The Super Puma lift that Construction helicopters undertook at the Merchandise Mart was a good chance to get some video of a wider nature rather than the close up stuff I normally get. Here is the result.
Super Puma Video
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Other SeaTac Stuff
The SeaTac shooting had a number of specific things that I have already covered. However, since it is an airport that serves a lot of destinations and carriers, it has a bunch of other things worth seeing. Long haul operators include Delta (serving a lot of routes that were once Northwest), British Airways and Icelandair. I have always seen the Icelandair aircraft on the ground when traveling through SeaTac but they seem to have a schedule that means one arrives at around the same time the previous day’s arrival departs. Not a very efficient use of the airframe but I guess it works for them.
The domestic carriers were also there with Alaska making up the majority of the movements – at least in the time windows I had.
Filming helicopter
Something I haven’t seen for a while is any filming activity around the city. We have two big movies being shot in Chicago this summer but I don’t think I have seen anything of them at work yet (unless this is it). When the filming is underway, you often get a helicopter shooting film from the air. A turret on the nose holds the camera and the mount is operated by someone inside the helicopter while the pilot positions for the shots that are required.
I heard a Eurocopter Astar (Squirrel for non-US readers) flying around (not unusual since the local TV stations use them predominantly) but noticed it was a different aircraft with a more prominent mount. I have seen this Astar doing filming work in the past but not for a while. The sun was getting low but I decided to try and grab some shots as it came around.
Of course, just as I did this, it made a couple more passes and then left. However, it did return later. By now the light was getting very low. I suspect the shots he was getting of the city looked great but it was getting tricky to get anything good of him. However, it is always fun to try.
Web video sizing
I have been getting more and more interested in video work in the last couple of years. Shooting video at the same time as stills is a regular feature of any shoot I am now on. I am even getting better at planning my shot requirements for the video in order to have some hope of putting together a relatively coherent piece later. The recent ISAP symposium had some good information on that. However, that is not the point of today’s piece. Instead, I am thinking about video size.
I have a YouTube channel on which I upload my content. As s shameless plus, if you want to check it out, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/EdgcumbePhoto and you can see the videos I have previously uploaded. Subscribe if you want and it will let you know about all of the exciting new videos I upload! Okay, we return from that commercial break and resume normal programming. I shoot everything in HD and edit the footage for 1080p output. This can result in some quite large files. YouTube allows you to upload full 1080p so that is what I have been doing.
Unfortunately, our current internet connection is not helpful here. While we have pretty decent download speeds, the upload speeds are very slow. DSL was not designed for upload and consequently, the upload speeds have not kept pace with the download speeds and the needs of users generating more and more content. A recent video I made was about eight minutes long. The 1080p version of this was nearly 2Gb. Uploading this took over a day!!!
Now, when I watch videos on YouTube, what resolution do I watch them at? I certainly like HD footage but I only ever use 720p. This is a combination of avoiding bandwidth issues as well as the size of my monitors. There really is no need to be any larger. I wonder whether this is normal. I started looking at what is available on other videos I was watching and quite a few only go to 720p. I thought a quick experiment was in order. The eight minute video I mentioned before can easily be regenerated at 720p so I did that. The file size came out to just over 300Mb. That is a pretty dramatic reduction in file size and upload time.
I think I have been wasting time and bandwidth creating files too large for anyone to need. I am going to stick with 720p for a while and see how things work out. We might have access to a different net connection before too long and I might check out upload speeds then but, for now, this seems to be a far more sensible approach.
Horizon schemes
Seattle is a busy airport with plenty of operators coming through. However, the home airline is Alaska and their regional affiliate is Horizon. Consequently, both of them are very busy. Horizon operates a fleet of Bombardier Q400s. They used to have some CRJs too but these have been moved to another operator and now they are dedicated to the turboprops.
They do seem to have really gone to town in applying special liveries to some of their aircraft. These are focused on a lot of the local colleges and universities. They do paint up a lot of planes in school colors! While I was there, I got a surprising number of them passing by. Here are a few samples of the different schemes they have (along with one normal one just to show that they aren’t all specials).
Olympia Capitol building
I was in Olympia WA recently for some meetings. The meetings were near the state capitol and with some time free at lunchtime, I wandered over to have a look around. The building is quite similar in form to a number of capitol buildings with a domed structure topping the main building. It was very nicely decorated with it being impressive without be too grandiose. I met one of the building guides as I came in and she kindly showed me around including letting me into one of the function rooms that is normally locked.
George Washington appears throughout the building in various places as you might expect for a state named after him. Neither chamber was sitting while I was there so I could go to the visitors galleries for both and walk around without restrictions. We even got to go into the Governor’s office to see the room in which he holds meetings with visitors. (We didn’t go into the office he occupies as I think he was in there at the time!) The grounds around the capitol were very nice too and it was a great day so not a bad way to spend a lunch break.
Construction Helicopters at the Mart
Previously I posted about the work with Midwest Helicopters at the Merchandise Mart. This post included the stills of the job while this one had some video. That job was all about erecting the steel to support the new chiller units. Construction Helicopters had the job to lift the chillers themselves since they were considerably heavier than the S-58T can lift.
This time I ended up shooting the lift from along the river. While I had originally planned to be back on the roof, the plan changed but it ended up being a better solution. I wish I had planned it to be so but I will take being lucky any day. The view from the ground was one I had intended for the first lift if it had gone to the second day so this time i was able to get shots of the building with the helicopter operating in front of and above it.
This was the first time I had seen the Super Puma that Construction Helicopters have acquired. I have had a soft spot for the Puma family for many years dating back to a model of an RAF Puma I made as a kid. It is a great looking helicopter and certainly a powerful performer.
The weather was excellent and the lift went very smoothly. The chillers were picked from a barge on the river in front of the Mart and lifted to the roof. I certainly wasn’t alone in watching the work as quite a crowd gathered along the river to watch. Great job to everyone involved.
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
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
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.