Tag Archives: aircraft

How Many Airliners in One Shot?

Normally airliners stay quite a distance from each other. Getting more than one in a shot is the result of compression of the distance as they pass in different directions. What is more fun is to have each jet be replaced by two. SFO likes to have the parallel arrivals and similarly the departures are often involving two planes at a time. If you time it right and have the angles aligned properly, you can get four jets in one shot – two on approach and two taking off.

Hello Surprise Hornets

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SFO might get the occasional military movement but it is primarily civil traffic you see there. Roger and I were chatting when we noticed something small on the approach. Initially I assumed a business jet but then the shape became clearer and it was a Super Hornet. In fact, there were two with the second close in trail. From our location they were a bit far out but still an interesting pair of visitors to photograph.

A380 Gear Sequence

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The jets approaching SFO have their gear down long before they reach Coyote Point. However, if you look into the distance, you can see them lower the gear somewhere around the San Mateo Bridge. The A380 has a gear sequence that involves the outer gear coming down first followed by the body gear. I figured I would shoot at long range and then animate the sequence. Heat haze was not great but I think it shows the way things work. Maybe in the winter I will try this again and see if I can get a cleaner image.

San Jose – The New Way to Europe

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When you live in the Bay Area, all of the flights to interesting overseas destinations go from SFO. However, there is a lot of demand for these flights and SFO is not the most convenient airport for everyone. Oakland has flights from London and Oslo. The other airport that is fighting for business is San Jose. They have recently added flight by Lufthansa and British Airways. This was enough to drag me down there to see what is moving.

San Jose is not a bad airport to shoot at. There are a few locations which give you good options for getting shots of the jets either arriving or departing. On the day I went, Lufthansa were using their A340 in Star Alliance colors. I have to admit I was a touch disappointed because I wanted a Lufthansa jet in house colors. However, there will be another time. I got there later in the day so didn’t see it arrive. However, I was there for departure.

After it had gone, I headed down to the arrival end. There was going to be a fair bit of time before the BA jet arrived so I would see what showed up. That will probably be another post. Eventually, the BA jet showed up on approach. It came down from the coast side so I could see it from a long way out. It turned on approach and then I got. A bunch of shots of it as it came down the approach. The 787-9 is a better proportioned jet than the 787-8. I think both jets are bigger than they appear. Having not tried either out yet, I don’t know what they are like to fly in. However, the BA colors look nice on it. I got the shot I was after and then headed off. At some point, I shall go for the departure shot too. I should do that before the light gets too low!

Apache over Pinal

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Have you ever been excited to have a lucky break and then felt disappointed by the same thing afterwards? If so, you are like me and you really need help. I was up at Pinal Air Park in the evening after our time on the range at Hawgsmoke. An Apache helicopter was flying around the pattern. I was impressed that it was flying while I was there and grabbed some shots. The Singaporean forces have some Apaches there that they train on. When I looked at the shots, I was hoping that was what I had got. Sadly, it was just a normal US Apache. Why was I so disappointed? No good reason. It was still cool to see one in the nice evening light but you often focus on what might have been. Not healthy!

Sunset Shooting at SFO

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A holiday weekend combined with an early closure of the office meant I had a bit of time to experiment with some things I wanted to try on the new cameras. Normally I don’t want to blow out a whole evening at a weekend but, with a bit of extra time, I decided to see what I could do with shooting aircraft in sunset and really low light conditions. There will be some other posts that look a how the cameras do in very low light/night conditions. However, to get there, I also got some sunset to play with.

At this time of year, sunset is not as good as it will be later. The sun goes too far north late in the day so, instead of getting good light on the jets, you end up with some backlighting. Even so, there are some good chances to get some more delicate light on the planes. You do get a bit too much contrast as the remaining light is on the nose and the fuselage sides are pretty shady but you can get some reasonable results.

I was interested to see how the camera dealt with the light. The use of exposure compensation becomes a bit variable in these conditions. The light starts to get nicely balanced but then you can end up with more brightness in the background with less on the subject. This can make things go a little dark. I found myself playing with the settings quite a bit as I explored how the camera reacted.

Generations of Gulfstreams

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When I am shooting at a major airport, I am always pleased to get some corporate jets. A steady stream of airliners – often from the same airline – is okay but variety spices things up and corporate jets can do that. (NetJets and FlexJet do undermine that variety a little but not too much.) On this occasion, I was treated to a selection of Savannah’s finest products. They didn’t arrival in age related order but I will forgive that.

The first to show up was a G650. Top of the line for Gulfstream, this is a cool looking jet. It is a totally clean sheet design for Gulfstream who have tended to tweak previous jets to bring new capabilities. It looks different and has great performance. (It is also spawning a new generation of smaller – relatively – jets that I look forward to seeing.)

Next were some G450s. A previous generation but still a good performer and something that sells well. The fuselage is clearly Gulfstream but the wings and engines and significant steps forward from their predecessors. Not cutting edge but still something the Gulfstream thinks has appeal.

The last was a G-III. This is really going back a bit. Not a G-IISP but not far off. The fuselage is familiar, the wing similar but the engines are the old Speys and they have none too subtle hushkits fitted to them in order to meet current noise regulations. This is certainly a vintage jet by corporate standards and I was pretty pleased to see one still flying. These are often found now lurking at airports with the signs of lack of use clear to see. Shame we didn’t have an original Gulfstream turboprop but they are rare beasts these days.

P-26 Peashooter

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One of my favorites when visiting Chino for the Planes of Fame Airshow is the Boeing P-26 Peashooter. A pre-WWII aircraft, this is the end of a generation of aircraft. Once the war started, aircraft really advanced quickly. For those that had been involved in conflict before the US actually entered the war, the aircraft had already moved on. The P-26 is a bit of a stranger in a time warp. However, the shape and technology combined with the colors make it a curious aircraft for me. Seeing it fly during the twilight show at Chino was cool and the evening light was a lot more impressive than seeing it during the day.

Embedding a Zoomify File

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I have played with the Zoomify files a few times before. Then I found a way to get a Zoomify file output in HTML5 format rather than Flash. Since so many people are on mobile devices today and plenty of them don’t use Flash, having the new format was necessary to make the output usable widely. I didn’t like the idea of a new page opening up though. Taking people off your page can mean that they don’t come back. Fortunately, I found out how to embed this in an iFrame. Those of you that are web savvy will know all about this stuff but I didn’t. However, messing around with some page code and suddenly my stuff is embedded in the page above. Pretty cool. Feel free to zoom and pan around the Nellis flightline!

Can 700mm Reach Into the Cockpit?

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Since changing camera bodies to something that is full frame, one of the things I have been pondering is what I will notice about the reduced reach that I will get with my current lenses. Obviously there will be a change. So far it has only really resulted in me changing when I press the shutter since I still work based on what I see through the viewfinder. While we were out on the range at Hawgsmoke, the jets would carry out a strafing run and then pull towards the range tower where we were located. Sometimes they would be really close.

I had decided to try putting a 1.4x tele convertor on the 500mm to compensate for the larger sensor size. This worked well for a number of the shots but, when the jets pulled overhead, it was a touch too much! These shots are not cropped. They are really that close and you can see exactly what is in the cockpit.