Early Riser

It was a Friday evening and I was in Charlotte NC just finishing up a checkride. My last day would be Sunday and I was planning on sitting around Saturday and then airlining home on Sunday. A perfect plan. 

You know what they say about best laid plans... That's right. saturday was spent getting to Miami to do one more checkride for the week. The plan was to complete the ride on saturday and airline home on Sunday. Again the plan... Ha! The crew had been shut down and was off to the hotel by the time I got to MIA so to the hotel I went. The left Sunday to complete the ride and airline home. Ug, it was going to be a long day.

On with the above image. The crew was preparing the aircraft for flight. This means the First Officer was working on the cabin and cockpit and the Captain was completing the exterior preflight. When he went to check the lights it hit me. Lights... Hmm? Lighting... Photography... Canon G9 in flight bag. Doug! go get your camera and take the shot.

The only question I had on this was the G9 is absolutely lousy noisy above ISO400. Knowing that I had to find something to rest the camera on for a slower exposure. There happened to be orange traffic cones at the wing tips and the nose for ground personnel to know where the ends of the airplane are located. I grabbed the cone at the front of the jet and pulled it back far enough to frame the aircraft. Leaving the lens wide at 7.5MM and f/2.8 to get as much light as possible I finally settled on 1/15th ofd a second for exposure and of course the ISO was at 400.

I had to stand off to the side of the right landing light focal point so I could meter off the fuselage of the jet knowing the landing light would be the hot spot of the shot.

I guess I am off to Columbus Ohio to visit the mother ship so I'll be back tomorrow.

Cya... Doug