Sunrise and Moonset

Leave a Reply

We live to the east of some hills that border the San Francisco Bay area. On a number of occasions when I have been heading to the bay, I have seen the moon setting over the hills and thought that it would make a good shot. Of course, at those times I either don’t have the camera or I am not in a position to take a picture. I regularly use an app on my phone called The Photographer’s Ephemeris that gives information on sun and moon angles for any location. The shot I was after was to have the full moon setting behind the hills just after sunrise with the early light on the hill tops.

This happens once a month but having it occur when I am not constrained by work requirements is a different thing. It turned out, though, that the combination I was after was going to occur on the morning of Thanksgiving. Excellent. Of course, did I remember to set an alarm? Nope. I woke up and realized I had missed it. The following day the conditions were similar but an hour later. I decided to give it a go anyway. The result is not quite what I wanted but it is okay. However, the sun was way too high by the time the moon hit the tops of the hills. I will definitely try and do this again some time.

Boeing 727 in OKC

Leave a Reply

It’s not often that you see a Boeing 727 in service any more. There was a time when FedEx were still using them in substantial numbers. Now you are most likely to see a FedEx machine parked up since most airports seem to have acquired one of them somehow! Finding one actually in use is a far less common occurrence. However, they are still out there and every once in a while, you will get lucky.

I was in Oklahoma City heading home after some meetings when I glanced out of the window and saw a 727 taxiing past the terminal. It caught me out and it took a moment to get a camera out by which time it was a bit further away than was ideal but I did manage to grab a couple of shots. I was hoping that it was taxiing for departure so I would have a second opportunity as it took off but I guess it had just arrived and was heading to the ramp to park. It had text on the side suggesting it was for transporting horses. I had previously seen a similar jet at Van Nuys a few years ago. This time I only got some rough ground shots but any active 727 is worth noting these days.

How to View a Potential Property

1 Reply

While Pete and I were flying over Cowes, we were keeping an eye on a helicopter that was orbiting not too far from our location. A short while later, we couldn’t see it anymore and were trying to find it. As it turned out, the helicopter had landed next to a property near Osborne House. Pete understood that the property was currently on the market. Therefore, we concluded that the people were visiting the house to check it out. I must confess, I have not previously inspected any properties by helicopter but, thinking about it, this seems to be the perfect way to make an entrance!

Virgin Dreamliner

Leave a Reply

Not long ago I wrote here about the effort to get a Virgin Atlantic A340-600 before they were retired. At the time I noted that Virgin had added a second flight to SFO and it was using the 340 prior to the availability of the Boeing 787-9 later in the year. It turns out that things have changed a little. The 787 is now operating the service but, rather than replace the A340, it has replaced the 747-400 and the A340 is running the additional flight albeit only on weekdays.

The loss of the 747 is another example of how quickly they are disappearing from services as I have written about a few times now. However, it is nice to have the new type and still retain the increasingly rare A340. Unfortunately, getting out on a weekday to catch the 340 is not usually practical. I have managed to see the 787 at last though. Winter can be a great time to photograph aircraft with low, soft light. It can also combine with crappy weather in the form of high and gusting winds though. Such was the case this time. Hiding behind a tree to try and minimize the impact on the camera does help though. Interestingly, the colors of Virgin Atlantic’s latest scheme do not seem to like digital capture. The red seems a lot more subdued in my images than I recall it being!

Lane End

Leave a Reply

When we first started planning the trip to the UK, I decided to try and schedule a shoot with the lifeboat crew in Bembridge on the Isle of Wight. The boat house is at Lane End in Bembridge. I had shot a launch there from the shore a few years ago and wanted to plan something a little more involved. I talked with the RNLI team there about getting something together and it looked like it might work out. Unfortunately, a number of issues cropped up shortly before the visit and the whole thing was scrubbed.

While this was disappointing, it did free up some time during the visit to do other things. Even so, I did take a walk from our hotel down to Lane End one early evening. The lifeboat is kept in a boathouse at the end of a pier. This allows it to launch clear of the rocky ledges in the area. The boat house is a relatively new building. The old pier and house were demolished and replaced when they upgraded the lifeboat.

The new pier is a cool structure and the whole thing fits well with what was there already. I got there after the house had closed to visitors for the day but I did walk out on the pier and look through the windows at the boat. It was a lovely evening to be out at the water and certainly made me feel pretty relaxed on my vacation. A couple of days later, I was able to get some aerial shots of the boathouse when we flew by too which was pretty cool.

Nippon Cargo 747-8

Leave a Reply

Today’s pictures involve a shout out to Roger Cain who was the one that let me know that this movement was happening. Nippon Cargo operates a regular service to SFO with their Boeing 747-8 freighter. Normally it arrives early in the morning and departs not long afterwards when the light is just coming up. This does not make for a good opportunity to get a good shot of it. For some reason, it was running late and was showing as due in to SFO shortly before sunset.

I was in the East Bay dealing with the replacement of a tire on my car. Roger called to tell me about it. What I didn’t know was a) whether I would be able to get across in time based on the tire being fixed and b) whether it would actually depart LAX, its previous stop, soon enough to arrive at SFO before it got dark. Driving across the bay to miss the light was not something I wanted to do. Both Roger and I were tracking the jet online and, as I got the car back, he called to say it was taxiing for departure at LAX.

I headed across the bay and got to Roger about ten minutes before it was due to arrive. The light was beginning to go down but it looked like it would work out okay. Sure enough, it came into view just before the sun went below the hills. We got some really nice light on it. I continued to track it to touchdown but, by the time it got to the runway, it was already in shade. It was that close!

Over Downtown Dallas

Leave a Reply

My layover in Dallas was followed by a flight to Oakland. The departure from Love Field takes you directly towards the heart of Downtown Dallas. It was a bit of a cloudy day so there was neither an unrestricted view nor the greatest of light but I did get a good look at the city as was passed overhead and then turned around to head west. Here are a few quick shots I grabbed as we went.

Diamond DA62

Leave a Reply

I was actually looking for something else when I headed to Livermore. An interesting aircraft had come to the field from Denver and a friend had given me a heads up about it. I went over to see if I could see it. As it turned out, the tail was just visible in a hangar across the field but there was nothing much to see. I decided to hang around for a short while before heading home.

As I was wandering along the fence line, a light twin came in to land. I got some shots as it landed and could read the DA62 logo on the aircraft. This is Diamond’s newest product and this appears to be the first example to show up in the US. I had just been reading the flight test on it in Flight International. It turns out the wife of the pilot was standing nearby. They were due to head off but we chatted for a while about their training operations and now the role of distributor for the type.

The DA62 has a change for Diamond in that it can be painted in colors. Previously, the airframes were white and all you could do was add stripes to customize them. They have done something new with the composites and this example was in a really nice metallic gray finish. They soon loaded up and headed out. This is a cool plane and a comfortable seven-seater. If you are in the market, give these guys a call!

Zoomify the SFO Departures

Leave a Reply

I was recently drawn back to something I had experimented with a long time ago but had since forgotten about. I was at SFO when the wind was strong enough to require all departures to operate from the 28s. This resulted in a long line of jets along the taxiway beside the runways as they waited their turn to take off. I shot a very wide panorama shot of them all lined up. It didn’t help that they weren’t bunched too tightly but, even if they had been, the pano that results is very wide and shallow.

There is nothing much you can do with this unless you have a long wall waiting for a mural (which I don’t). However, I still liked the shot. What to do with it? Then I remembered Zoomify. This is an output format embedded within Photoshop that creates a web page that you can zoom in and out of and pan around. It allows someone to explore a large image in more detail if they want to do so. Not quite on the scale of Gigapan images but still a neat tool when you need something slightly different.

Zoomify Panorama

Parade of Ships

Leave a Reply

I have mentioned the LCS ship that was part of the Parade of Ships for Fleet Week. It was one of several warships to take part in the parade. Most were US Navy ships but there was also a Coast Guard ship and a visitor from the Royal Canadian Navy. They entered the bay under the Golden Gate Bridge before parading in front of the spectators arrayed along the shore and in the boats out on the water. The first ship was led by a fire boat that sprayed water from its cannons in greeting.

These pictures are a sample of the different ships that were on parade. Another warship was part of Fleet Week but it remained tied up during the parade which was a shame as I would liked to have seen it. You could tour it if you wanted but I had other plans that meant that wouldn’t work out.