Airshow!

Purchased a second lens for my 40d, its a cheapie 75-300mm from Target but hey, we buy what we can afford. I can always upgrade to an L series or something later, at least its a Canon lens and not a knockoff like a Tamron. Autofocus works well through it, no image stabilization feature though, and light metering is adversely affected if you crank the zoom all the way up. I didn't bracket my pics and so pretty much every shot taken at full zoom was underexposed, requiring digital doctoring with the "Tone Curve Assist" feature of the Digital Photo Professional software to make them better.

Last Sunday I decided to drag my wife out to Columbia, MO for a day trip to see their Memorial Day airshow, which is usually pretty good stuff. The new zoom lens got a real workout. Not as many heavy hitters this year, probably due to the economy, but the Canucks showed up nicely, for some reason this particular airshow has a strong relationship with the Canadian Air Force and they bring quite alot of hardware down and generally try to put on a good show. Having visited Canada before and found it a very friendly place (in July, I must admit, I'm not sure how friendly it is in mid-February), I enjoyed the displays put on by our northern neighbors.

First up was the Kansas City Dawn Patrol. These guys fly around in replica WW1 aircraft which are classified as ultralights and use modern powerplants.

I have to go on a brief tangent here: I have recently been befriended by the man who designed them all, Robert Baslee, and who also built the aircraft used in the (underrated) movie "Flyboys". I made his acquaintance a couple of months ago when I happened to look out my car window on my way home from work and see a Bleriot XI fly by! I followed it to a nearby airfield and proceeded to make friends with the crew from Aerodrome Airplanes. http://www.airdromeairplanes.com/index.html

I shamelessly printed out a copy of the following photo with my new Epson photo printer, set it in a retro frame with brass studs, and presented it to Robert about a week ago. Now he HAS to tolerate my presence a bit longer, eh?



On July 25th a German 737 airliner pilot (who I also met as he was testing the plane) will fly this replica from Calais to Dover on the 100th anniversary of Bleriot's first ever crossing of the English Channel by air. Three aircraft will make the trip together and the first to take off and land will be the last flyable original Bleriot, piloted by Louis Bleriot's grandson! Robert's replica aircraft will have a couple of HD cameras on board, including one attached to the pilot's leather helmet, and the footage will be turned over to the History Channel for an upcoming documentary.



Isn't it pretty? Anyway, now for the KC Dawn Patrol!




I took one of my images and put it through some free online image manipulation software at http://www.picnik.com/app to create what I hope looks kinda-sorta like an original would.



Fun huh? Next up came the SkyHawks, the Canadian Air Force's parachute team. Winds were kinda nasty, blowing stiffly at about 30mph from the southeast, but they weren't gusting so these folks made it look easy.







This jumper (a woman by the way) did a wonderfully artistic depiction of the American economy.



The aircraft the Skyhawks jump out is nicely done too. Guess the Canucks haven't yet forgotten the heavy sacrifices made by their grandfathers 65 years ago.




An Aeroshell-sponsored team of T-6 Texans put on a heck of a display of precision flying. The Texan isn't an over-powered aircraft by any stretch of the imagination, and they really pushed those planes to the edge. Beautifully done display.

This first pic isn't cropped at all, these guys got pretty close to the crowd and this is the raw image at only 75mm zoom. The original 3888 x 2592 image size really shows some detail-- but all of the pics I'm putting on my blog are resized to fit on most of your monitors.



More Aeroshell Texans:




The Canucks brought one of the most beautiful fighters I've ever seen to the show, a CF-18 painted in special livery to celebrate 100 years of powered flight in Canada. It will only be seen at 4 US airshows all summer and then the paint job, which took over 300 man-hours to create, will be replaced with military grey. It put on a great show, really showing off the skills of the pilot and aircraft, but I just couldn't get enough of the paint job and how nice it LOOKED.






During a slow speed, high angle-of-attack pass I managed to quickly compose this pic of a US Navy serviceman standing on the wing of his P-3 Orion watching the display. I really like this one-- even guys who get to fly alot like watching other aircraft perform.



I caught the CF-18 pretty well with another shot during the same pass. Don't know why his tailhook is extended but you have to imagine that he isn't pulling up, he's flying across the frame from right to left with no change in altitude, very slow and using the engine's power to provide additional lift, right at the edge of stalling out. I was impressed.



The US Navy had their P-3 Orion on static display, but the Canucks flew a demo with theirs. I think their Orion did more banking and pulled more lateral g's during the five minute demo then it would in years of patrolling the arctic looking for submarines!




The show also featured a very nice "Heritage Flight" done by a P38 Lightning and A10 Thunderbolt. I love A10s, ugly as they are, but the sight and sound of the WW2 plane is what made the formation special. Absolutely beautiful.







Not to be completely outclassed by the Canucks, the US Navy capped off the show with an F18 display of their own. The US Navy display featured more afterburner and less finesse than the Canadian display. I was happy to see that the displays were different, and caught some cool "flaming engine exhaust" photos, but the gunmetal grey finish of the US plane wasn't nearly as easy on the eyes as the Centennial CF-18 had been.





Finally, a fun surprise! The pilot of the Navy F18 is proud a Mizzou graduate, and taxiing back to the parking area he held a "Tiger Tail" from the cockpit while the Mizzou fight song blared from the PA speakers. Hoooray! Hurrah! Mizzou! Mizzou!



Next-- portraiture using the zoom lens, and fighting with white balance issues indoors. Featuring four very special little girls....

Trip to Oklahoma

Traveled down to Oklahoma a couple of weekends ago to visit my old law school study partner and great friend Jay. He and his wife Michelle are in the process of adopting two boys, David and Matt. The boys are generally cute, hilariously funny, and will run you right into the ground and wonder why you seem so tired all the time.

David at the video arcade. No flash, I got him to hold still for me for a minute. F4.0, 1/40 shutter speed.


Matt playing ski-ball. Flash enabled, again F4.0 and 1/60 shutter speed.


David and ski-ball. F4.0, 1/60 again. I like catching the ski-balls in the air, it made using the flash more worthwhile.


Matt excitedly awaits the tickets to be dispensed out of a video game machine. Matt does most things excitedly, come to think of it.


Matt ponders which game to play next while David whacks sharks. F4.0, 1/50 shutter to catch some of the movement of David's arm.


"Uncle Mike" showing Matt how to ride virtual motorcycles. Wearing green vampire teeth makes you go faster.



At a Tulsa area Air & Space museum (F3.5, 1/30 shutter):


The boys try out the cockpit of a trainer. Bringing a toy shark into the cockpit isn't required, but it does help! I wish I didn't have to use the flash up close like this, but it wasn't a situation where the kids would hold still and the lighting in the old hanger was very dim.



The boys pose under the wing of the F14. Staff at the museum were very nice and didn't mind all the clambering at all.


Of course I couldn't help but get all artsy-fartsy with a restored biplane. I want a biplane one day when I'm a grown up. F3.5, 1/25 shutter (obviously no flash):


F5.6, 1/60 shutter:


Same aircraft, F3.5, 1/20 shutter speed and me holding very still. Color balance much better than using the flash.


Back at home, time to play some PS3 video games. Matt in his natural habitat, bouncing up and down madly while mashing buttons. F7.1, 1/10 shutter speed, flash enabled and set to second curtain (flash fires as the shutter is closing):


For some reason I didn't set the white balance correctly for these pics. I think I had it set for ambient light and then switched to using the flash and the result is a very blue hue to everything. Still learning the ins and outs of the camera I suppose. F11, 1/2 second shutter:


Later we took the kids swimming. Despite my fears of getting the camera wet I braved some flash photo pics. Again,the indoor lighting at the swimming pool area of the motel was orange and dim, perfect for action shots right? Heh. So out came the flash once again.

David isn't old enough to remember the "Nestea Plunge" but that didn't stop him from doing a few. F5.6, 1/60 and flash:


Swimming in almost a whole meter of water can be scary when you're 5 years old. So, you know, green vampire teeth help and stuff.


Eventually Matt got brave enough to show us his shark imitation. The kids were just TOO funny!


The adoption should go through pretty soon. Its going to be alot of fun watching these kids grow up (and having no responsibility to raise them ourselves!)