Category Archives: photo

Back to Red Flag

It had been quite a while since I made a trip purely for aviation photography. I may have managed to sneak some photo elements in to other trips but nothing just for planes. I decided to go to Nellis for Red Flag 22-2. I had skipped 22-1 because it clashed with some other stuff despite having some things I was quite keen to shoot. German Tornados were supposed to be at 22-2 which I was keen to shoot but they sadly canceled before the event even kicked off.

Despite this, I still wanted to go. A couple of days off work seemed like a good plan and it was a chance to explore the capabilities of the R3 on aviation subjects. While the Germans were not attending, there were some foreign operators taking part. Singapore had brought its jets – admittedly, they didn’t have far to come with Singapore having units at Luke and Mountain home – and Saudi Arabia had brought some F-15SAs.

Things were not as active as they have been on some previous Red Flags. Not everything seemed to be flying in each wave. The B-1s only flew on one of the evening and one of the day sorties of the two I was there. Also, things seemed to happen earlier than is sometimes the case. There were some long gaps in flying when I wondered whether something was up. It was just a slow Flag I guess. However, it was a good chance to hang around and photograph some jets. I guess I can’t complain about that.

Focus Stacking With The Camera’s Help

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One of the functions that my new camera has built in is a focus stacking function. I know this is not unique to this camera but it is a first for me so I was keen to play with it. The mode, when enabled, allows you to set how many shots you want taken and set a scale for how close the focus points will be to each other. You then pick you initial focus point and set it off and it takes the sequence of shots incrementing the focus slightly between each one.

The resulting stack of images can then be processed in Photoshop to get the focus stacked output. This is so much nicer than making minor focus adjustments by hand between shots. The sequence gets created really quickly. I also was able to do reshoots easily. On one of the sequences, I had left it on auto ISO so it shot at a really high ISO level. I could reshoot with the ISO set low (tripod mounting means this was not a problem) in no time at all. (As an aside, the focus stacking algorithm actually seems to do a good job of reducing noise as well.)

I experimented with how fine a scale to use. Initially, I was taking way too many shots with very little movement through the image so I coarsened up the scale a bit. The nice thing was, if it didn’t go all through the range, I could just hit the shutter again and it would keep going. Photoshop chunked through the processing pretty well. I was shooting a few things but also experimented with some coins on my desk. Not the most original subject but one that shows the result well unlike the other things I was shooting. The software seemed to struggle a little on some of the coin edges so maybe a finer shoot next time or maybe I should just hand blend those bits.

Shooting After Sunset

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For a while, I had been thinking about trying to do some night photography of airliners. I had seen some good shots people had got but SeaTac does not have a lot of ambient light to illuminate aircraft flying overhead. It would be better if there was a large public space under the approach that would provide so brightness to work with. I was down at SeaTac to pick up a colleague and knew I would be there as the sun went down so I decided to have a go at some shots.

I used the 70-200 f/2.8 to get as much light as possible. The sun was going down so I was going through quite the transition of lighting conditions. Some were just twilight while other were when things were getting quite dark. The autofocus was also struggling since the center point was being used and the underside of the jet lacked much contrast in the dark. I still got a few usable images. The lack of light means they aren’t too great but it was fun to try something different. Now to find a better location!

How Many Turtles Is Too Many Turtles?

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Turtles are a common sight in Juanita Bay. There are some logs in the shallows that attract the turtles when the sun is out. They come up from the depths and bask on the logs to warm themselves up. On a given day, there will usually be a bunch of them. What I had not seen before was quite so many of them. The logs were full of turtles and those that couldn’t find a spot had climbed on top of those that could. One of the kids was counting them and came up with over 60 of them in this one little area. It was quite the turtle fest.

Battle Of The Alliances

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The creation of the airline alliances has allowed airlines to serve a wider range of routes than they could sustain themselves. Part of their obligation as a member of the alliance is to have some of their aircraft painted in alliance colors. Sadly, these liveries are not that exciting but I suppose it is some variety. I was quite surprised to get an Air France 777-300ER in SkyTeam colors vacating the runway at the same time a United 777-200ER in Star Alliance colors was taxiing the opposite direction. I felt like the scene for a stand off but no such thing occurred.

Chelan Riverwalk

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The hotel where my conference was taking place was down by the bottom of the lake in Chelan. I decided to have a stroll one evening and, as soon as I came out of the hotel, I saw signs for a Riverwalk. It wasn’t a long walk but it took me down one side of the river, over a bridge, back up the other side and then another bridge back to where I had started. There were a few people out and about but it was still pretty quiet.

There was a small park area along the river with a pavilion. I’m not sure what sort of events they hold there in the peak season but it would seem like a nice spot to hang out and watch performers doing their thing. They also had some elevated boardwalk sections. With the water level so low, these were a long way above the water but I imagine they are quite close when the water is at its peak.

They had installed some art work along one side of the river. There was a sculpture about wolves and salmon which related to Native American stories of why the lake doesn’t have salmon. They also had boards of the bodies in the solar system spaced out along the river in proportion to their distance from the sun. I imagine the whole area gets very busy during the summer but it was a nice spot to stroll while visiting in March!

Various Ways To Stitch A Panorama

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Lightroom has three methods for stitching the panoramas together. I tend to use one but for some shots, a different style is beneficial. I was flipping through some shots of an HH-101 Caesar helicopter that I took at RIAT in 2019. I also had a Danish AW101 that I had shot in pano format. The Danish airframe had not been shot as well as it could have been and I did not have sufficient coverage. I decided to try different versions of the stitching to see which one gave the best result. Some result in a more natural look while others look more fish eyed. I can also stitch in Photoshop which gives me more capability for filling in gaps but, with the tricky areas being the rotors, that wasn’t going to work well since the AI is not going to work that out. Stitching also allows some warping to fill edge gaps but this can mess with the alignment of the main part of the image. I tried a couple of versions and they are compared here.

Wilson’s Snipes Got The Twitchers Excited

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I am not a bird expert so, while I can recognize a variety of different birds, there are plenty that I have absolutely no clue about. However, Juanita Bay is a popular spot with the ornithologists and I can learn a bit from them. A couple was chatting with me on one of the boardwalks about Wilson’s Snipes. They thought they could see them on one of the shoreline areas but couldn’t be sure. I bumped in to the same people on the other side of the shore and they confirmed that the snipes were there.

At first they were pointing out a couple of them. As we spent a bit more time watching, it turned out that there were loads of them. They weren’t easy to see given how well their camouflage worked but, once you had got the hang of it, finding the others got a lot easier. I don’t think this is a rare bird so this wasn’t an amazing discovery that we were making but they were still pretty excited about it so I was too.

New Bradley Midfield Terminal

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When I was last at LAX, there was plenty of construction underway in the middle of the field. The Bradley International Terminal was being expanded to accommodate the growth that had taken place. This was all pre-pandemic of course. On this visit, it looked like everything was complete. The new midfield terminal area was looking finished and there were aircraft on the gates including a China Southern A380. With that fleet due for retirement, that might be my last chance to see one. Not sure whether I will get to use the terminal or not but it looked good.

Waterfront Birds

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Walking along the shore at Edmonds, a few birds were flying around near me. I did get a cormorant which is good and, while I don’t know many birds, I think some of these might be mergansers. Anyone into their birds that can confirm or deny?