Bill's Random Nellis Pics

[W J Pearce]

Here you go. It was a great show.

Bill Pearce

[W J Pearce]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

I had a lot of fun. Here are some more. The Unlimited pics will follow a different day. Sorry.

Bill Pearce

[rpzo]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

Nice shots Bill

I really have to plan on going to Nellis next year. It's tearing me to pieces looking at all the great pictures that have been posted from last weekend and then kicking myself for not making the effort to get down there. I can hear my camera cursing me from the closet. I think I'll have to head down to the local airport and take pictures of Cessnas doing touch-and-gos for a few hours to try and make it happy.

Next year for sure.

[W J Pearce]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

When you get down to the details, the lighting is not good for the first half of the day and it was overcast half the time too. But the actual show was outstanding!

Go take some picture.

Bill

[Gary Osif]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

Great pix, Bill!

Gary

[Victor Archer]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

YAY it's about time you put your pics up
Great shots Bill. The Boy and I had a real good time hanging out with you and the rest of the Thunder Crew, lets do it again next year.

Lighting It is always strange there, funny how it's never quite right untill the Thunderbirds fly. Now if we could just get them to turn the base 90 to the right

[rpzo]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

When you get down to the details, the lighting is not good for the first half of the day and it was overcast half the time too.

Well, you all seemed to do alright with the less than perfect lighting.

This afternoon as I was working in the yard I heard the dull roar of a Merlin, an Allison, and an R2800 approaching. As three planes passed over the roof of my house, in a nice echelon formation, I recognized the planes as Tony Banta's P-51, Kimberly Kaye, along with his P-40 and F8F Bearcat. As they flew away to the south I got to thinking about the airshows that I did see this year and realized that I saw quite a lot.

Altogether my son and I attended 8 airshows or aviation related events. (all of which have photo galleries on my website at http://www.rwphotos.com/Aviation/aviationmain.htm ) A few were perfect picture taking days while others created challenges. Some where dissappointments because of bad weather. Sometimes the bad weather created creative photo opportunities. You take what you get and make the most of it.

We saw the T-Birds, the Blue Angels twice, the Snowbirds twice (though both times were under less than ideal weather conditions and we never really saw them do their full routine), many aerobatic performers including Sean Derosier twice before his untimely death, many military aircraft demos, and the fastest piston driven machines on the planet at full race speeds. In retrospect 2004 was an excellent year for airshows with to many highlights to list.

A few moments later Tony's three planes returned in an even tighter formation than the first pass making their turn right overhead. Thanks Tony for the personal airshow and maybe my last for 2004.

[W J Pearce]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

Thanks Gary.

Thanks Rick. You know it; you have to do the best you can with what you've got.

Thanks Vic. I had a lot of fun with you and Jeff. My dad says that he takes better pics than he does. I'm looking forward to doing it again.

Here are some Unlimiteds.

Bill

[Victor Archer]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

Great shots Bill
I was starting on an Unlimited group my self.
You know I thought I shot more of the Unlimiteds but I was having too much fun watching them!

[T. Adams]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

Very nice stuff. It will be June before I shoot another airplane.

Bill you must not be the human tripod that Victor is, I see your shutter speeds are a little higher.

[Victor Archer]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

Bill you must not be the human tripod that Victor is, I see your shutter speeds are a little higher.

I'm sure Bill's ratio of good sharp shots is mush higher than mine.
I lost a lot of interesting shots on Sunday, the wind kicked up and made it very hard to use any kind of slow shutter speeds. There are times when I wish I didn't go for the slow shutter stuff.

[W J Pearce]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

I use a 50-500mm Sigma which has no IS, VR, or OS. I don't know if Victor was using his IS. Traditionally Victor goes for the crazy slow shutter speeds. I don't. I only go for it when I want prop blur on the ground. I would like to use a slower speed but having a bit of blur goes a long way, especially compared to no blur.

My philosophy is that if something really special is happening, I rather get the shot with slight prop blur, than miss it going for nice prop blur. Maybe I'm a chicken. But I'm not worried. Now if I were a turkey, I would be sweating right now.

Bill

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

Bill, I'm not so sure that in fast, up close panning shots that the VR function might even be a hindrence to good clear shots... For sure, if they are coming at you or way out with a reaching slow pan, it seems to be able to keep up with it, also, for sure, on the ground, it's simply magic!

You consistantly do some of the best work I've ever seen with the 50-500! As you know, I have one and I'm glad I did not sell it. Though it's not been on my camera in over a year... err... since I bought the 80-400VR from Richard Vander Muellen back at Reno 2003, God, my memory is messed up... maybe it was Reno 2002??????????

Anyway... The extra weight of the Sigma really helps make it a very good self stable lens, sort of.. at least until your muscles get fatigued and you get hand shake as I've done late in the day with mine....

Remind me one of these times and I'll let you play with the VR if you want.. I had just about grown to hate it because of the much slower focus motor setup than the Sigma... but then I found a new setting on the 2H for the AF, "Adaptive" something or other. (Actually read the manual to find out what in heck the extra focus area setting was about )

Works really well with that feature activated.

Ewe got some nice stuff, as usual! Now, send me yer dang mailing address so I can send you a present....

BTW... did anyone see Bills shot of NemesisNXT in the September issue of A&S Smithsonian??????

Thanks for the help buddy,
Wayne

[Kilo Hotel]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

BTW... did anyone see Bills shot of NemesisNXT in the September issue of A&S Smithsonian??????

Yeah, Wayne, we had a nice discussion of that A&S issue in the thread linked below; your photo credit was mentioned as well as Bill's and Tyson's. You even posted something. Memory a little soft these days, is it, thanks to the tender ministrations of the medicos?

http://www.aafo.com/hangartalk/showthread.php?t=1815

[Kilo Hotel]

Re: Bill's Random Nellis Pics

Your shots are anything but random, Bill; super stuff. Thanks for sharing.