Author Archives: Rob

FedEx shots

A recent trip to Seattle gave me some time at the very beginning and end of the day to pay a visit to SeaTac. Plenty of interesting things are to be seen there. One specific area of interest for me was the amount of traffic for FedEx. They had a lot of movements with a variety of types. (A contractor operates Cessna Caravans for them which I saw but did not get any shots of sadly.) With FedEx just having announced a reduction in types in their fleet plan, this was a more interesting opportunity than it might otherwise have been.

Two McDonnell Douglas types came through while I was there. The MD-11s are busy as usual but I also got MD-10s. Meanwhile, the Airbus A300s were also in use. I don’t get to see them often and, since they are going to be retired in large numbers soon, I might not get many more chances. With movements at the beginning and end of the day, I was able to catch them several times. They were busy. I am assuming the middle of the day is quieter for them so I didn’t miss much while at work.

The only unfortunate side of shooting the FedEx jets was their departure profiles. When on the departure end of things, I was generally in a good location to catch the jets as they came by. FedEx was the exception. I don’t know whether they practice rapid climb outs due to flying into some dangerous places or just for noise abatement (they do have some aging aircraft) but the result is that they climb fast and are much higher than average by the time they reach you. Nothing much I can do about that of course but it was a bit of a shame. Approach shots were not an issue of course. The three degree glideslope is the same for everyone! Time to enjoy some of these jets before they go for good.

Photoshop CC Shake Reduction

Leave a Reply

While a lot of people have been quite vexed by the introduction of a subscription based approach to the Adobe software suite including Photoshop, I decided to get over it and upgrade to Photoshop CC. One of the features introduced in CC is Shake Reduction. This is an effort at dealing with motion blur in images. It isn’t going to rescue a crappy shot but it is potentially able to to take an almost good shot and rescue it. I decided to experiment with it on an image I recently took.

The image above is a combination of the original image without sharpening and the filtered version. (It is recommended that you turn off sharpening before running the filter or it will make things break up more.) The effect actually seems to be quite useful. I should note that I tried it on several shots and they didn’t all respond as well to the filter. However, it did make quite a good upgrade to this image. I shall potentially use this again if there is an image I really like that is not quite as sharp as I would like. Another tool to potentially use but not one I think I can rely on.

Merchandise Mart video

Leave a Reply

In a previous post I showed some images I took at the Midwest Helicopters lifting job at the Merchandise Mart. As is normal for me these days, I also took the time to get a bunch of video and, finally, I have got around to editing this. I wanted to focus a little more on the guys working on the roof rather than just the helicopter operations. Of course, there is still plenty of footage of the flying too! I hope you enjoy.

Clow Cavalcade

Leave a Reply

Air shows are not planned to be a big part of my year this year. However, I did take the time to go a short distance out of the city recently to a small event that I like. Clow is an airport down in Bolingbrook, southwest of downtown Chicago. The airport holds an event every year for the local community to show what goes on at the airport and to try and generate interest in the aviation industry. It is not an airshow. There is not a flying display. However, a number of aircraft do visit and make some passes to show the crowd some interesting aircraft.

A number of aircraft are on display. Some warbirds show up and the EAA owned Ford Trimotor was providing rides throughout the event. Usually they have some parachutists displaying throughout the event (and I have previously shot them at work) but, unfortunately, the weather did not prove to be cooperative this year and the cloud base was too low to allow them to jump.

A number of aircraft manufacturers have their aircraft on display with Cessna, Piper, Cirrus and Diamond all having aircraft available to view by potential (and wishful thinking) buyers. Eclipse also brought one of their Total Eclipse 500 aircraft.

I was most interested in getting some shots of the aircraft either flying or on display but an event like this is also about seeing how the crowds interact with the aircraft and their owners. It is a very open event with people having the chance to get close to the aircraft and the operations. Since the conditions weren’t great, I often put down the camera and just watched everyone having fun. (Obviously no pictures of that!)

A Night with Chaka Khan

Leave a Reply

During my teenage years, I was introduced to an artist who I had not heard of before. Chaka Khan brought something I had never heard before. I can credit a friend of the family for first playing me some of her music. Along with many others, I became a fan. Not a devoted fan but someone who really enjoyed her music. However, I never saw her perform. That changed this week.

Forty years in show business were celebrated for Chaka this year and, as a Chicago native, the city had a free concert for her in Millennium Park at the Pritzker Pavilion. We headed along and we weren’t alone. A very diverse group of people came to see the free concert. It was a great evening out. Things took a long time to actually start but when they did, she certainly still had it. An outdoor location is a great place to sit and listen to someone belting out the hits. The years have not diminished her vocal power. Great stuff.

How Many Megapixels?

4 Replies

How many is too many? I really don’t know. I refer to the number of pixels that can be squeezed onto the sensor for a digital camera and what is desirable or not. Over the years the camera manufacturers have steadily increased the number of pixels on their sensors and come up with ever greater resolutions as a result. This has been both beneficial and problematic. What I am not sure about is whether I am missing the point with all of this.

My first DSLR was a Canon EOS 10D. It was a 6.3Mp camera – something that would now be considered unacceptable on a cell phone. It was a great camera, even if it did have a number of limitations that would be considered unheard of today. However, for its day it was very good. I had full page images printed in magazines from it with absolutely no problem.

As the megapixel wars got going, I was adopting larger and larger file sizes by default. I would tell anyone who asked that megapixels were not the most important thing when buying a camera and there were plenty of other issues to consider. I certainly don’t mind having a more dense file when I need to crop in to a shot but the impact on memory cards, the need for ever larger hard drives and the upgrades to computers to process the larger files were downsides that I didn’t appreciate.

For a while it seemed like the pixel count had leveled off a bit and the focus was on gaining better noise performance at high ISO settings. This seemed like a very worthwhile approach for me. However, big sensors are now back in play with the Nikon D800 leading the way and Canon talking about some large sensor cameras to come. (I think it is worth noting that, since the pixel count is a function of the square of the linear resolution, these larger counts do not translate in to a huge improvement in linear resolution. Yes, you do get more detail but it isn’t quite as mind-blowing as some will suggest.)

Am I a dope for not welcoming this? Am I taking a Luddite approach in sounding happy with what I had and not appreciating the advances? Do I just accept that all of my gear has to be upgraded periodically to stay in line with the latest thing whether it is camera file sizes, the processing requirements of new generation software or the interface needs of the latest devices. I’m sure there are some benefits to having such dense files but I am not sure that they matter for what I do.

As for the uses for large file sizes, there is always much discussion about printing big or using for billboards. Only a photo nerd looks at a picture from six inches and billboard resolutions are actually quite poor. I wonder what a good resolution level really is. Anyone care to suggest the perfect compromise?

This is Disgusting – You Have Been Warned!!!

Leave a Reply

While in downtown Seattle, I was introduced to something that I had never heard about. It is the gum wall. Not having heard about this before, I was curious. It is a wall where people have taken to sticking their used gum creating a wall of gum. We actually went in the wrong direction initially so didn’t find it. A reversal of course took us back to Pike Place Market and a word with a guy who worked there provided us with directions. It was very close.

His parting words were to try not to lose our lunch. I thought he was joking but he was spot on. When I first saw the wall, I did experience a pretty nauseous feeling. It is quite disgusting. After a while, you get used to it a bit more but it doesn’t stop being quite unpleasant. I only had my phone with my and it was rather dingy down there – even without the gum. However, I had to try and record what I saw. Not the nicest of tourist attractions but one that has a sort of morbid curiosity about it!

Exotic Feline Rescue Center

2 Replies

Nancy came across a place recently called the Exotic Feline Rescue Center. Located near Terre Haute in Indiana, this is a facility that takes care of large cats that have been mistreated or are no longer able to be looked after where they are. They have over 300 large cats, a large proportion of which are tigers but also with many cougars, some lions and a smaller number of a variety of other cat. They do not breed the animals, nor do they trade in them. Instead, they are available to provide a home to cats that need it to allow them to live out their lives in comfort.

We arranged a trip for a few days to include a visit to the Center. They provide tours to visitors. The tour covers one part of the Center and will get you close to approximately 100 of the resident cats. This is not a zoo. The tour is escorted and you are very close to the enclosures. However, if you touch the enclosures, your visit will be over. The cats are the other side of the fencing and any bits of you going through the fence are easily chomped! You get a great close experience but you mustn’t abuse the opportunity.

Being close means the animals really do react to you. The lions will roar if they hear Harleys revving up, keep an eye out if a tiger turns away from you because it is probably about to spray you and, while the fences are there, they can get a little excitable. I was squatting down taking a picture of one of the tigers when it decided to charge towards me and jump up at the fence. It certainly got my attention!

The tour we took was led by the guy who started the whole place. He was very friendly and keen to explain how it worked and how they kept everything running. On our tour were a few people who have been there several times. if we were closer, I would certainly visit frequently. The pace was such that it was easy to take pictures as we went around so these shots will give you a good feel for what we saw there.

The place was great. The work they do is very important and the tales they tell of how some of the animals came to be there are quite appalling. They are always in need of donations so, if you are looking for something to support, you could certainly do worse than these folks. Well done for all they have done and good luck in keeping it all going.

Video of the Bridge Lifts

Leave a Reply

The movement of the boats out to the lake in the spring is fun to watch. As with a lot of posts these days, you have seen some stills and now it is time to share the video. The reason the video always lags behind the stills is that editing it takes me a lot longer than going through the stills does. A sign of either my inexperience or procrastination when it comes to putting together the edit!

Anyway, whatever my failings might be in this case, the edit is done and here is the video.

Boy, Those Trains Can Move!

Leave a Reply

A recent art fair was taking place in Chicago and we wandered over to see what was on display. I like these events because they always have an interesting mix of stuff. A few exhibitors have truly excellent work. A large number have stuff that is okay but not special. Then there are a few that are truly appaling. Some of these can be quite creepy and that is half the fun!

All of this is a distraction from the real point of this post. While we were at this event, I looked back towards the loop and realized that this street rose up and provided a great view straight down the elevated tracks of the L as they come through the loop. This looked like a spot I should probably come back to at a later stage. This I have now done.

The view along the tracks is best accentuated by a long lens. Since it is a street on a sunny day (I went in the morning at a time when the sun was supposed to be almost directly down the street since the high buildings around tend to shade everything), heat haze can be a bit of a problem. A winter visit would be good if that opportunity should ever present itself. Instead I shot a little video but also decided on another time lapse.

Luck was on my side this time. When we were at ISAP, there was a lot of discussion on video techniques. One thing that was mentioned was how much lead in and lead out footage should be shot to provide an editor with something to play with later. When shooting time lapse, that lead in time is long and you don’t know when the trains are going to come along. I just decided to start shooting while there was nothing there and see how things played out.

As it happened, I had a lot of time with nothing to make the lead in footage and then a bunch of trains showed up. They ran through for a while and then nothing for quite a while to provide the lead out. No planning on my part but it worked out perfectly. This is one of those clips that I am keeping for a larger project I might finally do about Chicago (probably long after we are gone!) and it will probably only be a very small part of the larger piece but here you can see all of it in one go.