sky shots for astrophotography, but I thought it might work for me too. Supposedly, stitching together multiple fisheye shots takes out a lot of the distortion while still giving you the wide reach. I decided to experiment with this in advance to see if it worked.

I played with this indoors but taking a sequence of shots with good overlap between them making sure to catch as wide an image as possible. I was using the fisheye with full frame coverage rather than the circular version of the image. In Lightroom, I had to turn off the profile correction since that plays with the shots a lot and then set the pano function to work. It combined the images very easily and, sure enough, the verticals across the shot were not all vertical and not distorted at all. This could be something I now use a lot in the future when working in confined spaces. I will need to test it for closer subjects first since I suspect that will be a lot more testing for the alignment issues in pano stitching.

Refueling the Hornet

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Two quite different versions of the same thing here. The Comox Air Show this year included demonstrations are aerial refueling with the RCAF Hornet. The first of these was perfectly sensible because it was the Hornet formating on the C-130 Hercules fitted with refueling pods. The Hornet took up station behind the drogue units to demonstrate how refueling would be done.

Later in the show, there was a slightly odder version of things. A USAF KC-135R Stratotanker (which was carrying Kadena tailcodes which might be a first for me) was airborne and the Hornet formated on this too. Some KC-135s do carry hose drogue units on the wings or a drogue adaptor on the end of the boom but this was not one of them. Instead, they simulated the boom refueling. The Hornet can’t refuel from the boom but, since it was just an airshow, I doubt too many people were bothered by this.

What You Need to Go on the Glacier

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Go up the icefield parkway in Alberta and you see plenty of glaciers around the mountains that tower over you. You can do a trip out on to the glacier while you are there, and a special vehicle is provided to get you out there. It required more time than we wanted to give up to do the full tour but I did want to see the buses that they use to go out on the ice. Giant tires, loads of clearance and very tough looking construction. These things look immense.

There is one in the parking lot by the visitor center so you can get an up-close look. I don’t know whether this is the same as the ones currently in use or if it is an old version that has been superseded. We did see the active buses out on the roads and heading up on the ice. I bet they are not the most comfortable ride but a fantastic way to get to somewhere special.