More Mustangs in the desert

[rpzo]

Pic #1 from last weekends P-51 Fly-in at the Palm Springs Air Museum.

[rpzo]

Pic #2, Wee Willy II makes a pass

[rpzo]

Pic #3, Wee Willy II up close and personal

[rpzo]

Pic #4, bore sighting information plate from the gun bay of the Dakota Kid II

[rpzo]

Pic #5, Spam Can down low

[rpzo]

Pic #6, Wee Willy II down low

[rpzo]

Pic #7, Dakota Kid II on the deck

[rpzo]

Pic #8, and finally...three Mustangs and an Albatross

[W J Pearce]

Thanks for sharing Rick. You got some great shots. I can almost hear those merlins.

Bill

[rpzo]

There's an idea, a jpeg with an embedded sound file. Then you would be able to hear those Merlins. Of course, then the guy in the cubicle next to me would think he was being buzzed all day long.

I appreciate the compliment and glad I was able to give you a Mustang fix for the day. It was the first time out with the new camera and lens and I've still got to get used to all the automatic features. It's got a lot more buttons and dials than my OM-1 and may take a few outings to get used to.


Rick

[Victor Archer]

Hi Rick,
Great shots! Your first one of Dakota I have almost the exact photo, funny how great minds think alike. My favorite is the last one of the three mustangs I love the angle and cool how the L-39 is lurking in the background. I know your digital but what shutter speed were you using?
As for sound there are some great CD's out there. There awsome if you have suround sound!

[rpzo]

Hey Victor,

Your first one of Dakota I have almost the exact photo, funny how great minds think alike.

You must have looked at shot and saw what I did. The mountains with the touch of snow on top made a nice backdrop.

I know your digital but what shutter speed were you using?

This was the first time that I shot any airplanes in flight with a digital. The only lens I currently have for the new rig is a 70-300 with IS. I was playing around with the shutter speeds a bit and the in flight pics I posted where all at 1/125th. I did take some at 1/250th which gave me a tad bit more sharpness but a lot less prop blur.

In regards to shutter speed I always go by the 1 over the focal length rule which usually takes care of any camera motion. Because of the 1.6 conversion factor I had a difficult time doing the math in my head while adjusting the zoom lens. Throw into the mix the IS feature of the lens and I was totally guessing as to what the slowest shutter speed I could get away with and not have any camera motion.

The next airshow is on the 20th of March at Lemoore NAS. The Blue Angels and a few aerobatic performers are scheduled. Hopefully I'll have it dialed in a bit better by then.

As for sound there are some great CD's out there.

Somewhere I have a CD narrated by Bob Love that had some good merlin sounds on it. I misplaced it the last time I moved and haven't been able to find it. For now I just make the airplane sounds myself.

Cheers,

Rick

[AAFO_WSagar]

Because of the 1.6 conversion factor I had a difficult time doing the math in my head while adjusting the zoom lens. Throw into the mix the IS feature of the lens and I was totally guessing as to what the slowest shutter speed I could get away with and not have any camera motion.

Rick, you can throw the conversion factor out when doing the figuring. It's not an actual magnification factor, it's actually a "crop" factor. The Digital SLR's don't shoot as large a frame as 35mm, cropping off the edges all round..

So relative to shutter speed, the old formulas work.

I frequently go "oversquare" in fact, almost always. I used to shoot the Sigma 50-500 and even at 500, I'd generally go no faster than 1/350 or 1/325 (I can't remember which of those two my D1 lets me shoot)

Now the IS stuff makes it a bit easier but I found that shooting really fast action stuff, it's not actually that helpful (for me at least) and in the case of my Nikon 100-400 VR, and the slowness of the AF system in that lens, I think it actually contributed to less keepers this year..

Now, for those ramp shots or taxi shots.. WOW! You can really go oversquare! I think I was firing off some 1/30 shots at about 300 and getting decent sharpness and FULL DISK!!!

Which to me is the holy grail!

I can't find the orignal of the image below but Steve Barber was flying so nice on us, I was able to go waaaay low on shutter speed.. As I remember, I think it was at 1/60th or lower.. don't remember the focal length.. This was without VR (or IS in your case) I've yet to do much with the VR lens, having used it only at Reno and then again at Vegas..

It is an amazing technology though!

Now, if I can just get enough money saved up to make the switch and get my hands on one of those 1DmkII's! Talk about a body to lust after!!!!!!!!

Keep up the posting guys.. I'm lovin it!!!

Wayne

[rpzo]

Agreed, the full disk is the holy grail.

you can throw the conversion factor out when doing the figuring. It's not an actual magnification factor, it's actually a "crop" factor. The Digital SLR's don't shoot as large a frame as 35mm, cropping off the edges all round

If that's the case then I was doing a lot of math in my head that I didn't need to do. If I can throw out the whole 1.6x thing that simplifies it a whole lot.

The IS definitely helped on the ramp shots where the camera is held stationary but I still need to experiment to see how effective it is on shots where the camera is panning. I'll have to spend an afternoon at the airport this weekend testing it in depth.

Cheers,

Rick

One more for the road...

[AAFO_WSagar]

Nice shot!

That *is* the nice thing about the conversion factor.. On the nikon it's something like 1.5.. A long lens factor with the shake factor of a much shorter lens.. why would anyone want full frame

Wayne